This just in: “As photojournalists prepare return to Perpignan in early September for the 22nd International photojournalism festival, Jean-François Leroy, Visa Pour l’Image’s co-founder, has hit out at Photoshop abuses in the field, vowing to ask for raw files for the festival 2011 edition.” This following quote - by Leroy - struck me: “For example, I’ve recently received a project on Afghanistan. It’s magnificent, but I personally think that without the diverse Photoshop filters used by the photographer, the images would have been even better. The framing of the action and of the subject was just perfect. He didn’t need to change anything in post-production. But now I can’t show these images at Visa. I just can’t.” Really? Will photojournalists be happy about having to deal with yet another person inserting himself as an extra editor? (more)

Also, not necessarily Photoshop related, Aric Mayer published some thoughts on the aesthetics of Marco Vernaschi’s Child Sacrifice photographs: “The children in this work inhabit a nightmare world of perpetual darkness, where time and space are frequently distorted as if in a Francis Bacon painting. Frozen, stretched, and blurry skull-like faces with socket eyes emerge from pools of black. Low light effects add to the sense of the macabre. […] The photographs build on a wide range of contemporary Western cultural products, including American and Japanese horror films.” It’s an interesting take, even though I’m not sure to what extent I agree with the horror-film bit (disclaimer: I also don’t watch too many horror films, so what do I know?).