And a fact, only very few people know: Anteaters love being photographed so much, that they instantly freeze for at least 5 seconds, if they notice the click of the camera, not to create any movement blur. But after that, they run away pretty fast.

I just had a legit photo booted off a landscape photography group on FB because they thought it was AI.  A couple of other photographers commented that the scene was in fact real and to their credit the moderators reinstated the image.

Regarding the anteater picture, anyone who spent hours waiting for the perfect shot would NEVER flip to playback after ONE picture to check if it's good while the subject is still standing there.  You keep taking shots until it leaves and THEN you check and hope one of them is a keeper.

Many years ago a young girl won a national youth photo competition with an image of a yacht framed in a perfect rainbow. The photo was featured on the children's TV programme Blue Peter. The presenter Valerie Singleton and the administrator of the competition asked the photographer about her photo. She replied that all her photos had rainbows as the camera lens was cracked. An embarrassed silence and a rapid cut to Shep was made.

Sounds like the rules for wildlife photography competitions reflect that they are photography competitions, not editing competitions.

I have zero respect for photographers who edit photos and then try to claim them as unedited.

In one of my photo classes years back, while discussing credibility in digital photography,  we were shown a series photos of Civil War solders killed in the war.  But look closely, it was the same solder in every photo.  This photographer dragged this poor soul around the battlefield, posing him in different ways and taking pictures.

I cannot believe how willing you are to excuse these photographers who "harmlessly" touched up their photos. They were contests where technique and composition matter.

I'm glad they're harsh. Photography is not all about the perfect image, but the capture and the moment itself.

Photo judge here- I had to disqualify an image last year for being AI. Myself and the other two judges really liked the image, but luckily,  I noticed that the lighting came from multiple directions. The longer we stared, the more issues we found.

It's a tricky world out there for photo judges, but I do think RAW files or negatives are going to have to be shared soon.. I personally don't see a way around it

My guess on the elephant is that he flipped the whole elephant and then realized people will be able to tell because of his tusks, so he swapped those back and forgot about the ears being very distinguished - therefore "accidentally" making the elephants left ear smooth and right ear jagged.

I have an M.A. degree in photojournalism and I worked as a professional portrait photographer for about 20 years after that. In college in the 1980s, we didn’t have access to digital manipulation of images; you had to do that the old-fashioned way by painting onto the negatives and then painting onto the prints, or by airbrushing, pencil work, burning and dodging, etc.

Photoshop came along early in my professional career, but its use age was limited in those early years because computers couldn’t handle large files and it was hard to output a digital file into a large print. I was perfectly happy sticking with (mostly) reality, just fixing wrinkles or spots or splotchy skin tones. As we got into the 2000s and approached 2010, everyone was aware of what Photoshop could do and I was asked to do more and more digital manipulation of portraits. I was spending 90% of my time fixing thousands of little problems every week that would never have been an issue in 1990. I was doing "digital weight-loss surgery" on more than half of all my clients. I was swapping out parts of different images. I was changing the color of clothing, removing objects from photos, addIng objects to photos, giving people digital haircuts, etc., etc., etc.

That was the point where I hung up my Hasselblads and Mamiyas. Photography was no longer about being able to capture beautiful, authentic images. No matter how gorgeous a bridal portrait was, the bride would want it to look like one of the fake images in a magazine. "I know we did my portrait in a field of wildflowers, but can you make it look like that field of wildflowers is on the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean?" "Ummm, we did this portrait 200 miles away from the nearest ocean." "I know, but I want it to look like we went to the coast…"

Now, I take photos with my iPhone and work as a classical musician in live opera. It’s so much easier than dealing with photography clients.

I think photo competition rules should be respected. If you are in it to win it, better make sure you follow the rules.

The aeroplane up the ladder is just SO RIDICULOUS because there is no conceivable chance of getting that shot WITHOUT massive preparation, simply because the speed of the plane would take it out of the frame of the ladder almost quickly as depressing the shutter button!

It's in the name. It's no longer a "photograph" if changes are made. It becomes an "image".

His wife be like: Let`s talk about the elephant in the room - the ears are on the wrong side.

As a former newspaper photographer, I absolutely understand the first example. It was a PRESS photography competition. In my experience, many (I would hope most) publications have guidelines that say that their commitment to telling the truth includes not manipulating photos to clone something out, etc, because that’s not telling the whole truth. When I edit for a news publication, I do crop, white balance, tone/exposure, sharpening/clarity, and noise reduction, nothing else. For all other branches of photography, those incredible tools are fair game. For photojournalism, absolutely not.

Are you a photographer or an image editor? In my opinion, these competitions should accept only JPEGs straight from a camera, with zero editing allowed. Otherwise, it's only a competition of "who is better with photoshop" in my opinion.

As for the anteater: if this was an exposure of several seconds (and it had to be), then no way that animal was completely frozen during that time, so that is a "dead" giveaway.

Long since retired photographer - photo manipulation has gone on since the beginning, they just did it in the dark room. Having known several National Geographic photographers that used semi-wild/domesticated animals as well as baiting were standards.  In my younger days I was lucky enough to assist on a shoot and was truly shocked to find out about these unspoken methods.  The publisher took me aside  and look kid, we have three days to get "The Shot", no shot, no cover that issue.  We just use computers today.