About The Streetsblog Photoshop Desk

All creations by the Streetsblog Photoshop Desk are fabrications. The pictures are manipulated through all manner of technological wizardry, including Photoshop, which many seem to be believe is perfectly OK to use for photo-manipulation, while other tools, such as artificial intelligence, is not.

Illustrations made by the Streetsblog Photoshop Desk are intentionally and obviously fake — and are always labeled as such. In the past, we have put politicians inside clown cars, we have simulated mayors standing alone in the desert, we have put agenda items into the hands of police commissioners, we once covered Liberty Island in parked cars. We even put a roasted turkey in the driver's seat of a cargo bike to make a point.

Photo manipulation is the modern equivalent of the editorial cartoon. Mostly we try to fabricate these illusions by hand. But even the most sophisticated photo-editing software — which itself incorporates artificial intelligence — is often not able to create the illusion we desire or make the point we are trying to make.

Rarely, that requires us to use more advanced tools.

But all manipulated photos are labeled as such — and always will be.