Document Design 101: Image Manipulation No-No

I just read this article, and quite honestly, the stoopidity (yes, I mispelled this on purpose) absolutely amazes me. Just when I thought I had seen everything in my industry, I read this article about a magazine called Outside taking extreme liberty with Lance Armstrong and photoshopping text onto his T-shirt. Here's the article link:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/outside-owes-lance-armstrong-an-apology/19521104/?icid=main|aim|dl9|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfinance.com%2Fstory%2Fmedia%2Foutside-owes-lance-armstrong-an-apology%2F19521104%2F

The stoopid part comes into play when the magazine's editors try to defend their actions: "...it's not Armstrong's real T-shirt." ... "...[magazine] doesn't typically consult cover subjects on all editorial decisions..."

This is the worst case of non-professionalism I have seen in my twelve years as a graphic artist. Granted, editors have the final say in how their magazine is represented, what articles to showcase, and final editorial edits/changes. That is a far cry from actually photoshopping something that isn't there onto someone's shirt and not telling them. I can see maybe doing this as a school project, but in this situation, Mr. Armstrong should have been asked for and [magazine] should have obtained his written permission first. It is not okay just because "it's not his shirt"; it is not okay because they deliberately TAMPERED with Mr. Armstrong's BRANDED IMAGE, period.

In a day and age when print advertising is suffering enough damage, there is now a rouge magazine basically giving viewers and potential models the impression, "hey, thanks for your advertisement / thanks for posing for our cover, but we've decided to change it up a bit and we can do that because we can. Thanks for playing our game!" Definitely NOT professional, and not a magazine I would recommend anyone paying any attention to now and in future issues.

Cheers,
Lisa

OP-ED, Lisa Raymond, Deseyner's Eye Creations.