Greetings!

We're currently discussing if we should stop accepting the bulk of most photomorphs and wanted to know how others feel about them.

Many of those photomorphs are very simplistic, with the head of whatever character shopped over the original and then some basic filters applied to the body to give the illusion of fur.
With the more recent changes to the approvals regarding low effort edits (text added, elements bucket filled, random body parts pasted in, hue changes, etc) it feels kind of strange to leave photomorphs out of this.

With this comes the question: Would people miss them if we start deleting them?

Please note: As always this will only be going forward. We're not going back and delete things already approved unless it breaks other rules.

I wouldn't mind, really I think they're stupid looking.

Of course this is not even mentioning that some of the photos are based on real life pornography, which makes edited real life genitalia suddenly allright.

post #1239955 post #1280354 post #1225006

These are all real life genitalia with color overlayed. These would normally be deleted instantly for real life pornography and there's even flagging option for such.

does it even matter what we think
why not just make the change and tell us about it afterwards

I don't think that all photomorphs should be prohibited.

There are still some quite decent ones and banning them entirely because of some crappy edits of film characters is a bad way to go for it.

Munkelzahn said:
does it even matter what we think
why not just make the change and tell us about it afterwards

post #917075 You!

I don't think they all look bad. I'm in favor of anything that tries to make furry seem more real, which photomorphs do, IMO. Maybe just delete the ones that don't seem to seamlessly blend with their background or that otherwise break the illusion of a coherent image (e.g., fur/skin defects, random blur because lazy, body parts look like separate "slices"). Generally, raise their barrier for approval.

I don't really care about the effort value of a post as long as the post contributes a net positive. If the art fails to convince me of its consistency within itself, as from poor fundamentals, then it fails as art and I have to look for enough redeeming quality that overcomes its dissonance. Delete those.

I already see posts removed for being too poor quality art-wise to be posted here. Couldn't the poorly done photomorphs just fall under that?

Honestly, photomorphs in my opinion count as real life pornography. Hue shifting a vagina green and calling it a shreketta doesn't make it any less real life.

+1 support, build a wall around e621 to keep the photomorphs out.

Mario69 said:
Of course this is not even mentioning that some of the photos are based on real life pornography, which makes edited real life genitalia suddenly allright.

Yeah, I don't understand why those are allowed. Posting real porn is against the rules, but slapping a cheap filter on it somehow makes it fine to post?

As for the rest, if it's low quality it should go. But there are some decent ones, a blanket ban seems a bit much.

I'm in favor of the ruling. It's a cheap, lazy way to make "art" and requires very little skill or time. Also, most of it contains real-life pornography.

I'm kinda with Violet Rose here on this one. I would be bummed if they were all gotten rid of because there are some genuinely good ones mixed in amongst the crappy ones.

post #969929 post #795839 post #741080
(I think we can come to the conlusion that oystercatcher7 is pretty good at photomorphs)

There are also ones that border on the uncanny valley (in my opinion)

post #41605 post #387782 post #877559

We also can't forget the top rated photomorph of all time.

post #187778

All in all I'm conflicted, sure there are bad ones, but there are also some ones that actually have some genuine merit.

I already have them in my black list. I'm here to see furries, not humans with facepaint on.

There are quite a few that appear to be less straight-up 'photomorphs' as much as painting over/tracing photos. Looking at lot of the 'better' photomorphs I'm noticing not a lot of skin texture is left visible, but the artist also doesn't use photos of fur to cover it.
If not called 'photomorphs' would this site allow closely traced digital paintings like post #1250571 and post #713295

Also, just a side note, questionable and explicit photomorphs of young characters/using young models should probably definitely not be allowed.

Munkelzahn said:
does it even matter what we think
why not just make the change and tell us about it afterwards

Because they are good people and understand that the opinions of 10 or so individuals does not represent a userbase of many thousands? :)

As for me... I think post #41605 is adorable ... but the majority of the photomorph tag is pornographic photos, digitally manipulated to look like a furry. And that doesn't sit well with me.

1) That's actually a human body there.
2) There's no way to be certain that the human body is of age.
3) There's no way to be certain that the photomanipulator received permission to manipulate the image.
4) Actually it's more likely that they didn't, which is especially problematic when you consider this from the 'revenge porn' aspect.
5) some of these make me really uncomfortable. Like post #387782 That feels a little too close to an actual animal if that makes sense? My cat Tiger's all spotty like that and he loves stretching out next to me and getting tummy rubs and aughno.
6) I don't mind some of the sweeter ones. post #41605 is my waifu. But "only the ones I like" isn't going enough.

So! I won't miss 'em. Rather the opposite.

SnowWolf said:
3) There's no way to be certain that the photomanipulator received permission to manipulate the image.
4) Actually it's more likely that they didn't, which is especially problematic when you consider this from the 'revenge porn' aspect.

Yeah, the permission issue is a big thing with photomanips. Almost none of them get permission to use the images they do (both the base human image and then the animal photos they mix into it), not all of them give credit to all their sources (which would also give the viewer a way to vet that this is a consensual photo of an adult), and not all of them stick to images under a license where their use would be permitted. It's not generally a big deal when you're dealing with free-to-view photos being manipulated and then shared for free, but it CAN be when the photo manips are done as commissions or behind a paywall and/or the photographer doesn't want that usage.

Pyke said:
I already have them in my black list. I'm here to see furries, not humans with facepaint on.

Same. Most of them look too much like discoloured animal heads to me. Then there's the ones that just look weird.

post #1194999

Okay, looking through the tag a bit more, stuff with unedited/barely edited human genitals really has no excuse for being here.
post #1321428 That's just a straight up dick pic.

regsmutt said:
post #1321428 That's just a straight up dick pic.

It's gotta be more zoomed in than that to be a dick pic. A dick pic is usually a dick and very little else.

SnowWolf said:
Because they are good people and understand that the opinions of 10 or so individuals does not represent a userbase of many thousands? :)

.. I think you may have missed the joke. A while ago, changes to the DnP rules were made in exactly that manner, resulting in about 0.1% of posts being removed IIRC. The stated rationale for giving no warning was to avoid a rush of mass downloading.

As far as I'm concerned that was totally reasonable.

BlueDingo said:
It's gotta be more zoomed in than that to be a dick pic. A dick pic is usually a dick and very little else.

Fine.

savageorange said:
.. I think you may have missed the joke. A while ago, changes to the DnP rules were made in exactly that manner, resulting in about 0.1% of posts being removed IIRC. The stated rationale for giving no warning was to avoid a rush of mass downloading.

I remember that. The reaction looked something like this.

post #355724

"avoid posting"
Real porn / real images or videos depicting illegal activities (such as bestiality, child pornography, etc.)

"uploading guidelines"
This includes all content created in sandboxes like Second Life, Minecraft, and similar

"uploading guidelines"
Low quality submissions: Highly visible artifacts, scribbles, low-quality photographs of traditional media (invest into a scanner, people!), 1000h in MSPaint images, computer generated mosaics, cropped images, anatomical diagrams, bad edits, screenshots, artificial upscales, etc. etc.

"uploading guidelines"
Real-Life pornography. No exceptions *

"uploading guidelines"
Irrelevant photographs: Any photograph that isn't of traditional artwork or manipulated to contain furry characters.

clearly by existing terms explicit(e621 rating) forms of photography (eg. photomorphs)are strait up prohibited in the uploading guidelines and to some extent in the avoid posting list.

on the other hand tame forms are allowed because these photomorphs are essentially images manipulated to contain furry characters the question then thou is are these manipulated by hand or computer generated, many video conference software's do have the ability to reproduce some of the images found under photomorphs...

As far im concerning most of these do seem bad but do contain some good. i wouldnt mind a ban thou,
just not retroactive like the 0.1% mess last month

NotMeNotYou said:
Please note: As always this will only be going forward. We're not going back and delete things already approved unless it breaks other rules.

Darou said:
As far im concerning most of these do seem bad but do contain some good. i wouldnt mind a ban thou,
just not retroactive like the 0.1% mess last month

I don't agree that it was a mess, actually. Most of the people that took offense seemed to me to be the kind of people that look for opportunities to take offense. Removal in general seems to be a popular target of hate. AFAICS you just have to expect that, and have things well thought out -- which is exactly what mods did.

This case is also different -- I wouldn't support retroactive removal in this case, because the situation is legally grey, whereas the DnP situation was legally pretty clear.

I wouldn't mind a ban either -- since I've tried to do photomorphing, I appreciate the skill involved, but I don't consider the result to have much artistic merit. Particularly, they seem to stick quite closely to the design of the photo; that tendency could be considered as a similar practice to 'dolling'.

'Dolling' (that is, taking a generic base image, usually of a full body "mannequin", and then drawing clothes, hair, accessories on it / adjusting various features to build a particular character) tends to be criticized exactly on the grounds of being uninspired and lacking unity.

Using photos as a base has the additional downside of often containing irrelevant details that you might want to abstract out, but it takes a very high level of skill to actually do that in a way that is strongly integrated with the rest of the picture. Instead, people seem to mainly add detail.

Paging @oystercatcher23

savageorange said:
I don't agree that it was a mess, actually. Most of the people that took offense seemed to me to be the kind of people that look for opportunities to take offense. Removal in general seems to be a popular target of hate. AFAICS you just have to expect that, and have things well thought out -- which is exactly what mods did.

To rephrase what nmny noted here in the OP,
"Please note: As always this will only be going forward. We're not going back and delete things already approved unless it breaks other rules."

removal on existing rules is one thing but removal retroactively is quite another, as far as i can see it rule changes on e621 have never been applied retroactively but we then make a exception for the case of "temporary" dnp content. of cource there would be outrage and it being announced after fact because it breaks common practices of past rule changes always applying post implementation.

'Dolling' (that is, taking a generic base image, usually of a full body "mannequin", and then drawing clothes, hair, accessories on it / adjusting various features to build a particular character) tends to be criticized exactly on the grounds of being uninspired and lacking unity. Using photos as a base has the additional downside of often containing irrelevant details that you might want to abstract out, but it takes a very high level of skill to actually do that in a way that is strongly integrated with the rest of the picture.

Sounds like something i see often in ychs and alot in adopts...

Mario69 said:
Of course this is not even mentioning that some of the photos are based on real life pornography, which makes edited real life genitalia suddenly allright.

post #1239955 post #1280354 post #1225006

These are all real life genitalia with color overlayed. These would normally be deleted instantly for real life pornography and there's even flagging option for such.

At least the artist made the extra effort the make it look like the models have fur in the first two. I've seen some really lazy edits that takes like 3 minutes to make.

It sucks that this type of artistic medium has no middle ground. It can either look well done or head towards uncanny valley.

Darou said:
To rephrase what nmny noted here in the OP,
"Please note: As always this will only be going forward. We're not going back and delete things already approved unless it breaks other rules."

Fair point.

Of cource there would be outrage and it being announced after fact because it breaks common practices of past rule changes always applying post implementation.

Well, yeah. That's possibly a red flag, or possibly not. If the existing >2yo DNP images were left on the site, would it work as effectively to achieve the goal of "don't facilitate piracy, allow artists to seek financial compensation in whatever manner they see fit"?

Sounds like something i see often in ychs and alot in adopts...

Also in games, particularly RPGs (of the 2d or isometric variety).

photomorph order:favcount shows that they're worth something to some people in the community, which is all that matters.

Who cares if they're low-effort? Who cares if they're ugly? In general, we should be trying to make the site more inclusive, not more exclusive. Certainly, we shouldn't exclude entire classes of posts unless we have a good reason. Yes, sometimes that means deigning to allow our favorite posts to share hard drive space with dirty, dirty photomorphs. We'll live.

Maxpizzle said:
photomorph order:favcount shows that they're worth something to some people in the community, which is all that matters.

Who cares if they're low-effort? Who cares if they're ugly? In general, we should be trying to make the site more inclusive, not more exclusive. Certainly, we shouldn't exclude entire classes of posts unless we have a good reason. Yes, sometimes that means deigning to allow our favorite posts to share hard drive space with dirty, dirty photomorphs. We'll live.

Eh, I think it should be more about whether or not it's consistent with the "Don't share photos of porn/genitalia" rules. Should there be exceptions to photos with filters, photos with paintovers that don't cover the genitalia, or digital paintings with photo genitals pasted in? I think that's the real question.

What about videomorphs ?

Darou said:
To rephrase what nmny noted here in the OP,
"Please note: As always this will only be going forward. We're not going back and delete things already approved unless it breaks other rules."

removal on existing rules is one thing but removal retroactively is quite another, as far as i can see it rule changes on e621 have never been applied retroactively but we then make a exception for the case of "temporary" dnp content. of cource there would be outrage and it being announced after fact because it breaks common practices of past rule changes always applying post implementation.

Because it made no sense to say that we value an artist's ability to earn money beyond the 2 year statue of limitations and then not delete the offending content just because it's old.

We aren't politicians, we don't just make half-assed rule changes to appease a majority.

Barely counts as art, if at all; away with them.
Something to be said for not having a grandfather clause with olds posts, also, based on IRL porn rule.

Genjar said:
...
As for the rest, if it's low quality it should go. But there are some decent ones, a blanket ban seems a bit much.

I think it needs to be all or nothing; there are enough complaints about subjective admin deletion as it is ...

Just want to point out that not all photomorphs are pornographic in nature, since a lot of people seem to be more inclined to think so. If you don't like it, use your blacklist instead of asking to ban them entirely.

Just raise the bar on how these sort of content is accepted, delete those that are badly edited and/or made from RL porn as to fulfill the "Real-Life pornography. No exceptions" rule.

Deleting all photomorphs just cause they're photomorphs seems really stupid. There are a lot of really good ones, mostly by the artist oystercatcher7, and it would be a shame if good art like that was auto-deleted because of a few bad apples.

Honestly I don't even know why this is a discussion because if a photomorph is shitty, then just delete it because it's shitty, there need be no other reason. If someone is like "here's my dick, oh but it's blue cause I'm an asari, no deletarino pls" Just delete that weak shit and leave the quality photomorphs alone.

If you feel like there are photomorphs that deserve deletion, but there's no express rules about it then just make the rules governing photomoprhs stricter...so if someone bitches about it be like "yeah, well, the rules for photomorphs are stricter because they were being abused, deal with it." Just increase regulation, no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

What if someone photomorphs an under-18 nude into an anthro? It remains child pornography under U.S. law, but it might not be obvious if it looks (flat) like Judy Hopps.

Kay.. so, for a year or two, I ran a group on Deviant art. Part of a popular fandom at the time, that was inspiring a LOT of people to start creating art for the first time. I decided I wanted a carefully curated group that only had the BEST art.

It sounds pretty easy, but 'the best' gets pretty subjective. After all, it's one person's opinion. Maybe this picture's subject makes you happy. Maybe it makes you angry. Maybe you don't like how part of it was drawn. Maybe the colors are your least favorite colors. Maybe it involves characters you don't like.

My cofounder was hypercritical of things she didn't like: A blue themed picture would be accepted at a lower standard than a yellow picture. She hated any shipping. She was really focused on artistic merit. I, on the other hand, loved art that made me happy or was thought provoking, or visually interesting, even if it was a sketch. Our other founder was too nice. "well, they tried really hard" and "they put in a lot of effort" and "They seem nice"...

None of us were wrong. just, it made it hard to all agree.

You can't measure a picture and get an art skill rating, or autodetect if it's a pass or fail. it's ALL down to opinion, in the end.

That's why it's easier to draw lines in the sand, rather than say "only the good stuff".... because the good stuff is different for everyone.

It would save me a tag on my blacklist.

My opinion is that photomorphs are pretty clearly a violation of the "no real world pornography" thing, considering they are altered photos. So I would be in favor of banning them on that basis alone, without even discussing whether they are of high or low quality.

Lance_Armstrong said:
What if someone photomorphs an under-18 nude into an anthro? It remains child pornography under U.S. law, but it might not be obvious if it looks (flat) like Judy Hopps.

Are we supposed to know to origin of every picture we look at?

DelurC said:
Are we supposed to know to origin of every picture we look at?

Conversationally, if you're caught with it, they really don't care where it came from.

source: have family member who had stupidly unlocked wifi like an idiot...

SnowWolf said:
Conversationally, if you're caught with it, they really don't care where it came from.

source: have family member who had stupidly unlocked wifi like an idiot...

Just like drugs.
They punish the junkies instead of people making them and selling them.

I think we're all overthinking this. Are photomorphs sometimes of poor quality? Yes? Okay, then delete them. Are some sexual photomorphs of minors? Yes? Deleted them and present them to the proper authorities. Are some photomorphs of extraordinary quality that deserve an even better platform like e621? Yes? Then I say that we uphold our belief that only the best furry art belongs here and allow only the best photomorphs.

Sure, it may add an additional burden to our Janitors and Admins, but if it's been such a burden, why wait until now to say something about it? Why have we waited until now to have this conversation? Sure, I guess this conversation has called into question the legality and morality of the creation of photomorphs. However, to have an in-depth conversation about this matter, we'd be heading into the long-standing debate about sexual abuse in porn , but nobody wants to talk about that, right? We all just want to do what we've all been doing- consuming furry porn (or if you're not into that, just simply enjoying furry media).

I say that we should continue to be inclusive to a community of artists that we have been for years, but have only called it's legitimacy into question because of the worst examples.

abadbird said:
2. Unconsenting photomorph models

This is a terrible argument for two reasons.

a) First, stop and actually think about it for a moment. These people made porn. We assume most participants knew this porn of themselves was going to be published online and that they consented to that, the modeling, sex, and this, that, and the other, because you do not argue for the unknowable and unprovable alternatives. Consistency and sanity demand a good faith, naive outlook until given persuasive evidence to raise doubts, which are still only doubts until larger truths are proven.

Whoa. Okay, benefit of the doubt here, but you do realize you effectively just said "If she didn't want that to happen to her, she shouldn't have dressed like that"? and "When you pose a picture online, it becomes free for anyone to use"?

A picture being 'real porn' doesn't mean that the artist loses all rights to the image when they post it.

b) Second, E621 does not care about the artist obtaining the permission of their subjects.

Yet DO care about traces.

Also, while the 'rights' of the character owner come second to the rights of the artist here, this is really not equivalent to someone's actual physical body. Also in some cases, these pictures may have been taken from commercial websites, from behind a paywall, originally. If I grab some sexyfur off of freefurryporn.whatever, that doesn't make sexyfur okay to post suddenly.

and ultimately, we're still talking about photographs of real people in a way that they are still obviously real photographs.

On another note. There are 824 photomorph pictures. That is such a small number.

SnowWolf said:
Whoa. Okay, benefit of the doubt here, but you do realize you effectively just said "If she didn't want that to happen to her, she shouldn't have dressed like that"?

I don't see that (and I've reread abadbird's statement several times). AFAICS this point is just saying "Don't be the thought police and assume guilt whenever it suits you. Innocent until proven guilty."

But let's assume I'm just too thick to notice what you are seeing here. Ok, fine. "If she didn't want that to happen to her, she shouldn't have dressed like that"? is a valid argument, because you are morally responsible for the consequences of your choices in clothing. If you dress skimpily, you are RISKING someone taking a photo of you without your consent (among many other things); if you're ignorant of that risk, you're thoughtless (because it's really pretty obvious given knowledge of the prevalence of mobile phones); if you know of that risk and do it anyway, then you are asserting that dressing skimpily is more important to you in this case than not being photographed.

So while we are mainly concerned about the legitimacy of photomorphs per se, let's not pretend models are innocent children who shouldn't have to consider how their photos might be eventually used.

...

Your point about traces is interesting. Personally, my opinion of the quality + derivativeness of traces and photomorphs is similar -- maybe you could say photomorphs are to painting as traces are to illustration?

If you accepted that premise, then that would be 1.5 marks against photomorphs: 'No RL porn' (counting as 0.75 marks to account for modification), 'No traces'
(again, counted as 0.75 for being similar in nature but not the same as tracing)

20-Shades-Of-Faux-Pa said:
why wait until now to say something about it?

I hate, hate, hate this argument.

"Problems can't possibly exist, because if they did they would have already been resolved, therefore we never need to fix anything because it's impossible that anything was ever wrong."

Violet_Rose said:
Yes, she is taking a risk, a risk of someone taking advantage of her vulnerability in a disgusting (and possibly illegal) way. The problem with this argument is that it passes all of the blame to her,

My point was specifically that it doesn't, that all persons are responsible for their choices and the consequences proceeding from them. That does include the photographer and, in the case under discussion, the photomorpher.. and of course the model.

The idea that blame can be redirected wholly from one person onto another is dangerously simple-minded. Does the model have moral agency or not? If not, she is being defined as an object, not a person.

Violet_Rose said:
And now you're placing a possibly, at worst slightly incautious victim on the same level of culpability as the predator who took advantage of her.

Nope. I haven't stated what level of culpability is to be assigned. I've said each person has responsibility for their own actions, ie. their actions do not have zero moral weight.Assigning it at zero means the model has no moral agency, ie. is an object, not a person.

Usually the amount of culpability each party carries requires a lot of careful interpretation of context to discern, which is why the court system exists.

Please interpret this in consideration of the fact that I am not particularly in favor of photomorphs, I'm just in opposition to dangerously sloppy reasoning.

Violet_Rose said:
Court system… okay, so you are seriously claiming that "she shouldn't have dressed like that" should be a valid legal defense that reduces a predator's degree of culpability for his actions.

Again, wrong. Of course you can try X or Y defense (and hopefully the prosecution responds with equal vigor), but you can't reduce actual culpability, only do a better or worse job of figuring out what level of culpability should be assigned.

Try addressing my whole post next time. I did consider your critique of laying out my argument more carefully, and tried to do so.

I mentioned the court system because it does actually attempt to do a half-decent job at weighing evidence, instead of the kangaroo court that seems to be being promoted by victim narratives and their supporters. Obviously we can't do as well as courts, but we can do better than "one mustache-twirling villain, one pure and innocent victim", I'm sure. I consider that to be frankly monstrous.

(and in case it wasn't obvious, the reason I am arguing the victim has some culpability is because that's a lot less bleak for her than saying she can do nothing to change the outcome. And also doesn't have the pitfall of encouraging irresponsibility and exploitability that casting her as a pure victim does. You don't fix shit by saying 'Wasn't my fault'. If you had a role in it, you can change that.)

savageorange said:
Again, wrong. Of course you can try X or Y defense (and hopefully the prosecution responds with equal vigor), but you can't reduce actual culpability, only do a better or worse job of figuring out what level of culpability should be assigned.

Try not cherrypicking next time. I did consider your critique of laying out my argument more carefully, and tried to do so.

I mentioned the court system because it does actually attempt to do a half-decent job at weighing evidence, instead of the kangaroo court that seems to be being promoted by victim narratives and their supporters. Obviously we can't do as well as courts, but we can do better than "one mustache-twirling villain, one pure and innocent victim", I'm sure.

(and in case it wasn't obvious, the reason I am arguing the victim has some culpability is because that's a lot less bleak for her than saying she can do nothing to change the outcome. And also doesn't have the pitfall of encouraging irresponsibility and exploitability that casting her as a pure victim does. You don't fix shit by saying 'Wasn't my fault'. If you had a role in it, you can change that.)

Clothing doesn't prevent people from being creepy. I got semen flung in my hair at a school assembly wearing a hoodie. I was stalked and followed home wearing a turtleneck and long pants. I got masturbated on in a subway wearing a long sleeve shirt and a leather jacket. My outfit didn't provoke any of that. One of those was random chance, one was because I just happened to be on that subway car, and the person who stalked me did the same thing repeatedly to multiple people so I'm inclined to believe I wasn't a special target.

regsmutt said:
Clothing doesn't prevent people from being creepy.

Totally agree.

I got semen flung in my hair at a school assembly wearing a hoodie. I was stalked and followed home wearing a turtleneck and long pants. I got masturbated on in a subway wearing a long sleeve shirt and a leather jacket. My outfit didn't provoke any of that.

Given your explanation, I'm inclined to agree.
Clothes can make you a more attractive target; I certainly didn't intend to imply that they are the only factor.
In my perception, arguing against naive analyses that attribute everything to a single factor is exactly what I've been trying to do. Perhaps not clearly enough.

this is really long and I'm really tired and agitated right now (not you guys--jsut short tempered for other reason <3) , so I'm sorry. I should probably delete this, but I have trouble deleting text I've spent so much time writing.

---

Just to be straight forward on this. I don't think the revenge porn aspect is a massive concern--but it is something to consider. I know I would feel awful If I let my boyfriend take a picture of me, only to realize he posted it online. Only to realize someone photoshopped me into a pig or something. With so few posts, it's really not likely to be a consideration, but there's no credit being given to the artist for what is effectively an image edit.

But.. I gotta address some of this stuff.

savageorange said:
But let's assume I'm just too thick to notice what you are seeing here. Ok, fine. "If she didn't want that to happen to her, she shouldn't have dressed like that"? is a valid argument, because you are morally responsible for the consequences of your choices in clothing. If you dress skimpily, you are RISKING someone taking a photo of you without your consent (among many other things); if you're ignorant of that risk, you're thoughtless (because it's really pretty obvious given knowledge of the prevalence of mobile phones); if you know of that risk and do it anyway, then you are asserting that dressing skimpily is more important to you in this case than not being photographed.

Okay, straight talk. No anger here. We're not talking about the photomorphss anymore for a moment. Okay? Honey.

Okay. Back to the photomorphs.

So while we are mainly concerned about the legitimacy of photomorphs per se, let's not pretend models are innocent children who shouldn't have to consider how their photos might be eventually used.

While I agree with this point, they are, as I said, still often posted behind paywalls, and by our DNP policies, I believe that means that they are Off Limits. Editing a sexyfur picture doesn't make it okay to post.

And it would be too hard to try and trace where the origin of a single picture is from. Plus, the original photographer ought to be given credit, but as the original artist is on an image edit.

Your point about traces is interesting. Personally, my opinion of the quality + derivativeness of traces and photomorphs is similar -- maybe you could say photomorphs are to painting as traces are to illustration?

First, thanks for... and I don't mean this as pretentiously as it sounds, acknowledging a point that's counter to your original point. :) Too many people stick to their guns and won't budge. (I know *I* do this some times. It's a terrible habit)

As an artist... not so much. I mean, kinda?

I trace sometimes. I like art, but I'm not very good at understanding things with my eyes. (Interesting cognitive things.) I'm much more of a hands-on learner. So I like to trace things so that I can "feel" with my "hand" how something is shaped. It helps me understand the art style I'm studying better. (of course, these traced artworks are not shared with others) Sometimes I trace parts and draw other parts on my own. (for example, tracing a body for a pose, then adding in my own face and hair.)

Tracing still takes a lot of effort. each line is placed by your hand, and generally they've got to be very precise-- Lines vary in thickness and if you trace a thick line with a thin one, you can make it look very weird if you don't place the line perfectly. Also, for most artists, step one is to sketch an image, step two is to then 'trace' your own image to get more detail in. Then there's coloring, and shading and whatnot, that CAN go into a trace...

For photomorphing... a lot of these images are carefully using the lasso or polygonal selection tool to select the borders... this sounds very similar to tracing, and it is, except there's more leeway: most lines on photos are pretty straight forward, a thin border rather than a thick one. Places like hair tend to be more difficult to outline, but mostly, more time consuming. But for many furry photomorphs, the head's cut off, and replaced with something from a cartoon. Anyway, once you have your outline, you can save that outline and do things that ONLY affect the area in question. Like use a few color sliders to change the color and add noise. use a smudge or liquify tool to 'fingerpaint' in the way that makes the area look like fur. You can probably get away without making any shading adjustments too. or only minor ones.

All told, a photomanipulation CAN take a lot of time. but most of these? Don't. It's certainly a skill but, like...

If you accepted that premise, then that would be 1.5 marks against photomorphs: 'No RL porn' (counting as 0.75 marks to account for modification), 'No traces'
(again, counted as 0.75 for being similar in nature but not the same as tracing)

I'd also add in a few for:

1) for the difficulty in crediting original artists
2) the pay wall problem
3) ...I'd say there's like .25 of a point to be had in the no RL bestiality rule There are a couple in here that make me Really Uncomfortable With Capital Letters like post #21087 post #1168088 (and it's child) and post #848624 ... since I"m already Very Uncomfortable, I'll share a few others: post #86624 and post #238376 ... but that last one is a different sort of uncomfortable.. )

Okay. I'm done. Time for a pallet cleanser: post #797146

Yeah, the change is mainly aimed at photomorphs where it's visible that they're achieved through low quality trickery and to close the loophole on rl-porn.

The legality of those photos being used without consent and without any further vetting is also a rather interesting problem. The host (in this case e621) is fully responsible for what is hosted on their page. We are able to shirk responsibility to our users for a lot of things, but considering we have a manual approval system that defense might not work too well. While it's true that most professional porn is done only by adults exception exists. One famous example would be Traci Lords who was underage during her entire porn career because she fabricated her age.

As for the culpability thing. Of course only the victim is to blame for anything that happens to them. Men are barely more sentient than insects and are basically just biological robots that react on any given stimuli with a predetermined reaction. I don't understand why the law still classifies them as "human" and gives them rights and responsibilities.
It's also clearly only the victims fault because any given perpetrator is solely focused a specific victim, and wouldn't have just used any other person that might have been vulnerable at the same time, in the same location.
If our fictional victim wouldn't have dressed in a t-shirt and jeans like a hussy and there would have been a properly dressed woman that doesn't show an inch of her skin the male drone would have clearly just asked that pure woman on a consensual date and wouldn't have become a victim of his own, lesser instincts.

Because that's how it works, I'm sure.

Before anyone asks, yes, that entire paragraph was sarcasm. Chances are the rapists would have taken any other woman there as well. If the culpability is literally how a human would dare be alone outside we go down a pretty sad road about how suddenly people are less sapient and in control of their own actions than dogs.

SnowWolf said:

>

Women, and rape victims (because men can be raped too) don't ask for it. (I mean, okay, some might. because there are always, always outliers but generally?) Rape victims are just that: victims.

[/quote]

As an artist... not so much. I mean, kinda?

Was intended in an abstract sense. The techniques are vastly different, but you are assembling things onto a pre-existing framework. Either way, it feels like poking things until they are right, rather than designing things. Grunt work.

Tracing still takes a lot of effort. each line is placed by your hand, and generally they've got to be very precise-- Lines vary in thickness and if you trace a thick line with a thin one, you can make it look very weird if you don't place the line perfectly.

I haven't actually encountered anyone who traces line thicknesses as well as line centres until now.
But I believe the rationale is that tracing (especially -obvious- tracing) is a crutch for inadeguate anatomy/construction skills -- a useful tool, but not a complete way to make a solid picture per se.

Does poly-select have the ability to have curved segments? Might sound like a silly question, but I ask because I find vectors get the best result when I need to do a cutout. Starting with a polygon and then curving some of the lines works well (GIMP vector tool; I believe there is an analogous one in Photoshop)

Also, for most artists, step one is to sketch an image, step two is to then 'trace' your own image to get more detail in. Then there's coloring, and shading and whatnot, that CAN go into a trace...

Sure, in the literal sense of trace, there is a lot of tracing going into.. most art that is in the general vicinity of illustration. But being derivative of yourself is OK :) Cause you actually understand what you are tracing, you won't imply nonsensical or weird things about the volumes involved. At the upper bounds of what I would consider 'obvious bad traces' is having all the lines exactingly right to the point it's blatantly stiff / 'nailed down too hard'.

Insert detailed whining about photomorph quality here.

post #1196342

"different and low detail" -- yeah, detail level is the main problem. Heads tend to be like the characters in Space Jam -- "Realistic", not realistic. Halfway between toony and real. Any other part that is substantially modified from original picture (eg. added tail) tends to have the same problem.

photomorphs can be neat. but tracing generally takes more effort... especially if you then consider the steps of coloring.

I'm not sure coloring should be considered -- at least, beyond basic flats (which are achievable very quickly with something like GMIC Smart Colorize ), the potential to transform the design is pretty small after flats are worked out.

3) ...I'd say there's like .25 of a point to be had in the no RL bestiality rule There are a couple in here that make me Really Uncomfortable With Capital Letters like
post #21087

I don't even know, the forms are so messed up. No wonder nobody has tagged it as either feral or anthro. (I'm not exactly seeing the male/male either. male/ambiguous?)

... and post #238376

Ahahaha. That one seems like satire. "This is what furries would actually be like. What, you don't like it?"

But yeah, I agree. Some nonzero amount to be had from that.

I say savageorange be left alone, I understand what he's trying to get at. (see the following section if you care)

Now, onto some contributions I have.
1)How much does US copyright law come into play? Is a photomorph considered fair use considering the arguments that the coloring, texturing, and head pasting is transformative/parody in nature?

2)In response to model consent/revenge porn issues, I'd argue that if you can transform the face enough(or just paste a screencap over it like oystercatcher and some others), that's a direct ID risk averted, and sorta ties in with 1).
(of course, if the source is requested or linked, there's still an ID risk for those who are not easily deterred, and even beyond that, there's bound to be someone who recognizes so and so's gallery image in a photomorph.)
This doesn't address consent, I will admit, but at least it's respectfully keeping their identity private to some degree.

3)Child pornography photomanipulations...I will admit I'm somewhat stumped. BUT, if I do recall, young exists? People might not tag it at first because it's a photomanipulation,
but the moral police are strong on the internet[people refusing to use their blacklist is still an issue, yeah?], someone will tag it as "young" at some point and in turn, staff can review young photomanipulation for potential CP violations,
and there is a "report"/"flag for deletion" feature available too for the pics that slip through...Could be argued in court that the site has/has implemented features for reporting CP content and thus shelters itself from some blame.
(maybe Youtube could be compared here???)
Then again, as I said, I'm stumped, and even my proposed solution is uncomfortable to think about.
On another note, HAS someone actually submitted a CP photomanip to e621? Or are we dancing around a hypothetical boogeyman until it happens?
Considering that obtaining the porn to manipulate in the first place IS ILLEGAL[/i](or they're a damn good artist and working in a dangerous gray/illegal area of adult-to-child photomanipulation),
and there's the veil of fiction if the manipulation is transformative enough, artist's license to shock a la Shadman, the fact that the furry community in general would probably know their name (again, like Shadman), quite a few factors working against this sort of person.I will gladly support the non-retroactive measure being taken so long as these things are addressed. But for now, I'm against until the boogeyman shows up.
EDIT: changed some mild wording and added a space.

savageorange said:

>

Sure, why would they? If I haven't been clear: Of course that rationale doesn't EXCUSE anything at all, it doesn't make groping or rape ok. That's different from the question of whether it was a factor in the outcome which you could change. If there isn't a factor in the outcome which you could change, doesn't that mean you are by definition helpless?

I mean, there is some attraction in being helpless, because it takes less work than being attentive and thoughtful. That looks to be oddly compelling to many people. But it doesn't seem like a framing that is pragmatically helpful.

Thanks for giving all that context. I imagine it can't have been easy to write.

(research into targeting for rape has been done in prisons. Slow and hesitant walk seems to be one of the things that indicates a likely target.)

Part of the reason I am so firmly against assignation of victimhood, is what my friend (who was raped 5 times in her childhood, resulting in suicidal depression, bad relationship choices, and extreme hypochondria) has told me and modeled through her behaviour: "I didn't get over anything until I decided I was going to stop playing the victim."

The other part is, while support is absolutely necessary and assertions that 'it's your fault' or 'you deserved it' are .. diabolical, I think the word would be .. I don't believe in the good intention of someone asserting that you are a victim. I think that can easily turn into an opportunity for them to feel good about helping you (by their definition of help, not yours).

Was intended in an abstract sense. The techniques are vastly different, but you are assembling things onto a pre-existing framework. Either way, it feels like poking things until they are right, rather than designing things. Grunt work.

Both still need some creativity, and having a preexisting framework CAN be good-- fashion designers have these little body templates that they use to draw clothing on. their focus is clothing and design not "damn, her arm looks weird." :)

I haven't actually encountered anyone who traces line thicknesses as well as line centres until now.
But I believe the rationale is that tracing (especially -obvious- tracing) is a crutch for inadeguate anatomy/construction skills -- a useful tool, but not a complete way to make a solid picture per se.

well, see about sentence about fashion designers, but generally yeah. Unless someone's using it as a way to get popular without actually doing the work themselves (y'know, "traced art, posted on deviant art, get faves, take commissions, trace more" ---disgusting ;( )

Does poly-select have the ability to have curved segments? Might sound like a silly question, but I ask because I find vectors get the best result when I need to do a cutout. Starting with a polygon and then curving some of the lines works well (GIMP vector tool; I believe there is an analogous one in Photoshop)

Depends on the program, but generally, yeah. I find it a pain in the ass to deal with though, but I've seen peopel do magic with it. Me, I end up just using lots of tiny lines.

Sure, in the literal sense of trace, there is a lot of tracing going into.. most art that is in the general vicinity of illustration. But being derivative of yourself is OK :) Cause you actually understand what you are tracing, you won't imply nonsensical or weird things about the volumes involved. At the upper bounds of what I would consider 'obvious bad traces' is having all the lines exactingly right to the point it's blatantly stiff / 'nailed down too hard'.

"different and low detail" -- yeah, detail level is the main problem. Heads tend to be like the characters in Space Jam -- "Realistic", not realistic. Halfway between toony and real. Any other part that is substantially modified from original picture (eg. added tail) tends to have the same problem.

Agreed~

I don't even know, the forms are so messed up. No wonder nobody has tagged it as either feral or anthro. (I'm not exactly seeing the male/male either. male/ambiguous?)

Honestly, I'm not either, I jsut know it's gonna haunt my dreams XD

Ahahaha. That one seems like satire. "This is what furries would actually be like. What, you don't like it?"

But yeah, I agree. Some nonzero amount to be had from that.

Honestly, Pug-lady made me laugh ands cry and consider sending it to my friend who hates furry art because it weird her out ;)

zavros-periculum said:
2)In response to model consent/revenge porn issues, I'd argue that if you can transform the face enough(or just paste a screencap over it like oystercatcher and some others), that's a direct ID risk averted, and sorta ties in with 1).
(of course, if the source is requested or linked, there's still an ID risk for those who are not easily deterred, and even beyond that, there's bound to be someone who recognizes so and so's gallery image in a photomorph.)
This doesn't address consent, I will admit, but at least it's respectfully keeping their identity private to some degree.

So... Requiring a source could be an ID risk? This is sounding like either the ban goes ahead, or sources cannot be required (and possibly should be prohibited?).

It also makes me think of the question of reverse image search: how much change is necessary to prevent ID via reverse search? I suspect color changes or texture addition would have a minimal effect on the typical image fingerprinting. Flipping would have more effect, probably. I still wouldn't want to bet on it.

This is seeming more and more like a moral quagmire.

SnowWolf said:

<3

Sorry if I got a little toothy.

It's fine. I put my sense of offense on ignore at the start. Probably came across pretty tone-deaf myself as a result. I'll try to sort that out better.

savageorange said:
So... Requiring a source could be an ID risk? This is sounding like either the ban goes ahead, or sources cannot be required (and possibly should be prohibited?).

It also makes me think of the question of reverse image search: how much change is necessary to prevent ID via reverse search? I suspect color changes or texture addition would have a minimal effect on the typical image fingerprinting. Flipping would have more effect, probably. I still wouldn't want to bet on it.

This is seeming more and more like a moral quagmire.

It's fine. I put my sense of offense on ignore at the start. Probably came across pretty tone-deaf myself as a result. I'll try to sort that out better.

Flipping and cropping don't always make an image unsearchable. At the very least it might still pop up as a top result in 'similar images'. Changes to color and composition have much more dramatic effects in my experience.

savageorange said:
So... Requiring a source could be an ID risk? This is sounding like either the ban goes ahead, or sources cannot be required (and possibly should be prohibited?).

To clarify, by "source" I meant "source of unmodified photograph" and not "source of photomanipulation". So you can still link to your tumblr/fa/deviantart/whatever where you originally post a photomanipulation...just make sure there isn't a link on e621 pointing to the source PHOTOGRAPH.
As I've said though, doesn't really help much and with some digging/visiting image sources, just a nude body is still pretty useful if one is trying to identify the source photograph.

A photomorph being used as revenge porn is fucking laughable. When people post revenge porn they just post the fucking picture, that's sooooo much easier than creating a furry photomorph that is of a quality good enough to pass the minimum quality requirements on this site.

Plus, why would you manipulate their appearance? The point of revenge porn is so people can recognize the person, making that person into a furry would make them harder to recognize. I just don't see it happening.

As far as underaged...if the model looks underaged then just don't let it past. Personally I have never seen a photomorph that made me pause and think "hold up, is that person underaged?" I don't know if that's because of active policing or not, but my gut just tells me it's more because it doesn't happen very often. I mean the search "photomorph young" returns ONE result...and that picture doesn't even look young to me.

So, as usual, this is just people overthinking shit to the nth degree. None of these are at all practical concerns.

I mean there are some good artists that use photomorphs, like Oystercatcher7.

Dyrone said:
A photomorph being used as revenge porn is fucking laughable. When people post revenge porn they just post the fucking picture, that's sooooo much easier than creating a furry photomorph that is of a quality good enough to pass the minimum quality requirements on this site.

Plus, why would you manipulate their appearance? The point of revenge porn is so people can recognize the person, making that person into a furry would make them harder to recognize. I just don't see it happening.

As far as underaged...if the model looks underaged then just don't let it past. Personally I have never seen a photomorph that made me pause and think "hold up, is that person underaged?" I don't know if that's because of active policing or not, but my gut just tells me it's more because it doesn't happen very often. I mean the search "photomorph young" returns ONE result...and that picture doesn't even look young to me.

So, as usual, this is just people overthinking shit to the nth degree. None of these are at all practical concerns.

The concern is less that the photomorphs are being used as revenge porn and more that they might be based off of it if the morpher isn't being careful about their sources. The topic of revenge porn is a bit specific, but it does highlight the copyright issue with photomorphs in general.

In the end, all that matters is:

1. Are photomorphs low quality?
2. Are photomorphs "real porn"?

Everything else feels like manufactured discussion. These two things are most important, and they've barely been discussed.

abadbird said:
In the end, all that matters is:

1. Are photomorphs low quality?
2. Are photomorphs "real porn"?

Everything else feels like manufactured discussion. These two things are most important, and they've barely been discussed.

At this point I wouldn't be opposed to simply stretching photomorphs under the edit quality guidelines so that edited parts are the ones judged, not the base photograph. This would then be pretty similar to 3D artwork, where someone could easily just download great looking model into source filmmaker, at which point the posing, animation, framing, processing, etc. of the post is judged and not so much the models used.

They should most definitely count as real life pornography if there's clear genitalia visible with slight modifications, as there are really good reasons why real life pornography is prohibited already.

My position is probably worse than you think. Basically, if you can't prove "it" happened (apparently, it = "a crime" here), then it didn't, plus I had added a caveat about doubt. I don't believe that the only crimes are proven crimes, but that is how everyone carries themselves through the day or else they would die paranoid, too afraid to step outside. Likewise on E621, posts are approved in good faith, assuming that their creative process was above board. The burden of proof otherwise is immense and impossible, so that's how it has to be.

The idea that standard 'innocent until proven guilty' is 'worse' rather than "the only option that isn't obviously broken", is the really strange thing here.
I may have even made an argument against that, but AFAICS there is no argument against that that isn't seriously wrong.

1. On the low quality issue: I agree with your comparison to quick tweening or 3D animations (particularly if you are thinking of ones made from premade models). Photomorphs are of the same level of quality generally, so we should remove either none of these categories or all of them.

2. No (per your argument, which AFAICS is very strong.)

Dyrone said:
A photomorph being used as revenge porn is fucking laughable. When people post revenge porn they just post the fucking picture, that's sooooo much easier than creating a furry photomorph that is of a quality good enough to pass the minimum quality requirements on this site.

Jessica Elwood

Mario69 said:
At this point I wouldn't be opposed to simply stretching photomorphs under the edit quality guidelines so that edited parts are the ones judged, not the base photograph.

Shouldn't photomorphs be under the edit quality guidelines anyway since they are edits by definition?

I think u should just set a quality standard, prohibiting them all seems a bit exesive