A Commentary on Photo Legitimacy

Reproducibility is one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. For exampe, if removing the red channel in an RGB image makes details more visible by, say, reducing the noise, then this process can be applied consistently with the same expected result every time. And even though the coloration would be different from what a human eye would see, there is still a definite and objective correspondence between the reality and the photograph.

If on the other hand, one considers a print obtained with the mordançage technique, then any "evidence" in it can be just a random fluke, and there is no definite correspondence between the circumstances and the photograph.

Vlad