As the title says. Does a photoshopped person need a MR?

If I have a person, and rebuild his/her face, give him/her a hair cut, remove scars, moles, change the waist, arms, is it then still the same person?

Does that newly build person need a MR? Or is it like an illustration where I submit without MR as the new person, does not exist IRL.

Thanks,

There's no good answer.  If the person can be recognized even after all the retouching, then yes.  If not, then maybe.  It's all up to the agency and its reviewers to decide, and my guess is they'll err on the side of caution.

Replace retouching with stage makeup.  Same problem and same answer: maybe, probably, why would they risk a problem?

Even if the actual person is unrecognizable, the reviewer isn't going to know that.  They will see what appears to be a recognizable person and want a release.

As the title says. Does a photoshopped person need a MR?

If I have a person, and rebuild his/her face, give him/her a hair cut, remove scars, moles, change the waist, arms, is it then still the same person?

Does that newly build person need a MR? Or is it like an illustration where I submit without MR as the new person, does not exist IRL.

#1: Do you really need to know if you would be legally required to have a model release signed; or would it be sufficient to restate the question as "will agencies ask me to provide a MR..."?

#2: If you make an illustration based on a real person, most agencies will ask you to provide a model release as well. Then again, if you provide a rendered image of a face, agencies will ask you to provide proof (e.g. in form of a Property Release and additional documentation) that you have built that face from scratch and not base it on a real person.

So, the answer to your question: Yes, most likely agencies will ask you to provide a release in any case, if there are any potentially recognizable parts of a specific real life person visible in your image.

Guys, I appreciate the replies. I dont think its straight forward. Check these examples, they are all non editorial unreleased. Thats why I am asking. It seems SS accepts a lot more than other agencies and I think SS is right. I do understand that the reviewer doesnt know I built an non-existing person. But  I also think you are right and that I wont get away with it without a release.

Well, none of the images you linked are showing anything close to what you described in your first post.

The first half of the images show "crowds" with no single person or small group being the central focus of the image. iStock/Getty have changed their rules to allow those images as well.

The second half of the images show people in non-specific clothing like uniforms, no face visible, mostly from the back. You can certainly find soldiers or police officers as well.

But all of that is completely different from what you described about "photoshopping a person" which sounds (to me) more like you were talking about a portrait or at least something that would make the person recognizable before your photoshop manipulations.

If you happen to meet any of those people on the street, would you be able to identify them as the workers depicted on the images?
If the answer is yes, model release needed.

I don't think 'identifying themselves' is enough to require a model release because they are able to identify themselves because they remember they were there working on that day with that uniform, they are using much more than the image to identify themselves.