( CNN ) -- It started on Facebook , then spread to Twitter . Now Hipstamatic and Instagram-style pictures are everywhere , including the news media . With an app typically costing no more than $ 1.99 , everyone is becoming a news photographer -- creating dramatic , emotive images with subdued tones , vignetted edges and selective focus . Just point your iPhone or Android device , click the shutter button and instantly you 're producing something not short of fine art . But every time I see one of these `` news images '' -- subtly altered to resemble images taken on vintage film stock or using expensive lenses and filters -- I feel cheated . And so should you . The app photographer has n't spent years learning his or her trade , imagining the scene , waiting for the light to fall just right , swapping lenses and switching angles . They have n't spent hours in the dark room , leaning over trays of noxious chemicals until the early hours of the morning . Nor did they have to spend a huge chunk of their income on the latest digital equipment ( $ 5,999 of my hard-earned cash just went on ordering a new Nikon D4 ) to ensure they stay on top of their game . The app photographer merely has to click a software button and 10 seconds later is rewarded with a masterpiece . CNN Photos : My year on Instagram . The spread of these fake images to the mainstream news media is more worrying . I 've recently seen a whole host of Hipstamatic or Instagram pictures in news reports from as far afield as Syria , Egypt and Afghanistan . Why should I worry about the spread of app-doctored news photos ? Surely as a news photographer I should welcome the publication of news pictures of any kind , however they are taken . Well no . A news photographer is there to record , not to produce works of art . Any news photographer worth his or her salt will tell you that the best camera is one that lets you take the photo unencumbered by the technicalities of the process . A camera that lets you record the scene with the light and shadows as it lies before you , and to produce an image that brings the emotion of the scene to the viewer -- one that lets you take the photograph naked . Read more : Phone journalism gives a voice to India 's rural poor . This is what sets great news photographers apart from the rest of us . In their photos we can see the pain , the suffering , the pity and often the horror . A little of the photographer 's emotion will show through in every image . In Haiti , shortly after the 2010 earthquake , I took photos with tears running down my cheeks . It was only the camera held tightly to my face that meant my tears were not visible to those around me . I believe that emotion came through in my pictures . If it did n't I failed in my job . Every time a news organization uses a Hipstamatic or Instagram-style picture in a news report , they are cheating us all . It 's not the photographer who has communicated the emotion into the images . It 's not the pain , the suffering or the horror that is showing through . It 's the work of an app designer in Palo Alto who decided that a nice shallow focus and dark faded border would bring out the best in the image . Over the past few years a number of news photographers have quite rightly been fired for altering images with the help of Photoshop . One added smoke to increase the dramatic appearance of bombing , one cut and pasted a rifle-toting soldier from one image onto another and another removed his own shadow from an image . Hipstamatic , Instagram and other apps produce images that are equally unethical or perhaps even more so . The image never existed in any other place than the eye of the app developer . Since when did we trust app developers to bring us the news ? â€¢ Follow @ nicksternphoto on Twitter . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Nick Stern .
Author Daniel Stern says media use of app - doctored images is cause for concern . Apps such as Hipstamatic and Instagram produce artistic images without the need for photographic training . Stern says such images are faked and used to convey the true story of news stories .