I wondered about this, so I did the least obvious thing, I read the rules:
Rules, Part 1: Modification of posted pictures:
The following picture modifications are A-OK, and are considered by consensus to be acceptable.
1. Change color, or change to black-and-white or sepia tone.
2. Obscure or delete telltale background elements.
3. Obscure or delete badges, logos and number plates.
The following picture modifications are not OK, and are considered by consensus to be unacceptable and unsportsmanlike.
1. Replace design elements from one vehicle with those of another (wheels, grille, etc.)
2. Photoshop modifications that change the basic configuration of a car (change a coupe to a roadster; make a Tyrelll P34 a four-wheeled car, etc).
3. Photoshop modifications that place a vehicle in an incorrect time or place.
4. Reversing a picture to make an LHD vehicle appear RHD, or vice-versa.
It seems that Rule 4 suggests that it's not ok to reverse or mirror an image. There are better ways to eliminate Google SBI that are within the scope of the rules. Since I don't post many puzzles, I'll "spill the beans" on a method that seems to work pretty well. That's to rotate and crop the image slightly. It may not be fool-proof (believe me, after a career as a software developer, I can tell you that all "fool-proofing" does is find more creative fools) but it's worked for me in the puzzles I've posted cuz I use SBI to test before posting.
While I'm on the soapbox, I (and this is just personal opinion) don't care for the color alteration. I can understand its use for foiling attempts to solve by SBI, but I'd like to see the original image in the solution because I collect the puzzle images for my own personal reference library. I suppose other computer geeks do the same. Since I have over 11 terabytes of disk on my "mainframe" computer, I can store lotsa stuff...and that library is only a minor portion of the images when considering that it's very easy to shoot up 20 gb of photos in a single day of race photography. But I digress. I'd just like to see the unaltered photo along with the solution, unless there's some special reason not to.
That's my 37 cents' worth.
RtR
