Huh! Funny how people start out all hyped about photo fakery so long as the NIST is implcated. Once "one of our own" is shown the faker, however,
people demurr and ignore the issue altogether.
I just posted my opinion on the issue at another forum and was linked to
a PDF
analysis of the photo controversy. As for the NIST/NYPD shot, it "shares some features with the other photos but it has anomalies that are
suggestive of deliberate manipulation." The alleged manipulations include "this is also the only photo that clearly has its perspective, color and
brightness/contrast heavily adjusted." "The brightness of the lower part is much higher than the rest of the photo." (which could just be the sun
shining dimly through smoke a little brighter there). "the original photo [...] probably is already skewed," and "floors 15-12 are bent upwards"
(or possibly bent inwards). And the perspective is no more distorting than the Cirrone and Miller photos, about which the aithor made no such gripes.
I de-skewed and analyzed the NIST shot with window and floor lines traced over, and then traced the damage edge in magenta.
This document explains of Zafar's image:
"An optical illusion gives the false impression of an intact corner (column) on the 12 th floor. The other photos show that indeed the corner was
gone at this level." No mention is made of the "illusion" of the edges at floors 14 and 15 also being intact up to the edge. This might give more
than illusion to floor 12, and to floor 13 between them seeming to perhaps show window frames.
Closer analysis shows the 12th floor "window" is more likely a forground artifact, but sldo shows more clearly that floor 13 seems to be shown
intact. Visible buidling facade as I see it outlined in red:
So there seems a conflict.
The author did a montage analysis excluding the troublesome NIST image, and managed to fit Zafar's image with the others by, it seems, ignoring what
is said at floors 14=15 (left). In the corrected version I propose (center), I gave the benefit of the doubt - any unreadable spot I left as damage,
with only the clearly intact area re-colored, and a minor bit of edge damage left possible for good measure. With Zafar's image included thusly, it
starts to look silly. Then I tried replacing the Zafar image with the NIST one, to see how that contradicts the rest of the damage. Oddly enough,
it's closer to what the author first put together, and makes more sense (right).
Between Zafar's and NIST's there IS a contradiction that smoke and mirrors cannot explain. Problem is, NIST's image fits with the others and
Zafar's does not. So where does that leave us?
[edit on 2-10-2007 by Caustic Logic]