150-year-old Advanced Photo Manipulation

As a graphic designer and photographer, I'm always using Photoshop. But things weren't always this easy. To my surprise, many members on ATS believe that photo manipulation is a recent development. It is not. Since the beginning years of photography there have been countless manipulations. Though each modification may have it's own purpose, be it good or bad, this gallery of images mainly focuses on the "most controversial or notorious, or ones that raise the most interesting ethical questions."

Below are a few example images from the website FourandSix.com, (get it?) a company co-founded by one of the pioneers of Adobe Photoshop, Kevin Connor. They specialize in debunking altered images.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9e8f16ee1bdc.jpg[/atsimg]

This print (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division) appears to be of General Ulysses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Some very nice detective work by researchers at the Library of Congress revealed that this print is a composite of three separate prints: (1) the head in this photo is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. McCook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher’s Hill, VA.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/758887b826d5.jpg[/atsimg]

In this doctored photo of Queen Elizabeth and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in Banff, Alberta, King George VI was removed from the original photograph. This photo was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister. It is hypothesized that the Prime Minister had the photo altered because a photo of just him and the Queen painted him in a more powerful light.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/40d9e93e72e4.jpg[/atsimg]

It is believed that this doctored photograph contributed to Senator Millard Tydings’ electoral defeat in 1950. The photo of Tydings (right) conversing with Earl Browder (left), a leader of the American Communist party, was meant to suggest that Tydings had communist sympathies.

If they could do these fakes 60 to 150 years ago, imagine the type of stuff they get away with today? This is why so many members on ATS are skeptical of the images posted on here. Photo manipulation has been going on for a long time, and the numbers of fakes are likely growing exponentially. Hopefully the software that FourandSix are developing will be able to help us quickly spot fake images when they are posted to ATS.

Link to source with MANY more photos.

reply to post by midwest


Those are very cool, I knew photo manips wern't born with the likes of Photoshop but I never suspected that long ago. I have to say they are pretty well done, I also work on a lot of photo manipulation type stuff.

reply to post by midwest

Thanks for the post and information. I really didn't know sophisticated attempts at photo fakery were going on so far back. Not bad work if the Library of Congress bought the fake (it sounded like they did, at least at some point in the past)

I guess we are left with what we always had before Facebook, Tweets and Fiber Optics. Good 'ol fashioned judgement, gut feeling and educated guesses.... Heck, I've generally trusted that to better results than any form of blind faith, anyway.

Ansel Adams was a great manipulator of prints, and widely respected for it.

reply to post by OwenGP185


Yeah, I figured most people on here thought that but some of these are pretty dang old!

I also fixed the Grant image that was cropped off on the right side for some reason (I'm still pretty new to posting on here). So now it's easier to see the images below that they used to make the fake. That's a pretty complex fake if I ever saw one! Even for today that would take a little while, lol.

I love the Hitler one on the website. Seems like he had the worst fakers, lol. It was pretty bad...the grass looked awful and you could still see part of that guys arm/suit next to the girl.

Good post and I think your right that nothing photographed or video taped can any longer be considered proof of anything.

Wow, those are really fascinating, and of impressive quality!! I never would have suspected they were altered from just looking at the doctored photos. Amazing. Especially the one of Grant, they must have composited the negatives which could not have been easy.

Nice find - I had not seen many of those before. Thanks.

reply to post by midwest


Great post OP. It can never be pointed out too many times that: If you thought about it... Someone else did first.

Originally posted by midwest
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Below are a few example images from the website FourandSix.com, (get it?) a company co-founded by one of the pioneers of Adobe Photoshop, Kevin Connor. They specialize in debunking altered images.

I may just be particularly dense today, but I *don't* get it. Can someone explain? Is it some sort of pun, or a funny pronunciation, a play on a common phrase, or what?

Really informative post. I had no idea photo manipulation went back quite that far. S&F for this one. Thanks for sharing. I spent quite a bit of time on the site checking out the photos and their stories.

Now that's an art form, too!

reply to post by Ex_CT2


Haha, it's ok. They specialize in Image Forensics, For-en-sics, Four-and-Six, just stupid nerdy humor is all!

I'm really glad that everyone likes this post. I think this is my second thread? Still new at this whole thing. Glad I could show you all something new! Or rather old, lol.

reply to post by midwest

Thanks. That's pretty nerdy, for sure. Still almost didn't get it until it was completely spelled out .

Anyway, thanks for the thread. As a dedicated Photoshopper and amateur photographer I always find this sort of stuff extremely interesting....

This is like ancient technology, Stuff that man has been doing for centuries but "modern" people swear they invented it and it was impossible before.

reply to post by midwest


ty for this as i had come across some time travel ones in the past , and this made me wonder if the very first pic ever taken was a hoax of some sort
do not know why just what i felt

reply to post by midwest


Thanks for this midwest (OP) !!!!

This is not only amazing because i never before even considered the possibility of pre-1980s photos as being photoshopped, but because you mentioned the reason people on ATS are so skeptical of photos.

This goes to show you that a picture truely is worth a thousand words.

a photo is nothing more than a piece of art, open to interpretation.

This proves that for as long as photography has been around, there has been the ability to manipulate the photographs.

A photograph is on the same level as a painting. Just like how a painting is the expression of the painter's visions, a photograph can be manipulated into the vision of the manipulator.

NO photo should be taken as truth without scrutiny, just like a painting should not be taken as truth without scrutiny.

Again, Thank you midwest for this post, this is exactly the reason i love ATS. The many minds of ATS point me in directions i would never have gone on my own.

reply to post by xDeadcowx


You're very welcome! That's what I was taught in one of my first photography courses. Photography is painting with light. On the first day of class we constructed our own little dodging and burning tools, which basically amount to a wire with some paper taped on and a piece of paper with an aperture (hole) cut into it. That's where elementary photo manipulation begins.

The first time I had heard about something like this was when I was a kid in the early 90s. My grandparents have a photo above the mantle on their fireplace of my great grandma's family from around 1900. One day I asked my grandpa who the baby was in the picture. He said that was my great grandma's little brother. He had apparently died in a fire because back then small children would wear these dresses or something and it got too close to the fire and he ended up burning alive. It sounded terrible. So they took a photo of him that they had from when he was a baby and added him into the family portrait. Even as a child I was amazed that they could do that.

I remember that was a key spark as a child that brought me to where I am today, and my grandpa, being an amateur photographer and, well, I don't want to give too much personal info away but suffice to say he ran an important research lab, had access to the latest computers and software. Without his encouragement I wouldn't be the designer and photographer I am today, nor would I have an appreciation for the past and the technologies they used before the digital era. Today I get to return the favor, as he recently got his first Mac and I'm teaching him how to edit together his old films in iMovie. He is picking it up quickly! Quite the savvy old man. I love him to death.

Also, I got my first applause? Not sure what that is actually for, but thanks for the 500 space bucks!

Even older is the fake Shroud of Tourin?

Just sayin

if you guys loved that then i think you will enjoy this site aswell for some modern examples

www.11points.com...

I have an even better site within my bookmarks but the only problem is i have over 1000 so i think i'll leave it for now.