World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop

Photoshop was introduced to enhance images, merge images that are secs apart, and of course modify.

99% of the media based photographs are "touched-up" before it is released to the public.

I think some have the wrong idea here... soon as they hear "Photoshop" a sort of "fake, staged, not real" idea pops into their head.

There is a lot of money and effort being poured into the effort to turn public opinion on the middle east into a political weapon. Taking sides in this ancient dispute from the comfort of one's desk chair can be a little hazardous to your faculties of common sense.

For those gullible enough to be sucked into the fly trap, there's also a large field of cowpies awaiting your arrival.

Please be sure to clean your shoes on the way out.

This is what the photographer answered:

"In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.

"To put it simply, it's the same file - developed over itself - the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them."

Source

Originally posted by ArMaPFrom what I understand of it, it may have been three times the same photo, to create a high-dynamic-range version of the photo with three slightly different versions made from the original photo.

Yes, that's how I understand it as well.

I don't think it has been done in a malicious way, as it's probably just to obtain a better "artistic/dramatic" view of the scene.
In the meantime, the final result looks like somewhat "'artificial" with clearly a non-natural lightening of the whole scene.

However, it raised up two questions:
1- As already pointed out, where is the limit between the enhancement of a photo and a fakery?
2- Nowadays, it's very easy for someone who really wants to hide any use of post-process software, to remove or replace any trace. So how to be sure that any given photo wasn't tampered with?

For example, it took me only a few minutes to create this picture, which is of course totally fake:



The XMP tags (that were used by Neal Krawetz to describe the full process) aren't visible anywhere, neither in the EXIF data, nor in the JPEG compression readings.

There are of course other way to determine the fake (readings of the thumbnail informations, etc...) but, again, for someone who really wants to create a very good faked photography, some skills and time is enough to do so.

I think that, in this case, it's reasonable to think that the photographer haven't even thought of hiding the Photoshop traces from the EXIF, which is a good indication of its sincerity. I have a hard time to believe that a pro photographer is not aware of the XMP tags in the EXIF data.

Another interesting thing is that, at the end of the paper, it states that:

Hansen was meant to provide the Raw file for his winning photo, as proof that he didn’t significantly modify the final image — but so far, he hasn’t.

By definition, a RAW file comes directly from the camera, without any further modification.
So, on which photo Krawetz worked on? A JPEG file? From where? No indication so far about this point on the paper.

I really would have liked to see the whole process used by Krawetz the analyze the XMP segments, as it's not clearly explained by the paper.

Anyway, Krawetz and/or Anthony was too quick to label it as a "fraudulent forgery", IMO.

reply to post by andy06shake

They must have known it was a fake!

So, you're saying they accepted it knowing it was a fake? I don't understand why you would assume that. I really don't see why they would. There's nothing in it for them to knowingly accept a fake - they've been sifting through hundreds if not thousands of first rate photos. If they did, that would be a far more interesting story that one about some guy faking his entry

This is all very interesting - in more than one way
"However, in order to curtail further speculation - and with full cooperation by Paul Hansen - we have asked two independent experts to carry out a forensic investigation of the image file. The results will be announced as soon as they become available."

Hansen continued: "In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.

So, in olden times - a photographer regularly used dodging and burning to enhance a photo. Now we have the gift, the miracle that is Adobe Photoshop

Oh, Adobe - I love you so. I do - I really do :-)

Anybody who uses Photoshop knows what you can do with it - so, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the original photo - and he just couldn't stop tweaking. Been there - done that

But - now we have to ask - for a photo to be an original photo, how much enhancing is too much? You can take any ordinary photo and enhance the heck out of it with out incorporating other images into the original image. Does this still count? If the original photo isn't good enough to stand on it's own - then I guess not. But then, as I mentioned - all photographers dodge and burn to some extent in the darkroom - is that also dishonest?

If they decide it is more than one image - shame on him.

If it's just been seriously enhanced it's a fair question - does it count as an original photo, or is it now a different kind of art?

Amazing image no matter what - will be interesting to see what they decide

Just as an after thought though - all it takes is one guy with an opinion, some credentials and a website to say it's fake - and you buy his opinion automatically? That is just as interesting to me - even if he's right

:-)

I have nothing against Jewish people or peace loving Israelis, but plz, join the fing dots:

www.extremetech.com...

Founder(s) William B. Ziff, Sr.
Bernard G. Davis

William Bernard Ziff, Sr.

Political views:
"Ziff became one of the most prominent American supporters of Revisionist Zionism. In 1935, he was persuaded by supporters of the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky to accept the presidency of the Zionist-Revisionists of America organization although he resigned after one year being uncomfortable with his role as a Jewish organizational leader"

Succeeded by his son, William Bernard Ziff, Jr.
"He was born on June 24, 1930 to William B. Ziff, Sr., a Jewish American publishing executive, author, and vocal proponent of Revisionist Zionism. "

There are plenty of more soberly worded news articles about this story than this poisoned hit-piece by Extremetech. The purpose of this article is clearly to dilute the public perception of Palestinian suffering and to force headline readers to assume that the pictures of the dead children are faked.

No evidence presented by that 'image expert' points to anything except this being a HDR image. The image definitely looks like HDR to me. HDR is a composite *lighting* technique, not a form of subject manipulation.

These dead children are real dead children, and the IDF killed those children. That is the real history of this story.

Originally posted by Spiramirabilis
But - now we have to ask - for a photo to be an original photo, how much enhancing is too much? You can take any ordinary photo and enhance the heck out of it with out incorporating other images into the original image.

Originally posted by elevenaugust
However, it raised up two questions:
1- As already pointed out, where is the limit between the enhancement of a photo and a fakery?

Manipulation, changes the reality of the image. Ie adds, removes or edits stuff that wasn't there. Enhancing changes the look of the image without changing the reality of it. Ie, converting image into black & white. Doing hdr, like this image is not manipulating.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


"So, you're saying they accepted it knowing it was a fake? I don't understand why you would assume that."

The picture is full of anomalies if I and others can spot them then I would imagine the people in the industry responsible would at least question them. So that's why I concluded they must have known it was a fake.

"There's nothing in it for them to knowingly accept a fake - they've been sifting through hundreds if not thousands of first rate photosSo, you're saying they accepted it knowing it was a fake? I don't understand why you would assume that. I really don't see why they would. There's nothing in it for them to knowingly accept a fake - they've been sifting through hundreds if not thousands of first rate photos."

Just because there agenda is not obvious to us does not mean that there don't have one.

Why not just make available the 3 original images that compose the picture in question, that way we can judge for ourselves what has or has not been removed?

reply to post by PsykoOps

Manipulation, changes the reality of the image. Ie adds, removes or edits stuff that wasn't there. Enhancing changes the look of the image without changing the reality of it. Ie, converting image into black & white. Doing hdr, like this image is not manipulating.

Don't know that I agree - exactly

What is the criteria for a good photo? If it depends on the eye - the judgment - of the photographer in the moment, and their ability to capture reality in an artful manner - then is it fair to go back in on top of a photo and alter it to suit their sense of aesthetics and make it something it wasn't to begin with?

It's still art - you'll get no argument from me that altered photography is still art - I think it's amazing. But what is the current standard for photography - especially photography in journalism?

Was Lance Armstrong the legitimate winner of the Tour de France?

I say yes - if every other single person in the race was also enhancing their performance in the same exact ways as he was helping along his own performance. But if we decide the true winner has to perform without enhancement, then no - he lost

reply to post by andy06shake

Just because there agenda is not obvious to us does not mean that there don't have one.

Conspiracy even in photo journalism - this place never disappoints :-) This is kinda what I was suggesting - how do you know this guy is right? Maybe he is - I don't know for sure. I'm as curious as anyone to see how all this turns out. But as far as conspiracy theory goes - is one accusation from one guy all you need to cry foul?

:-)

Really not here to pick a fight andy - just thought it was funny

Why not just make available the 3 original images that compose the picture in question, that way we can judge for ourselves what has or has not been removed?

Agreed - assuming that there are 3, separate, other photos

I'm taking this to mean that he took 3 layers of the same photo, enhanced them each and blended them together. That's what I would have done to get the same effect - and it is a very useful way to bring out the best in a photo

If he merged three different photos - I say he gets his photo-journalistic ass handed to him

But if he over-tweaked just the one photo? Then I think this becomes a more interesting debate. Is that wrong - or not wrong?

reply to post by andy06shake

However if indeed this image has been tampered with, by that I mean 3 different pictures spliced together and then enhanced

There is absolutely no proof of this.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet

Originally posted by ArMaP
This is what the photographer answered:

"In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.

"To put it simply, it's the same file - developed over itself - the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them."

Source

That's what he said alright but the part about "recreate what the eye sees" is a lie as far as I'm concerned. The eye does not see the fake lighting that he used in the second person from the left, ever.

Compare the second person on the left in the different versions of the photo and you can see why this is the case. The shadows and lighting are totally unrealistic and do NOT represent what anybody would ever see on the highly manipulated image. On the more realistic images, they may not be what the eye sees but at least the lighting and shadows are realistic.

The Hacker Factor Blog

The 2nd person on the left is about 5 rows back, against the wall, and looking down. The back of his head is lit by the sun. The shadow of his shoulder shows that his head is just past the recess in the wall. And his face is lit by?...

Well, his face isn't lit by the sun since it is facing away from the sun. It isn't lit by the wall or the window since we can see that his head is past the bright part of the wall and the window is dark. It also isn't list by a flash since the part of his face that is aimed down the alley is darker than the side of his face....

This combination approach is a poor-man's version of high-dynamic range (HDR) imaging. It allowed Hansen to brighten otherwise-dark facial features. HDR is a very controversial technique for photo journalism. As Sean Elliot, President of the National Press Photographers Association, declared, "HDR is not appropriate for documentary photojournalism."

I expect this level of manipulation on a model gracing the cover page of a magazine, as I think most people do.

But for documentary photojournalism, my expectations of something a little more realistic are higher, and apparently the President of the National Press Photographers Association correctly thinks those standards should be higher too.

I'm only addressing the photograph and manipulation, not politics.

I think "HDR is not appropriate for documentary photojournalism" is a fair comment, but it is still not any more 'fake' than any other lighting processing technique.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
That's what he said alright but the part about "recreate what the eye sees" is a lie as far as I'm concerned. The eye does not see the fake lighting that he used in the second person from the left, ever.

No, the eye sees the darker areas brighter than the photos show and the brighter areas do not get overexposed, our eyes are much better than any camera.

PS: the update information on that site shows that the guy was wrong about several photos being used, and the photo published on November looks more like what I would expect from a place with a strong sunlight, even in November.

reply to post by yampa


Yes, how more or less "appropriate for documentary photojournalism" is a chemical photo developed by the photographer and that has a mask applied to the brighter areas during the printing process?

The photo is authentic and he gets to keep the reward

World Press Photo of the Year was NOT faked: Award-winning image of two Palestinian children being carried to funeral verified by experts

Those Zionist stooges over at Extremetech.com should now issue a public apology.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
That's what he said alright but the part about "recreate what the eye sees" is a lie as far as I'm concerned. The eye does not see the fake lighting that he used in the second person from the left, ever.

No, the eye sees the darker areas brighter than the photos show and the brighter areas do not get overexposed, our eyes are much better than any camera.

But, if the head is illuminated by a light source from the right, casting shadows on the left, the eye will not perceive a light source on the left.

Correct?

If the light source is on the right, the eye will still perceive the light source on the right. The modified photo appears to show a light source on the left, as described in the quote in my previous post. Here is a comparison from images on the blog link in that post, though the one on the left isn't good quality because apparently the photographer has been asked to provide the raw image and hasn't provided it yet.

The image on the right is modified to make it appear there's a light source on the left, but there isn't, at least not on the immediate left as it appears.

The image on the left shows the light source is on the right, and what we see as the left of his face (his right) is in shadow. So our eyes would lighten that shadow perhaps, but they wouldn't reverse the direction of the light source as this manipulation appears to have done.

What I really would like to see is the full and technical analysis of Neal Krawetz.

Looking at its past work (especially in 2007 about the Al Qaeda propaganda) is interesting as he seems to use the same tool (Error Level Analysis) to detect changes in JPEG compression (based on the quantization tables).
In the paper quoted above, Krawetz contradict himself several times saying that "two different logos with the same error levels indicate that they were added at the same time" after saying early that they were added one after the other, which is a utter non-sense, as it's only shows that the JPEG compression level was the same for both items when they were added, independently of the date/hour.

So we can logically wondering if Neal Krawetz really know what he's talking about here.

I rather prefer the following assessment, from the forensic experts Hany Farid and Eduard de Kam (Source):

1. XMP Analysis. The XMP analysis reflects an incomplete understanding of the Photoshop metadata and also paraphrases the contents in a misleading way. The referenced block of metadata merely indicates that the file was adjusted in the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw module on multiple occasions before it was opened in Photoshop and then saved out as a JPEG. In fact, this metadata does not track whether multiple files were composited.

2. Error Level Analysis. The forensic analysis of the JPEG compression as performed by error level analysis (ELA) does not provide a quantitative or reliable analysis of photo manipulation. This analysis frequently mis-identifies authentic photos as altered and fails to identify altered images, and as such is not a reliable forensic tool.

3. Shadow Analysis. The shadow analysis is flawed in its logic and conclusions. It is true that linear constraints that connect points on an object with their corresponding points on the shadow should intersect at a single point (assuming the presence of a single light source). The location of this intersection point, however, cannot be used to reason about the elevation of the light in the scene. The intersection point is simply the projection of the light source into the image plane. This projected location can be anywhere in the image (including below the ground plane) depending on where the photographer is oriented relative to the sun."

I totally agree with these three points.

ETA: Neal Krawetz stated that Hansen's photo is a composite, in the sense that it is made of parts from different versions of the same picture, overlaid, and that the XMP blocks shows these manipulations by the Document Ancestors XMP tags that appears 4 times.
What Krawetz forgot to say (or maybe he don't know) is that there's no need to create a "composite" to obtain these XMP tags.

One of the key pieces of evidence cited in the initial article criticizing the photo is a block of Photoshop metadata which was said to indicate that multiple files had been opened in Photoshop and combined. This claim immediately raised my suspicions, because I know from my 15 years working on the Photoshop team that tracking metadata from multiple, composited photos is a challenge that the team has never really tackled. Typically, when one photo is pasted into another, all of the metadata from the pasted photo is discarded.

As expected, when I examined the metadata in question, I discovered that it indicated nothing more damning than a file that had been adjusted several times in the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw dialog prior to being opened in the main Photoshop application and saved out as a JPEG. To verify this, I succeeded in creating the same pattern of metadata in one of my own files by doing just that.

Source: Fourandsix

"Adjusted" is not exactly the same as "composited"...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
But, if the head is illuminated by a light source from the right, casting shadows on the left, the eye will not perceive a light source on the left.

The eye will not perceive a direct light source from the left.

The modified photo appears to show a light source on the left, as described in the quote in my previous post.

To me it does not appear to show a direct light source, only ambient light.

The image on the right is modified to make it appear there's a light source on the left, but there isn't, at least not on the immediate left as it appears.

No, the image on the right is modified so the face is seen as we would see it if we were there, looking at the scene, because our eyes do not get overloaded like a camera's sensor, they compensate the stronger light on the wall behind the face and can distinguish details on the face.

Our vision does have a higher dynamic range than photo, that's why they use tricks to compensate for that.

So our eyes would lighten that shadow perhaps, but they wouldn't reverse the direction of the light source as this manipulation appears to have done.

No, they wouldn't reverse the direction of the light source, and neither did the manipulation.

Why do you think that the first thing I said was that it looked like he had done some kind of HDR processing? Because it looked to me that we were seeing the darker areas better than on a common photo and because I thought that there should be more light in the brighter areas.

Originally posted by ArMaP
To me it does not appear to show a direct light source, only ambient light.

This may be the first time I've disagreed with you about a photo analysis, but in this case I agree with the analysis that says it looks like the direction of the light source is on the left in the modified photo.

So I guess in this case we will have to agree to disagree.