Reuters Phony Photo: Animated (UPDATED)

UPDATE: The original photo has been found, see UPDATE III.

I'm sure most of you have been following the story of the bogus Reuters photo, badly doctored, apparently by the notorious Adnan Hajj.

Check out the animated GIF at Left & Right that shows the obvious cloning of a building in the photo.

Well, frequent commenter AnonymousDrivel, who has been hiding some mad P-Shop skillz, sends along the animated GIF below.

These are the two JPG images from LGF joined as a superimposed panorama. Hajj/Reuters had slightly different magnification (or perspectives) for each shot, so AD superimposed an overlay with the ONLY modification to source being a transparency on the right image finishing with the original JPG, then isolated the cloned area rectangle used for the buildings and did another series of transparencies returning again to source.

Allah, who certainly knows more than me about Photoshop, noticed a few inconsistencies between what LGF has says may be the original photo and Hajj's, and he has a point with regard to the building and unidentified object in the lower right-hand corner, but I think AnonymousDrivel's graphic shows that the smoke trail on the right of the 'original' photo hasn't necessarily been 'shopped out - the modified photo is so distorted that the horizon in the Hajj photo appears to be quite a bit higher than it actually is. And here's a comparison of the brightness and contrast in the two photos (this sample wasn't 'spliced' as AD's graphic was, it's just a slice of each photo for purposes of showing samples of the sky and smoke):

Here's the same side-by-side comparison, with the left side adjusted so that the brightness and contrast more closely matches that of the photo on the right:

You can still see the smoke, but it's dissipated significantly as a result of adjusting the brightness. Would further adjustment obscure it even more? I don't know - I know next to nothing about PhotoShop (in fact, I use another software package, and only utilize the basic functionality), but sure looks like it's a possibility.

UPDATE: Reuters has now admitted the photo was altered and has pulled it.

UPDATE II: Ace has more examples of Reuters photos, including another by Hajj. Geez.

UPDATE III: dorkafork found the original! Again, what kind of person names a child dorkafork?

UPDATE IV: The Jawa Report debunks yet another Hajj photo.

UPDATE V: I'll take Something Isn't Quite Right for $1,000, Alex.

 

Comments

[dorkafork]

Pretty much repeating the comment I left at ace's:

The photo was altered, but it wasn't an altered version of the one in that .gif. Somebody made an animated .gif with the altered one and the one Reuters said was the original. All he did was clone stamp an area near the bottom of the pillar of smoke, than clone it into an area up and to the right. That's why there's a duplicate building and the background's higher, he did it in one go. It all repeats. (Then he cloned a bunch more up near the top.)

As someone who has done many lousy, amatuerish jobs in Photoshop, I think I speak with some authority in this matter.

[dorkafork]

And it's Swedish.

[John from WuzzaDem]

I guess that explains it. I don't know a lot about Swedish names, except Sven and Ingrid.

[benny bird]

If he is lucky he can take over DAN RATHERS job

[andycanuck]

Smoke Gets in Your Lies
By Adnan Hajj

They, asked me how I knew,
The photos they were true,
I of course replied, stringers here inside,
Cannot be denied.

They said some mainstream media find,
All who read are blind,
When a war's afire, you must realize,
Smoke gets in your lies.

So I staged them, and daily papers laughed,
To think they'd doubt photographs,
And yet today, my lede has gone away,
I am without my lede.

Now laughing blogs deride,
Reuters cannot hide,
So I smile and say, when a lovely flame dies,
Smoke gets in your lies,

Smoke gets in your lies.

[Jeremy]

No Wuzzadum parody post on this? I'm beggin ya!

[QQPac]

[Edited] this Adnan Hajj.