With that said I am not dismissing the possibility - only playing devils advocate for the most part. I find compelling evidence exists to prove the Shroud is genuine as well (wrists where nails went through vs palms). I think my position is in the middle - it was a REPRODUCTION using advanced techniques of the Greek artistic world from the original or it was the original and Byzantines enhanced the image to make it more visible. I like the idea that it would be a copy of the original - not produced as a fraud but as a genuine reproduction to allow others to view it as was common at that time to do.
Virtually ALL of the tests performed by the skeptics (visible light microscopy claiming to find red ochre, radiocarbon dating, "reproductions" such as this recent one in Italy) have been investigated by other scientists and either falsified, or found (at best) non-reproducible by other parties. Furthermore, the skeptics have numerous examples of failing to supply their raw data or samples to others not already in their camp, for independent verification. And finally, there are examples of skeptics (McCrone comes to mind) who contradict their *own* findings from one presentation to the next.
All of these are indicative (at best) of piss-poor technique, not to say bias.
By contrast, the researchers whose work has indicated a non-medieval origin for the Shroud have done the best to discount their bias (Rogers for one was a skeptic of the re-weaving, but was convinced *by* the evidence), and have taken care to use control groups, utilize corroborating tests utilizing independent physical and chemical methods based on different properties of the materials tested, and to share their work.
This last guy from Italy, in the web page you link to, ducks a debate with Porter (who is on the "shroudstory" site), and waves his hands when confronted with the spectroscopic evidence of blood, rather than seeking head-on to look at the evidence.
This appears to be a "shoe on the other foot" compared to the stereotypical behaviour of believers vs. scientists, say, on some of the crevo threads. The atheists are so used to debunking things in vacuo that they don't know what to do when the physical evidence fails to back up their preconceived notions.
Cheers!