[Swordmaker]

I wonder if this image was stamped (perhaps using a persons actual face as the stamp with some enhancements in a stronger sugar solution painted in) onto the cloth with sugar water and then gently heated to make the image appear.

There are many things wrong with this hypothesis. First, and foremost, the image does not exist UNDER the undisturbed bloodstains! That means the blood was placed on the cloth before the image was formed.

Any artist would have to have some method of placing the blood stains accurately without the image... and THEN "stamped" the image to exactly match the placement of the blood... without disturbing it.

Next, the image does not soak into the linen... it exists only on the very top fibrils of the linen thread... and is composed of linen that is more oxidized than the rest of the thread.

Finally, any "stamping" technique would not duplicate the perfect negative nature or the three-dimension information encoded into the image on the shroud.

[FSPress]

Using a real human head to stamp the image would exactly get the 3-D information effect. You would not want to drench the cloth with the sugar solution if you wanted the sharpest clearest image, only a small amount on the face would be needed.