Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut? [photo inside]

Little Green Footballs ^ | 8-5-2006

[Hadean]

OK, now things are getting weird.

This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image. (Hat tip: Mike.)

It’s so incredibly obvious, it reminds me of the faked CBS memos. Smoke simply does not contain repeating symmetrical patterns like this, and you can see the repetition in both plumes of smoke. There’s really no question about it.

Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut’s suburbs August 5, 2006. Many buildings were flattened during the attack. REUTERS/Adnan Hajj

[Hilltop]

As a publisher, I belive you're on to something.

For those that are not learned in the power of Photoshop for image manipulation and the inherent capabilities of the software and most importantly the graphic artist, I would not bet against your hypothesis Prion.

[Enchante]

"dont you need the actual, original photo in order to claim another one is fake?"

Not at all -- in some cases, yes, but not if there have been obvious manipulations that put in repeating copies of certain clusters of pixels, etc. Just as with the fake TANG documents, some kinds of fakes make themselves too obvious..... even if the "experts" at See-BS, Roto-Rooters, et al can't seem to spot them (or more likely don't care as long as the fakes serve their agenda).

[usmcobra]

The wavy areas around the guy are from JPEG compression. JPEG tends to ghost areas of high detail when the compression level is high. I think the reason is that it uses trigonometric Sin() and Cos() functions as the basis for the compression, so there tends to be some repetition away from areas of detail (though it's attenuated). As a side note, the boxes in the main pic that are visible when you zoom in (the pic that spawned this post) are also from JPEG compression. Standard JPEG95 compression compresses along 8x8-pixel areas and in every JPEG you see (that are compressed with JPEG95, which is *much* more ubiquitous than JPEG2000) you'll see these boxes aligned along 8-pixel boundaries.

None of which means anything if you can't change the way the picture looks...

One I just did and the other is an enlargement of the "Original".

[Hadean]

dont you need the actual, original photo in order to claim another one is fake?

I did my best trying to get an answer on that one. Here's what I found:

I actually discovered another picture of the same spot of the city. If you look at both pictures side by side, you'll notice the buildings in the lower right corner of the left photo and the buildings in the lower left corner of the right photo (the photo in question on this thread), you'll see the buildings match up. I cut those corner sections out and placed them side by side. Notice anything?

[TXKATE]

Me too. My sons can almost repeat the whole dialogue by memory we've seen it so many times. Its a movie you can watch over & over again .

[AliVeritas]

I hope someone emails themselves the whole web page... then saves it to the hard drive.

[OnRightOnLeftCoast]

What's the point in faking? We all know of the bombings for crying out loud!

[metmom]

Thanks for the ping. Very sloppy and unbelievable that they think the American public is stupid enough to fall for it, even though some are.

[AZLiberty]

Anyone know where this is in Beirut? Can we look it up on Google Earth?

[Enchante]

Ping!

Good catch -- looks like Roto-Rooters may be caught in a photo-altering scandal. Real war isn't dramatic enough, they have to try to make it look like all of Beirut is on fire??? Looks like See-BS style propaganda comes to Lebanon. OK, well maybe it's not such total fabrication as the pseudo-TANG docs, but it's still a pretty major form of exaggerated propaganda of which any "reputable" news organization should be ashamed.

[Stultis]

(Devil's Advocate mode...) Are you sure it couldn't be a pattern in the glass of a window, if the picture was taken from behind a window?

[mvpel]

Man, Reuters is SO busted.

[AliVeritas]

So Wrong. LOL

[AliVeritas]

Hey monk, could we have Witchiepoo from HR Pufnstuf on that one doing a fly-by?

[El Gato]

Burning buildings don't blow smoke rings.

But burning, or at least blown up, tanks, at least Soviet designed one, often do. Pretty cool effect. Hard on the tank crew though.

[Hadean]

Somewhere in the southern suburbs of Beirut. That's all I know.

[Windcatcher]

You need to be nominated for a Buckhead Award. Great job.

[RandallFlagg]

Heh-heh! I already did that while I was at work earlier. I have it saved, and there's a smaller version (resized by HTML) at post #52 of this thread.

[Straight Vermonter]

I don't think what is on Google Earth is going to match up with the current terrain very well. Check out these before and after pics of the Hizb'allah area of south Beirut.

[Blogger]

He's also one of the photographers for Green Helmet Man