World Press Photo Winner Accused of Photoshopping 182
vikingpower writes "The winner of this year's World Press Photo award, Paul l Hanssen, is under fire for allegedly having photoshopped the winning picture. The Hacker Factor is detailing the reasons and technicalities for the accusations. ExtremeTech also runs an item about the possible faking. Upon questions by Australian news site news.com.au, Hanssen answers his photo is not a fake. The whole story, however, is based upon somewhat thin proof: three different times in the file's Adobe XMP block; this does not necessarily mean that more than one file was used in order to obtain a composite image."
Update: 05/14 20:04 GMT by S : World Press Photo says the photo is genuine.
The fake times are upon us (Score:2, Interesting)
It's no longer really possible for "normal" people to tell apart real images from photoshopped or even completely CGI rendered ones. Computer imagining has become this good.
What's real? What's fake? Or rather, where does the fake start? Pretty much every ad picture is 'shopped. Models don't "grow" that way. A real human isn't pretty enough for us. And real reality isn't sensationalist enough either.
Get used to fake images being broadcast as news. Thinking about it, you probably already are, you just don't know it yet.
Re:Happens All the Time (Score:4, Interesting)
I take your point, However, I don't see a better alternative. Without photojournalists showing the horrors of tragic events what does that leave, Only writers are allowed to tell the story's without photos? Or, perhaps discussing tragedies in any form is bad? I personally think we need more photo journalist willing to go to the battlefields and in the case of the photo Gaza city so that more civilized people like you and me can sit at our computers and have a debate about whether or not what they are doing (taking photos of emotional, bloody events) is worthy or not. That way I don't have to get physically dirty.
"Fake" is the new "real, but enhanced" (Score:5, Interesting)
How the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop
OMG, it was faked! This is an outrage!
... but, from the ExtremeTech article:
When is an image fake, and when is it merely enhanced?
The bigger discussion, of course, is whether Gaza Burial is actually fake — or just enhanced to bring out important details. This is a question that has plagued photography since its inception. Should a photo, especially a press photo, be purely objective? Most people think the answer is an obvious “yes,” but it’s not quite that simple. What if a photo is perfect, except that it’s taken at an odd angle — can you digitally rotate it? What about cropping? What if there’s dust on the lens/sensor/film — can you digitally remove it?
Perhaps most importantly, though, cameras simply don’t capture the same gamut of color or dynamic range as human eyes — a photo never looks the same as the original image perceived by your brain. Is it okay for a photographer to modify a picture so that it looks exactly how he remembers the scene?
So, it wasn't faked, but rather cleaned up? All those people were in those positions at that time? The event was real?
The article uses the word "fake" to discredit the photographer, while at the same time admitting that that determination is really a subjective one having to do with how much enhancement is acceptable, and that the subject of the photo - which photojournalism is really about - is completely real.
Re:The author has the RAW file. Case closed (Score:4, Interesting)
When I see any modern "photo contests" that require images to be "unmanipulated", I just shake my head. Not because I don't think that manipulation is good or bad, but because I don't think the idea of "manipulation" or "unmanipulation" is even a coherent concept in the context of what I call "information images", colloquially called "photographs(2)", which by their nature are manipulated and interpreted, and the authenticity of such information images has no meaning apart from the manipulative choices of the artist/programmer(s). A digital image can be considered no more or less authentic than a painting. They must always be considered interpretations because that's what they are, by their very nature; they have no nature apart from such interpretive manipulation; they must be interpreted to even be experienced. The common man only clings to the idea of an "unmanipulated image" because he thinks digital images are some different type of photograph(1), when in reality an "information image" (photograph(2)) is actually a fundamentally different (no matter how superficially similar) thing to a physical photograph(1). This is an example of the kind of "counterproductive metaphor or analogy" that Dijkstra talks about in one of his EWDs about radical innovations. The shift from photography to digital imaging is actually what EWD considers a "radical innovation" not some kind of evolution, and failure to understand this, evidenced by the fact that the common man thinks that digital images and photograph(1)s are similar things, is a tragic, limiting and counterproductive semiotic "false friend" that is only the more inevitable because the two things are so superficially similar.
Photographs(1) can be manipulated, and the extent to which their image can be said to represent reality is totally open (see Jerry Uelsmann) and I'm not talking about that kind of interpretation in the "viewing space". I'm just saying that in the objective space, the ideas of an "authentic" or "original" photograph(1) at least is a concept that can be understood, that COULD make sense, however useful or useless it may be. With digital photographs(2), the concept does not philosophically exist (in my opinion) and only exists as some kind of mass illusion, where people declare an photograph(2) "unauthentic" because "I know it when I see it" (except they demonstrably do not).
Re: Minor observations (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to agree with this, I actually see VERY LITTLE evidence of a splice of three "different" images.
What is very possible, is three copies of the same image where spliced and lighting adjustment was performed on three splices separately. This is done for masking purposes, or situations of convenience.
I believe in fact, this is what the photographer claims and I find the analysis of the pixel changes and shadows consistent with this.
Re:Happens All the Time (Score:5, Interesting)
They draw some lines showing where the sun is. They then claim this means the illumination of the faces is wrong. Without any proof, and without allowing for the possibility that they are illuminated in some other way.
Why am I reminded of the moon landing conspiracy theorists?
As to Error Level Analysis, it can indeed show composites up. But there is nothing strong enough in the ELA they show to indicate compositing.
It's pretty obvious just looming at the photo that it's been enhanced. I don't see the problem with increasing contrast, even selectively, to make a better photo. It still shows exactly what was there, and nothing else.
A composite would be different, and that would indeed be a scandal. But there's no evidence of a composite here.