This is a news photo credited to Adnan Hajj sent on the Reuters wire today. Here’s the link [Yahoo took that page down on Aug. 6]. But it is not a real photograph; it would more accurately be called a photo-illustration.
Or, even more accurately, a fake.
Most of the huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky were manufactured on a computer. It seems that the photographer was not content with whatever smoke was really recorded in the picture, so he used a retouching technique known as “cloning” to fill up the frame.
Cloning, as the word implies, makes duplicates of the desired regions of the image. That’s why the smoke in this picture looks so oddly repetitive. It’s repetitive because it has been repeated.
Kudos to LGF blog for breaking this scandal. It occurs to me that the only reason this particular fake was caught is that it is a terrible job. Manipulating images is one of my professional skills, and if I wanted to, I could fill a sky with smoke and nobody would know the difference.
I had always supposed that the news wires had some sort of technical control measures to prevent fakery, but it seems that at Reuters, not only do they not use any high-tech system, but they evidently don’t even look at the pictures going out under their name.
UPDATE, AUG. 6: Here you go: Reuters admits to doctoring Beirut photo
Reuters was notified of the alteration by American bloggers who noticed repeating patterns within the smoke plumes, indicating that part of the image was duplicated several times.
So, we caught this very badly done fake. I wonder, how many well made fakes slip by?
Che mancanza di etica !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are in Clarin.com , the mainstream in Argentina!
Congrats
[LINK TO CLARIN.COM PAGE]
Wow. I did notice that hits were going through the roof today. Thank God I’m hosted by DreamHost, the most reliable webservers in the free world.
My of my concerns besides the manipulation of the photograph, but that it was done so badly, and that it made it past the photo editors at Reuters. Any one who had spent more than a few minutes in Photoshop would be able to tell this was a fake. Not only should the photographer be punished in some way, so should the photo editor for being stupid and blind.
hey this guy its terrible with photoshop!!!! I agree with James Kellar !!! My 5 years-old cousin have more experience with photoshop than that guy!! Well the photo editors at reuters must think was a funny pic ….. can’t believe there’s people like them …. playing with war…. anyway ..
Youre in the one of the Nicaraguans most view newspapers.
That’s cool bro, youre really famous!
[LINK TO EL NUEVO DIARIO]
That’s great news. It might have been more seemly to cite LGF, since (as I wrote in my post) they broke this story, and citing me alone might give the impression that I was the first. But hey, LGF and I are both Pajamas Media team players, a sacred brotherhood stronger than blog rivalry.
This is just one more reason why ‘Cloning’ should be illegal. ha ha ha
[…] Or, even more accurately, a fake. -More […]
Sean I saw the original back on the day the story broke. I don’t ever give a pass to fake journalism. But I do want to point out that the original is not a picturesque view of the city. The photographer (wrongly) added yet more smoke to what was already there.
So while the “fake” shows more a bit more pluming smoke, the real death and destruction still lays below on the streets.
IMO, both “sides” in this mess, suck. War is never the answer. If it were, the Iraqis WOULD showering us with flowers. That just isn’t reality.
And LGF I hear through the grapevine, has the FBI knocking on their door.