Real or Fake? Expert opinion required.

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

sharky1969 wrote:

kensaitichi wrote:

Folks,

before I fly to Senegal, arriving at 04:20 on a Sunday morning (or so he thinks) I need your opinion: is this the real photo of my lad, or is it a fake? Confused

He tried to send me a photo of a box "gold" he is "selling", with my name on it, which was obviously a fake. Evil or Very Mad

How about this one? Is it him?

I am a photographer,
Look at the left side of his head and you can see a shadow which is usually caused by the flash. Now look down the left of his body ! NO SHADOW !
This has been doctored.
The piece of paper looks very suspicious. Ask for another one, but painted on his chest etc.

In my opinion the colour of the shadow on the background material almost matches the colour of his clothing in the light and doesn't show up well particularly because of the jpg artfacts. The shadows from his head, clothing, (his) left hand and the paper all match and the shadows on the creases of his right arm and just below have that black line shadow like the paper casts on his clothing. It does look wierd but I think it's real.

Master Baiter Joined: 03 Aug 2010 Posts: 207 Location: UK

If he was good enough at photoshopping to make a picture that causes this discussion over its authenticity, why didnt he do a better job of the gold boxes? I mean look at them!

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:28 pm

What about the top- and left edges of the sign. For one they're far to thick for an A4 piece of paper if it suggests a shadow, and a shadow seems impossible from the angle the shot was taken.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Dutch wrote:

What about the top- and left edges of the sign. For one they're far to thick for an A4 piece of paper if it suggests a shadow, and a shadow seems impossible from the angle the shot was taken.

The camera was rotated 90 deg to the right so the flash was bellow and to the right of the lens and the shadow isn't on the papers edge but on his clothing behind the paper.

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:49 pm

^^the shadow on top of the extends past the body...

I just checked my camera, and if I rotate it to the right 90 degrees, the flash is on top. I guess cameras have flashes on different sides. In the normal position, the flash is on the left, so when I rotate to the right 90 degrees, it right top.

In any event, we can probably all argue this to death.

We'll never know if it's real or not.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

The shadow extends past his body because it's being cast onto the curtain behind him.

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:05 pm

^^sorry, but I'm not buying it. It's practically going straight across. Same shadow line on two different textures?

And we don't even know what kind of camera was used, whether it was rotated, or this or that. It's all guessing. Someone could make the argument that the photographer's camera was like mine (flash on left). So the photographer stood on his head, rotated the camera 90 degrees and snapped away to get that shadow.

I know that's not what happened, but just saying that everyone here as a different opinion on why it's real or fake, and all have different reasons. And like I said, we don't even know what kind of camera was used.

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:38 pm

alexi wrote:

Dutch wrote:

What about the top- and left edges of the sign. For one they're far to thick for an A4 piece of paper if it suggests a shadow, and a shadow seems impossible from the angle the shot was taken.

The camera was rotated 90 deg to the right so the flash was bellow and to the right of the lens and the shadow isn't on the papers edge but on his clothing behind the paper.

I'd like to see you do it: taking a pic that throws the exact line of shadow on your (normally wrinkled) shirt *and* on the background. Impossible, I'm not buying it either.

ETA: Nice chop, however, this must have taken him some time Very Happy

ETA 2 : What Sharky said: if you look at his face, the flash came slightly from the left, so there's no way the left side of the sign would have a shadow line.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Removed direct quote from post above. -Connie
The shadow will vary with distance but because the lens and flash are usually close it will not vary much over wrinkled clothing and in that image it does get thicker with a softer edge when cast onto the curtain behind, to me this looks exactly like it has been taken on a very cheap digital cam with the flash at the upper right (from the photographers pov behind the camera) and rotated 90 deg clockwise.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:40 am

The sign looks totally fake to me. And unless someone can re-create it, still say it's fake.

Maybe it's because the digital camera (which it may not be because there's no data I can find for it) was taking pictures as 32 dpi or something that low.

And I don't even think it was taken with a digital camera, to be honest. I can't find any photo data anywhere in Photoshop or when I import into a picture box in InDesign.

I sure wish we had the original picture Sad

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

The image has been cropped, possibly to get rid of something creeping into the edge of the original or the edge of the curtain was visible or maybe just to centre him in the image and the software may have stripped the data.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:13 am

^^or it's fake. You keep coming up with what if's and this or that no matter what.

Is it possible it's a fake?

I can take a pic right now, rotate it, change the size, add layers, and this and that, and post it. The data info would show up.

I've dealt with photos in Photoshop and InDesign and it takes a lot more than just cropping or manipulating a picture to strip out that data.

And of course it was cropped. No one is saying otherwise. We are arguing about the sign and the shadows and the lines and fakeness of it. Smile

You do bring up some possibilities, but like I said earlier, it's all guessing on our parts.

Cheers!

[EDIT: and please don't take my posts the wrong way. I'm just argumentative tonight Smile

]

doc

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Cropping in MS paint strips the data.

EDIT: Me too :p

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:46 am

^^I'll take your word for it for MS Paint. I'm on a Mac and don't use it.

Thanks for your input and debating with me.

I think I forgot to say welcome to Eater. Smile

doc

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Thanks for the welcome.

I've just looked at it again and it looks like it's been scanned because of the bands down the left edge (there's a hair!) and along the bottom. It's possible he's written (although extremely fine writing from comparing it to the hair) onto the blank or blanked out 'security' card on a photo and scanned it either for easy re-use or it's not him but I don't see any reason to suspect any photoshopping.
So yes, it could be fake.

419Eater is my life Joined: 31 May 2010 Posts: 255

My vote goes to Team Fake.

Look at the shadow around his head. Why does the rest of his body not cast a similar shadow?
Then, the sign doesn't look real at all. Again, the shadow doesn't look right.
And finally, the outline of his shirt looks like it has been tempered with, especially on the lower right side. Maybe a copypasta job?

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:42 am

^^I noticed that about the shirt as well--on the lower right side.

And on his right-hand (your right, his left), looks funny. Something about the shading between the fingers. Like he tries to clean it up or something.

I don't know.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 5:02 pm

Another giveaway: zoom in on his right ear (our left): it's blurred. If this would have been caused by lack of depth of field, the textures on the background curtain could never have been visible, as these are even further away from the camera.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:31 pm

Wow, team fake is working hard here.

Occam's razor - lad handwrote a sign, photographed it at the right angle/contrast/etc, then painstakingly photoshopped it into a photo (which doesn't come up on tineye) of a man holding a blank (or different) sign, then merged and smoothed all the joins except the one at the top of the sign, which he left slightly staggered. And then he added some Gaussian blur on the lad's ear, just for good measure to confuse the archaeologists.

Or - lad writes a sign, goes to local photography service shack, photographer has a film SLR (in a country without a big digital infrastructure and bits of gloop at ear-height on lenses) with a traditional, top-mounted flash, rotates camera, takes photo, develops it, and lad scans it badly and sends it.

Maybe we'll never know for sure, but I personally can't credit the arguments against for all the reasons people have mentioned. But who cares, really?

419Eater is my life Joined: 31 May 2010 Posts: 255

@manbiteslion

I for one am not saying he himself did all of this. My guess is he took an already shopped picture he had at hand and just inserted the text on the sign.
Of course you're right, it doesn't really matter in the end, but it's an interesting debate. Very Happy

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 8:14 pm

@MBL: There's too many leads to qualify this as a genuine fake. And, as theblob said: it's fun to analyse and discuss. Maybe you'll never know for sure, but some of us sure do. I'm one of them, there's just too much that doesn't add up.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 8:16 pm

Now I may be nitpicking but...anyone notice the creases on the pant in relation to the way he is holding his torso to show the paper? Looks like an uncomfortable position about +90 degree on an angle? That is, if the creasees in the pants reflect the actual angle of the hips to the front of the pants.

Diagram:

The rays at bottom represent camera angle, the rest should be self explanatory.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 9:49 pm

^^ Obviously, but you left out the possibility of used reflection screens, so that's not real proof.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:37 pm

True, but the more I look at the body positioning, something is not right. Could there be some indication of chopping at the lower hem of the shirt? Human anatomy would indicate strain or there should at least be less of a smile on his face.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:02 pm

Congrats. You made your lad work. I believe its a camera loaded with ASA 400 film. The pose is good and the exposure allows us to read the message. The photo was then scanned at 200 dpi. The shadows look weird because the flash is to the right and lower than the lens. Another issue is the lens comes out of the camera and because its not on the same plane, the shadows to the left of his head will look different from the shadows caused by his body. You can see further evidence of the problem of not being in the same plane at the end of his shirt of the left side. The shadow appears again.

Now go back and slap your lad for insulting your intelligence for supplying such garbage. Have him go outside and redo the photo for you.

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