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Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's Image Doctoring
WerewolfOfVulcan writes "Wired reports that researcher Neal Krawetz revealed some very interesting things about the Al-Qaeda images broadcast in the mass media. Analysis shows that they're heavily manipulated, a discussion meant to illustrate a new technique that can spot forgery in digital media. 'Krawetz was ... able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners ... were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says.'"
Most forensic photography is digital these days and the resulting images run through verification software to prove that they are 'straight from the camera'.
The SLRs I shoot are Canons and they provide the option of "Add Original Decision Data" in their settings. Combined with Canon's data verification kit any of the images I shoot can be demonstrated to be originals, with minimal in camera image processing.
And anyone who thinks image alteration in the film world is too hard to undertake to swing a court case can't be taken seriously.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
This is very common. My dad worked for a power company and one of the local news organizations did a story on pollution. So after my dad talked about their scrubbers and other emissions controls (which he was very instrumental in putting in) the reporter decided that it wasn't sensationalist enough so he pulled a dirty trick. One of their power plants was right next to a steel mill so instead of the reporter doing his monologue with the power plant in the background, he and his camera man simply turned around and put the steel mill right next door in the background then proceeded to open up with "I'm here at .. generating station."
He didn't technically lie; after all he was on the property of the generating station. But the images didn't reflect the nearly nonexistant exhaust of the powerplant (a little NOx which shows up brown on certain days) but instead reflected the constant fires and smoke billowing out of the steel mill. No photoshop required.