World Press Photo Winner Accused of Photoshopping

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.

Comments

Seriously? Secretly photoshopping?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "photo" looks like it was CGI'd from the ground up. It looks like it was meant to look that way.

It looks like a Final Fantasy cutscreen.

Minor observations

[smooth wombat]

I am not agreeing with or denying what Hacker Factor is saying, but I would like to point out some minor issues with the analysis.

First, as to the lighting of the faces being brighter than in other pictures taken during the same procession, it is entirely possible there was a reflective surface to the crowd's right (picture left) which is making the faces appear brighter than one would think they should be in the alley way. Think of the reflective nature of the moon's surface which conspiracy theorists always ignore when talking about how bright things are in shadows. While the Photoshop effect could be the issue, note the wall to their right (picture left) which does have a reflective surface.

Note also the man on the far left, next to the wall. Note how there is sun shining on the white cloth directly below his face. As everyone knows, a white surface reflects large portions of light falling on it which would also produce the lighting effect seen on the man's face.

Second, as to the dirt on the girls face appearing differently in the photos, note the different angles of her head. In the winning photo the forehead is almost at a right angle to the picture taker whereas in the second photo it is pointing almost directly at the camera. The lighting in the second photo is much more diffuse than the first which could explain the difference.

Also note that in the winning photo, the crowd is in a part of the alley which has exposure to much more sunlight than in the second photo.

Again, I'm not saying the person didn't do what has been accused, I'm only pointing out possibilities to explain what is being shown.

not convinced

[jbmartin6]

I'm not an expert in photography and imaging, but upon reading the Extreme Tech article I wasn't impressed. Their stunning crescendo:

I think most of you will agree, though, that the photo simply feels fake

I was surprised they didn't simply go for "you can tell by the pixels."

zero evidence

[Njovich]

The supposed proof of 'fakery' from the article seems entirely consistent with what the photographer says it is, different regions with different light intensities from the same raw file.The light angles seem entirely plausible, I guess the article writer hasn't heard of reflection. Even the moon landing nutters come up with better stuff than this.

The only true thing is that (as the photographer also says), the light intensities are differing.

Why wouldn't the photographer be allowed to change light intensities? Every single digital image, ever uses some kind of processing to turn photons into pixels on your screen, and there is always some level of subjectivity in how that is done, even if it's done right on the chip. Why is that an issue?

Re: zero evidence

[lahvak]

It seems lighting isn't the issue, so much as the accusation of image splicing.

Yes, but the image splicing accusation is largely based on the three conversions from raw. If he made a hdr image from a single raw, as he claims, he would obviously have to do several conversions of the same raw file. That would also explain different ELA brightness in different parts of the picture: they came from different conversions of the same raw file, so they were processed differently. Notice that there are several slight halos, for example on top of the building in the background, that would indicate a hdr from raw techique that the author claims he used. In fact, a single raw hdr was my first reaction when I saw the picture.

The only thing left that would support possible splicing is then the lighting itself: the light on the faces is not consistent with the location of the sun. That can easily be explained by an additional (weaker) light source on the left (most likely a reflective surface on the left wall). The hdr processing emphasizes this light in the otherwise dark areas of the picture, which makes it look strange and unnatural, but is still does not prove splicing of several images.

I don't know whether the single raw hdr techique "conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry", but I am pretty sure I have seen it used in news images before. After all, it does not alter the actual scene in any way, it just emphasizes some parts of it differently.

Bit of retouching

[MrDoh!]

Looks brightened up a bit, but not other images thrown in. Can photographers not brighten/tweak contrast on a pic? Posting the original RAW file (if it still exists) would cover him for these sorts of accusations. Wouldn't it be prudent for a news agency to have a backup of the RAW files for A) these sorts of accusations B) their own tweaking of the pic for print/display?

Re:as a professional photographer

[interkin3tic]

It's a well known fact that crowds of greiving Gazans will all simultaneously freeze in their funerals so that photographers can get three good separate exposures for HDR!!! ~