Global Warming “Fauxtography”…

Because Photoshop… Trumps… Science… and…. reality. Perhaps in Al Gore’s pathetic little world… but to the rest of us? Not so much.

AP Global Warming Fauxtography?
Article: BigGovernment

Is the Associated Press distributing a doctored photo that news organizations are now running in their Copenhagen coverage?

Founding Bloggers’ very own, Allan Sluis, is calling attention to an image that just might be the latest example of what has come to be know as “Fauxtography” – or – passing doctored images off as good faith representations of reality.

Below is a detailed examination of the image, beginning with the shot as it was displayed Monday, December 7th, on Foxnews.com (Fox link via SPQA.org):

And here is the image as seen without the cropping Fox News applied. It is from the Baltimore Sun, dated July 2009:

Oh those poor geese flying right through those rust colored smoke plumes! They might start dropping out of the sky at any moment!

But what if the truth is not as apocalyptic as the AP image appears to depict?

A number of things about this image look unusual to Allan, who is a professional photo retoucher and graphic illustrator with nearly 20 years experience pushing pixels.

Below is the image with arrows highlighting specific features which upon close examination look very suspect, calling into question the honesty of the presentation of this picture.

Allan’s observations:

There is ample reason to believe that this photograph supplied to news organizations by the Associated Press has been substantially color-enhanced, perhaps to convey a false impression of pollution coming from a smoke stack from a purported coal-fueled power plant in Kansas. Here is a detailed description of the evidence that the original photo was either a black-and-white image, or a color image which was converted to black-and-white, and then colorized for dramatic effect.

A1: Note this area of smoke rising directly from the smokestack is mysteriously missing any orange tone.

A2: Notice the unusual falloff of orange color in the background clouds (yes, those are clouds) just to the right of the smoke rising directly from the smokestack.

A3: A close examination reveals an unnaturally saturated hard color edge on that particular smoke lump.

B: Another unnatural saturation intensity increase to the left of the arrow. Note how rapid the orange tint fades in intensity on the left and the right of the arrow point.

C1, C2 & C3: These three arrows surround an area of sloppy retouching where the color tint was painted in too intense and abrupt to be convincing. Note how this color area pops substantially and quite suspiciously. This is also direct evidence that the retoucher is likely deliberately trying to blur the distinction between the actual smoke rising from the smokestack and the BACKGROUND CLOUDS deceptively conveying the impression that the entire area is choked with nasty orange pollution. This deceptive color continues right across the top of the smokestack and to the right going right over the background clouds.

D: Another area marked by the arrow point where the background clouds were not completely color tinted by the retoucher and the background gray is visibly missing orange tone.

Next, Allan began to reconstruct what he felt the original image might have looked like before it was allegedly enhanced, and in doing so, made a surprising discovery:

The evidence that this photo was originally a grayscale or black-and-white image was arrived at with a simple Photoshop process. We encourage other Photoshop enthusiasts and experts to recreate our work. (Here is the largest version of the image we could find)

1) Add a “Hue/Sat” adjustment layer directly above the original jpeg.

2) Drop the saturation percentage for both the Yellows and Reds Edit category down to zero.

Note how the image is now a perfectly even balance of the Red Green and Blue. This is easily viewable in the Info palette as you move the cursor over the image.

This is only possible if the original image is black-and-white or grayscale.

In a normal full-color image, there WILL be variances in the tone of the blues and greens. The desaturating of the Yellows and Reds would not touch the cooler colors. The other colors are not there.

This leads me to believe that this is a black and white image that has been colorized!

It is not possible to know if the camera original photograph is a black-and-white, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the jpeg being distributed was colorized from a black-and-white image.

Here is what the image likely looked like before it was colorized:

We also in Hue/Sat discovered that the tone of the smokestack itself has been darkened substantially. A simple “Lightness” move in the same adjustment layer to the Master category readily shows this.

Below is how the image is displayed on the AP website where they are selling it to news organizations. Note the creation date. This dud has been out there for a while: