Note: I write a weekly technology column for USAToday.com.
There’s a growing controversy about an AP photo of Condi Rice in USA Today that’s being called “doctored.”
It’s obvious why. On the left, the original. On the right, what ran:
So I decided to play with Photoshop to see what it took to make that happen. Did it require several subtle manipulations, or was it a simple thing (and thus more likely the result of a assembly line photo mentality — remember, this isn’t a USA Today photo; they got it from the AP wire).
The answer took about 10 seconds to find. The change is likely the result of using the Unsharp Mask filter, which is the standard way of sharpening a photo.
Here’s the process in action. You can see the original, and in the Unsharp Mask box is the result using fairly standard settings. (Click to enlarge it.)
Was it malice? Probably not. There are hundreds of AP photos coming on the wire every day, and chances are someone simply applied the standard filters and popped it into the publishing system.
(You might comment that my unsharp-masked photo isn’t as striking as the one USA Today ran. I simply used my default Unsharp Mask settings; their’s is probably different.)
Of course, it’s always fun to pick on the media, and someone should have noticed this, but when you’re talking one shot out of thousands, I’m not surprised that it got through.
The Fray
gnomic says:
Anyone remember the really bad science fiction movie with Roddy Piper? I swear Rice looks exacly like the evil aliens.
Tim S says:
Interesting they couldn’t find a sharper photo to use of such a public figure. There must be thousands of them. And with the shutters you hear at media events, the same photog probably took 50 more that day.
If they were just looking for a generic Condi shot and didn’t need to show her in a particular context they could have easily used one of the ones in their morgue. By running this one though Photoshop’s unsharp filter it also had the effect of artificially highlighting facial blemishes.
And this shot doesn’t look look soft for any of the usual particular reasons: ie, blurred from motion of the lens or the subject, or the result of an out of focus lens.
Looks to me as though it was a sharp photo that has been softened in Photoshop (Gaussian Blur) so they could in turn use the “unsharp mask” on it to get the demonic look.
Kind of reminds me of the mug shot of OJ Simpson that Time doctored to make him look evil. Of course they said it was inadvertent too. African Americans are still easy targets – even for the left wing press I guess.
braine says:
Also, Condoleeza Rice is evil.