Another Scientology Photo Alterations?

J. Swift · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 8893 Location: 100 Swift Street

Caroline posted this photo in another thread. Standing to the R of David Miscavige in lavender top is Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson. Look at the hand on Nancy's hip. Whose is it? It does not appear to belong to the man behind her in the blue shirt because his arm would need to be extremely long, perhaps five feet long as if he were a giant human monkey.

The photo has an odd angle that makes DM look taller as he stands there with his duck feet splayed out to the sides. Look at where DM's R and and Nancy's L feet meet on the ground. You can see extremely white grout in the bricks on the floor as if this was a botched edit. It can be difficult to edit photos around tight patterns such as that floor. You will also notice how the rows of bricks are screwed up in an apparent edit. One row tapers and ends. That is not how brick floors are laid. This area looks edited to me as does the area behind DM and Nancy. The photo looks reconstituted to me.

Has the Cult photoshopped an SP out of the photo? I think there was a person removed next to DM. It looks like they did an edit to move Nancy in next to DM instead and forgot to edit the mystery thetan hand on her hip.

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spacecootie · Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 1130 Location: Thunderdome

I think the dwarf peed his pants and VOB (voice of Bart) is standing in the puddle.

"Okay! This is the picture session! Your picture is about to be taken. Flunk, Nancy. Okay, this session will go on until the picture is taken. No, I will handle your objection about standing in a puddle of urine. Spot a spot. Now stand in it. Okay, picture taking.... start!"

'Alert' · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:36 pm Post subject:

Egads!

There are sooo many obvious faults with that picture.

What's the deal with that poor ladies face, standing behind Kirstie Alley?
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Snow White · Joined: 06 May 2006 Posts: 741 Location: Enchanted Forest

He has rather long fingers too, for someone of his height. OMG, I only just noticed the additional hand around Nancy's right hip also...lol.

Also look at the lady directly behind Kelly Preston, look at the odd square shadow across her face.

Re Miscavige, if it walks like a duck... Laughing

Puddle · Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 64

Also to the far right look how bizarre the man in the white suits hands on the small black pillar looks. Its like his coat sleeve grew longer and his hand disconnected and landed on the pillar in front of it?

*I just noticed also this same man appears to have lost a foot as well?

Vled · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 508

i would have to concur, i used to work as a digital imager touching up photos of various things and there seem to be some warning signs.

Do you have a higher-resolution copy of this photo?

If so, what you really want to look for are repeated sections of pixels around the suspect areas (i noticed this on the left (our left) side of DM's leg, just above his shoe) - this will only become very obvious with a nice high resolution image. What you also want to look for are very sharp 'edges' or 'lines' of pixels where there is a sharp colour distinction on either side of that 'line' (notice N.Cartwright's hair on our left, and the woman standing next to the 'pole guy' her leg). These repetitions/edges are usually caused by someone using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop - which is the easiest and by far the most common form of image manipulation. Of course, to see these you have to zoom WAY in Wink

Another super obvious thing to look out for are incongruous shadows - i.e. the tall guy on the right hand side holding that pole. The shadows on the brick just next to his foot shouldn't have that sharp a line contrasting them...shadows are soft!

Just from this image, which is a bit difficult to analyse on my end because of the resolution, it looks like DM was edited somewhat as well; possibly made a bit taller? Those tiles look mighty dodgy as well as you have already pointed out...

It's been a while since i did this for a job...but i'd have to agree 100% But with a higher resolution image we could do a more thorough analysis - because you can never be certain which pixels are the way they are because of manipulation or because of the printing process. Higher resolution helps us rule out the latter...
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Vled · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 508

it's really hard to tell though for certain with images that have been printed in a magazine Sad

Also, .jpg creates A LOT of artifacts...if you can scan as a .tiff or some other high quality image that would be grand!
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Sea Horse · Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:30 am Post subject:

Oh stop wasting your time! It's not doctored! Read thread starting here:
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?p=295924#295924
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Vled · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 508

Well at least we know this has already been looked into Smile

But still, i did used to do this for a living (albeit it was retouching photos from old archives whilst digitising them, not looking for signs of manipulation per se)...and although many of the problems could be due to magazine print or .jpg artifacts, there are plenty of strange things about that image.

Still - if we can get a very high resolution, non .jpg image we can examine it much better. Using information such as colour, contrast, saturation, etc. etc. It is here that you can find out for sure...

Oh, and they did a damn awful job on that brickwork if it is real Wink

Also - have to point it out...but you are presuming it's NOT doctored based solely on your own analysis of the situation Wink

i certainly agree with a lot of the things you say in that thread (and showing the whole image makes some of the lighting issues a bit more difficult to point out as evidence...). HOWEVER, i don't think you proved conclusively that there was no manipulation in those photos...not by a long shot.

You certainly do a good job with your analysis, and you seem to know what you are talking about in regards to the location etc. - but it's still fun to speculate!
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Vled · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 508

Taking just one example - having not read the original thread, i did point out the pixel anomaly on DMs leg, which someone else highlighted for a different reason in the original discussion.

Funny we would both point to the same area...for different reasons, and completely independently Wink

Of course - the real issue is that we don't have the digital file of the image Sad

Magazine images are almost impossible to know for certain...
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Sea Horse · Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:03 am Post subject:

Hi Vled,

I actually started out assuming it was a cut/paste job like the Shrine Auditorium event photos we've seen in the past. And, rubbing my hands together evily in anticipation of a good slam job to CofS, I was disappointed to find nothing wrong with the photo.

Sure, they might be some retouching or people put in the photo, but it was after I found all the non-out-points that I concluded/realized that there would be no reason to add people into the photo, except perhaps to add David Miscavige in the front if he wasn't there to begin with.

But those folks sure are grinning like DM graced them with his presence!

There are soooooooooooo many people in that photo and you can see the evidence that they packed 'em in there like sardines -- people standing on risers on the top balcony, people standing sideways to get more people in the photo left-to-right, people jambed up against the bookstore windows and in every corner up against the balcony, people spilling out into the patio area on the left because they don't all fit in -- that's a LOT of people in that tiny area.

And I just realized noticing the bookstore windows, that this group is smushed up to cover only the distance from the steps up to the corner of the bookstore. Wow.

There are definitely distortions like on the right side (front) of the photo, like the photo was taken with a wide-angle lens and there's some optical distortions when you get to the outside edge/limits of the lens.

If this shot was taken in July (or June or even May, any of the summer months around OT Summit 2007) then I pity these people standing around squished together. They were probably sweating like pigs in such a crush.
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J. Swift · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 8893 Location: 100 Swift Street

I put the two group pictures together from Caroline's Flicker account and figured a few things out. Below is the entire group photo. I enhanced and color corrected it:

As others have noted, the photo has been modified. My opinion is that the editor used software distortion filters to bring DM front and center and make him appear as large as possible. Please note the inward curvature of the middle left white column. The right side window exhibits the same inward curvature. The first filter adjusted the vertical axis by slightly squeezing the photo at the top and pushing it apart at the bottom. This makes DM look taller. The second filter curved the photo on its horizontal axis to wrap everyone around DM and make him more the center of attention.

The net effect of these angular distortions is extremely pronounced on the bottom corners of the photo where people appear to be outward-sloping cardboard cutouts as was commented upon. Conversely, the people in the center of the photo appear to be unnaturally smashed together, perhaps like the Clusters of Body Thetans we read about in Scientology's formerly secret scriptures.

For visual reference, Nancy Cartwright is 5'0". DM is said to be about 5'2" by people who worked around him. Kirstie Alley is 5'7". I spliced the two photos along the vertical axis of Kirstie Alley's voluptuous form. Yes, I do lust after her so shut up. Sue me. Anyway, I left a distortion there for my own visual reference.

What still does not make sense to me is the hand on Nancy Cartwright's hip. I had my friend Dr. X analyze the photo at the Crime Lab using 3D forensic bone structure overlay. His forensic opinion is that the hand can only belong to the man in the blue shirt if there were additional optical games played in the photo that he did not care to analyze.

Roan's data on the brickwork was spot on. In this larger photo, the brickwork makes complete sense to me. Good work, Detective Roan. My friend said that he wants you working down at the Crime Lab as an expert on tile, brick, and asphalt anomalies. When can you start?

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J. Swift · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 8893 Location: 100 Swift Street

To help the Cult's gigantic statcrash these days, I doubled the attendance and the square footage at this event for them:

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RealityWillTell · Joined: 10 Apr 2006 Posts: 2928

If they were going to bring their stats to little davy's hallucination level they should have gone all out! Rolling Eyes

(thats the crowd 27 times)
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Old Bomber · Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:06 am Post subject: Subject description: distortion

I hate to have to burst your bubble, but the curvature on the columns and walls is caused by the use of a wide angled lens. It is called barrel distortion.
As far as any Photo-shopping being done, I agree that an original high def picture would be needed to be sure.

Old Bomber
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