Bitbutter

Not really of course. But here's an entertaining parody created in response to the thin-skinned Catholic outrage over the film 'The Golden Compass'.

Parents at a 12:50 showing of "The Golden Compass" in Fort Worth's Eastchase district were both shocked and appalled to find that the movie was preceded by a trailer for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the novel "Prince Caspian", which some parents fear may cause their children to read a series that promotes spiritual belief and "denigrates Atheism."

"I just can't believe this," said Leah Jones, mother of three and proud atheist. "I can't believe that they would allow children to be exposed to this kind of thing without warning!

I saw the following image on a blog. It's a CCTV still of the London bombers of "7-7″. The author presents this image and the accompanying legend as evidence that the image has been doctored in Photoshop. In my work as a web developer I deal with compressed photographs regularly and I find these claims of foul play unconvincing to say the least.

1. The Haversack. A crude job, and it shows.
2. The Half Leg. How does this person walk at all?
3. The Iron Face. The bar should be behind. Is there a face?
4. The Bar Split. The two ends of the crossbar don't line up.
5. The Split Two. Same problem as above. Must be a twist in space.
6. The Face Blur. Face has been darkened and blurred -like the others.
7. The Ghost Bar. Some of this crossbar should be behind the person.
8. The Something. Another anomalous square area. It must be something.
9. The Clown Foot. What a large foot -with a halo effect all around.
10. The Floater. Someone was a bit too heavy with the white reflection.
11. The Peg Leg. Must be a serious fracture. Also yet more halo effect.
12. The Shadow. Why wall shadow if the light comes from behind him.
13. The Square Nose. Must have walked into a door. Interesting eye too.

Here's a version of the photo without the overlay:

"1. The Haversack. A crude job, and it shows."

Not at all. What shows is image compression artifacts and loss of detail.

"2. The Half Leg. How does this person walk at all?"

The leg is foreshortened, exactly as we would expect a leg to look at various moments as a person walks towards us.

"3. The Iron Face. The bar should be behind. Is there a face?"

The bar is behind the face. A highlight on the face appears at the same level as the bar. Hardly remarkable.

"4. The Bar Split. The two ends of the crossbar don't line up."
"5. The Split Two. Same problem as above. Must be a twist in space."

In any photograph there is a chance that lens distortion would prevent a bar like this 'lining up' at either side of an object in front of it. But despite this, the claim that the bars don't line up here is baseless. I've added an overlay here to demonstrate that the lines do in fact line up as we'd expect them to:

"6. The Face Blur. Face has been darkened and blurred -like the others."

Check the surrounding street furniture, notice that it is also blurry and unclear. Recognize that it is the nature of highly compressed images to be blurry and unclear. The image gives us no grounds for supposing that these faces have been deliberately manipulated.

"7. The Ghost Bar. Some of this crossbar should be behind the person"

All of the crossbar is, in fact, behind the person. If you look carefully you'll see that there is a dark shape beyond the crossbar that you are mistaking for part of the body of the person.

"8. The Something. Another anomalous square area. It must be something."

I don't understand why this item is even in the list.

"9. The Clown Foot. What a large foot -with a halo effect all around."

Halos like this one are very common. They are artifacts caused by automatic image sharpening processes that many cameras apply.

"10. The Floater. Someone was a bit too heavy with the white reflection."

The reflection looks perfectly natural considering that the ground is clearly wet, and the man is wearing bright white trainers.

"11. The Peg Leg. Must be a serious fracture. Also yet more halo effect."

The trouser fold looks strange, but is far from suspicious.

"12. The Shadow. Why wall shadow if the light comes from behind him."

The light is diffused and doesn't appear to be strongly directional. It's also far from clear that the 'wall shadow' is actually a shadow of the man at all.

"13. The Square Nose. Must have walked into a door. Interesting eye too."

The nose area is described by only nine pixels, it's hardly surprising that it looks squareish. There is nothing remarkable or unnatural looking about the nose or eye.

Reading this list, I think the author could reach similar paranoid conclusions about any highly compressed digital image.

I’m starting to notice that getting to work on a rails project after you’ve booted up your mac is a tedious business due to all the applications and processes you need to set off. Here some AppleScripted automation is welcome. There are some very useful guides on this subject already; i’m adding my own variation to the pile. Continue reading…