The Age of Media Fakery: Threshold of the Simulation

[upstream]

Spotted this in the news today. Thought it would be interesting to the photoshop experts around here.

Is it real or is it Photoshopped? New tool reveals how much a celeb’s image has been altered

Handsomeness notwithstanding, we know George Clooney’s forehead can’t be that smooth. But how wrinkled is it?

And Fergie’s got some figure, but is it as ample as we’ve been led to believe?

Researchers from Dartmouth College are proposing a new software tool that would for the first time allow discerning viewers to gauge the degree to which a photo has been altered — on a scale from 1 to 5.
[...]
While most photos in magazines and advertising are altered to some degree, the tool would let people see just how much has changed from the original.

Farid, who collaborated with Ph.D. student Eric Kee on the novel five-point metric tool, will have his research published in academic journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
[...]
The catch is, the software would require the original photo to be submitted with the altered one — meaning the industry would have to be on board with disclosing just how much its subjects have been touched up.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1094361--is-it-real-or-is-it-photoshopped-new-tool-reveals-how-much-a-celeb-s-image-has-been-altered?bn=1

[nonhocapito]

If this tool or other tools will be further promoted by mainstream media, it can only mean that photoshopping techniques that work around it have already been inserted in the fakery-creation process.

I think the case of the "remastered" picture of "Brad Fetchet dancing with grandma" (as exposed here) proves that they are aware of the tools such as Error Level Analysis -- and are starting to implement ways to systematically work around it. The new "dancing with grandma" picture returns "perfect" from the ELA.

[lux]

Hope it isn't too much of a groaner to bring this old topic up but I just noticed how fake this old "photo" looks:

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7295/jfklimousine.png

[reel.deal]

.

[maggie]

The Zapruder film has certainly been doctored. It's yet another partial hangout bit of information.
It's weird enough in itself that Zapruder knew, on such short notice, where to set up to get the maximum view of the assassination.
And from other stuff I've read, the car did come to a stop, or nearly so, for the dirty deed to be done. (That's the most compelling argument for the Grassy Knoll theory, slow the car so that someone else from afar could get a potshot at him. But the wound entry doesn't support that either.)
We may never know what happened that day. Clearly Oswald didn't do it, and the direction of the bullet doesn't seem to be a Grassy Knoll possibility either.
Some people postulate that the driver did it when the car was slowed. That seems too risky and implausible to me in that short timeframe. Too much could go wrong.
John Connally may be just a squawking actor shill in the situation. I have trouble believing he was shot at all.
My favourite postulation as to how and why it was done is from this source:
http://www.realityreviewed.com/JFK%20murder.htm
Look at Jackie's actions, undistorted in the Zapruder film as far as I can tell.
JFK's assassination is a giant esoteric ritual sacrifice from other points of view, like Lady Di or 911.
This is from the work of Bryan Kemila of IlluminatiMatrix, a fascinating site in itself:
http://illuminatimatrix.wordpress.com/6 ... ssination/

[lux]

My belief is that no one did it because what the public thinks happened that day didn't happen.

[maggie]

Lux, what are you suggesting, that JFK was spirited away to a Caribbean island to sip martinis with a bevy of girls for the rest of his life?

[lux]

OK, who squealed?

I'm suggesting that the purpose of that incident was not assassination but simply the effect created on the public. It was purely a psy-op for the public's "benefit." Someone may have been killed -- I don't know -- but, if so, I doubt it was JFK.

It's just my feeling about it. I can't believe that anyone would actually plan the assassination of the POTUS with that kind of hokey, flaky, made-in-Hollywood scenario. There's a zillion ways to kill somebody quickly and easily -- why do it the hard way? And, in front of the world and press? It's the same sort of reasoning as "why didn't they use real planes on 9/11?" Way too many ways it could go wrong -- that's why.

But, that's just my take.

[maggie]

Lux, I haven't a clue; you may be right. We may all be illusory toys for a grand mindgame that's just messing with all of us for its own amusement.
That's just it, we may all need to step away from what we have been brainwashed to think is real.
This is why I have respect for this site in the proponents' efforts to show how and sometimes why events presented in this world are not real.
Me, I'm just an old housewife who has a comfortable country life playing with cats and flittering around on the Internet. I don't know why lately for me it's such a big deal to try to find the would-be truth in things, but I'm hooked on websites like this that are trying to winkle out the truth of what and why any of us are here trying to do.

[simonshack]

*

THE ZAPRUDER FILM (my two cents)

At the time, they had to film some real scene with that limousine. That scene was certainly mixed with the background (with those bystanders looking the other way...). Of course, there were no computer video softwares back then - so some degree of acting was required from the persons we see travelling in the limousine.

It's rather obvious to me that JFK (or the actor playing JFK in the Zapruder film) applies some cinematic special fx device to his cheek and fires it off. We can clearly see a puff of talc/flour/powder bursting UPWARDS in the face of "JFK" at 0:28 - in the below video:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHYSwK9Xac

Let's now make a HUGE leap forward and see what sort of images we have of that day in Dallas - TODAY (in 2011). In fact, just like they do with the 9/11 imagery (churning out updated/higher-resolution pics year after year), so they appear to keep doing with the Dallas JFK imagery. Here is the still picture posted above by our member Lux. Wow - I have never seen such a glossy image of JFK in DALLAS in my entire lifetime! How could that be?



Well, there's an immediate problem with the color scales seen behind that windscreen:


Then, we have a classic reflection cock-up involving that secret service man's 5-fingered hand:




So anyway, the official tale of the JFK assassination is false. Yet, just like many old movies have proved to be (early 'artistic sparks' often turn out to be unbeatable) the Zapruder flick was a pretty fine effort on the part of the perps.

[lux]

The "spectators" crack me up. The ones in the upper right corner. Literally cut & paste. And, the sun is all wrong. It's coming from one direction for the occupants of the car but not for those spectators. Also, who is JFK smiling at? I don't see anyone in the reflection on the side of the car just below him (more visible in the larger version I posted earlier). And his elbow looks like another cut & paste. The whole photo looks like a fake composite to me. Was JFK even in Dallas that day? I wonder.

[pov603]

WHERE'S JACKIE & JOHN THEN ?
DUNNO ! ...THEY SHOULD BE HERE... ANY MINUTE !!!

Another odd anomaly with the sequence is the driver's flag as compared to the passenger-side flag.
One flapping and one not.
Know we know which one they took to the Moon!

[grav]

My belief is that no one did it because what the public thinks happened that day didn't happen.

I don't believe for a second that JFK was really shot in that limo as depicted in the movie. Using this video as evidence is a joke. There was no reason to murder JFK. All that mattered was the effect such news would have on the population. I think it's an incredible stretch to assume JFK was an ignorant or innocent party to the culture of hoaxing Americans.


And great photos Lux and Simon, all smoking guns for media fakery. Those pasted in crowds are ridiculous.

[lux]

All that mattered was the effect such news would have on the population.

I quite agree.

But, to what end? Any thoughts as to why they wanted that effect on the population?

[CryptoAnarchist]

All that mattered was the effect such news would have on the population.

I quite agree.

But, to what end? Any thoughts as to why they wanted that effect on the population?

I would say so that they could start a war in Vietnam.

I think part of the manipulation is to have the fake 'good guys' (like Ron Paul?) to create the one end of the dialectic. Kennedy was a "good guy" that wouldn't have taken us into a useless war. They switch leaders to 'bad guy' LBJ to go to war, AND create a "good guy" martyr with which to completely spellbind people with for years. Pretty clever.