Strata Lucida

Petty photoshoppery

So there's this photo going around that has John Kerry with Jane Fonda at what is allegedly an antiwar rally in 1970. Trouble is, the Photoshop fakery is even more obvious than the (manual) alteration of that picture of Lee Harvey Oswald with the newspaper. Sisyphus Shrugged provides the necessary graphic details on the photo, which is also debunked on snopes.com. Hear Sisyphus:

1) Line screen. Look it up. Really. If youre going to be creating things that were supposed to have been scanned from newsprint, you need to know about this.

2) Pixellation. Youve got about three different levels of pixellation going on here on areas of similar ink density. Not good.

3) Newsprint. You may be surprised to hear that there is no white ink involved in the printing of newspapers. Its not possible for a photograph printed on a greyish medium to have white burn spots.

But wait! If you apply Safirean logic, it works: In 2004, an image of Jane Fonda from the late '70s was photoshopped onto one of John Kerry from 1970. This proves that CNN secretly manages Kerry's unpatriotic campaign. After all, we couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

Update: Safire logic has infected the entire New York Times. As political reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg credulously reports:

On Thursday, a new photograph of the senator and the actress began circulating via e-mail. Unlike the image Mr. Sampley bought, which shows Mr. Kerry seated several rows behind Ms. Fonda, this picture — its origins are unclear — shows them side by side, Ms. Fonda behind a microphone and Mr. Kerry, holding a notebook, to her right.

I think Stolberg might want to get her eyes checked.

Posted by Chris at February 13, 2004 07:23 AM