Photo Editing .....

I have been reading XPD by thriller writer Len Deighton as my train book .... 

 

XPD Thriller By Len Deighton

 

..... the premise is that in June 1940, Hitler and Churchill met up near the Belgium border to discuss British surrender terms .... the Nazi papers which described the meeting are on the loose, and the British, Soviets, CIA and a German group are all after them for different reasons.

 

The key dates in the Book are 11th June when Churchill flew to Briare with a 12 Hurricane cover, but didn't have any such escort to return the next day .... The official excuse was bad weather, but other RAF operations in that area had no bad weather issues and bombed the Albert canal in Belgium, to say nothing of a long range attack on Turin from England on the same day.

In the book, a Staffel of Messerschmidt's escorted Churchill to the meeting with Hitler, which is why he had no escort flight booked for the 12th June. I have no idea if these dates really matched RAF and Luftwaffe flights etc in real life, but the book is reasonably well written, and passes a train commute .... The reason why I am mentioning this at all, is that in this particular print (2009), the cover featured a spoof photo of Hitler meeting Churchill and an aide, and as I have been using photo shop to repair old pictures, I was interested in this skill.

I then realised that in some of the pictures I have 'repaired':

(a) It would have been very easy to alter them significantly, and
(b) If I had printed them on photo paper, it might be difficult to easily say where the alterations had been made.

Bad photo fixing, usually ignores things like shadow lines, sight lines (where the eyes are looking), or ridiculously attempts to stick faces on to false bodies (for some reason, porn sites feature this particular type), and just looks daft. Good ones are far more subtle, and can often be very hard to spot, even with a computer.

I did a jokey one on The Thirteen MP's posting - it was not intended to fool anyone, but just illustrate the story.

 Spartan Warrior ... No!

However the same techniques could be used to make all sort of historical photos look real ..... using Hitler Meets Churchill as my template ...... I produced this. On the right blurry photo-paper and suitably battered it could look real enough.

Faked Image

 

then aged a bit ......

Faked Image Aged

But the web also has many 'the Nazi's had Alien technology' theories, which are often backed up by pictures such as this ....

Fake Hitler And Alien

Then there are the Obama and the aliens ...

Faked Obama And Alien

And even proof positive, about what many believed to be the truth on Ross Perot.

Ross Perot and Alien

Of course its easy to find pictures that look fake but are real ..... yes, Hitler really did bow his head in deference to another 'Giant' German (literally, he looks huge in this picture) .... in this case Hindenburg, who he feared while he was alive.

Real Hitler And Hindenburg

But this photo faking has been practised since the camera was invented ..... first you see him.

Stalin And Young Comrade

Then you don't  ....

Faked - Young Comrade Erased

..... and not a computer or photo-shop in sight ..... just the will of Stalin.

There is Nothing is New under the Sun .......