What can you tell me about this PS?

[Griff]

You photo shoppers obviously know more about this stuff than I do. What do you think of the photo which appears here? Its the front page of the Weekly Standard documenting the jubilation after the fall of Bagdad from the Memoryhole Website. Memoryhole insists it was tampered with to increase the size of the crowd. The WS says they changed some stuff to get rid of BBC logos and whatnot.

[SteveDallas]

My opinion is that the scans are so damned blurry it makes my head hurt to study them closely.

[Undertoad]

There was some confusion about the size of the crowd because the initial crowd, when they started pulling the statue, was fairly small (about 100 I'd guess). Several cameras focused in on the crowd which made it seem larger than normal -- which is just simply what happens with cropping and long lenses, it's standard practice. After the statue toppled the crowd became larger and larger.

Many anti's focused on the confusing early shots to say "Hey, there weren't that many people there and they made it look like there was!" That may be the case but if so, it was hardly intentional except for the usual TV news approach.

And, of course, it misses the bigger point that millions of people wanted liberation, and if there was a small crowd in the square that day it was because there were about a million and a half people who would have loved to be there but were, you know, dead.

Yesterday they found a mass grave of children. I don't know if this was Photoshopped but I do know those children were real.

[hot_pastrami]

The mass grave of children rattled me, too... more evidence that the leader we just removed from power was an unimaginable bastard.

However, the question Griff posed seems to be more about honesty in the media than whether or not the war was justified.

Disclaimer: I inherently take anything from the media with a very large grain of salt. These are people who are paid to make the news entertaining, so I am certain that occasionally they feel some spice must be added to maximize interest. This can manifest itself as small alterations or complete forgeries.

...however, despite my views on the media, upon careful examination I have to say I think this image is pretty innocent. The only alteration I can confirm in close study of it is the smudgy stuff in the top left, where presumably the BBC logo was removed. I used Paint Shop Pro to duplicate some of the supposed repeated patterns and superimpose them with translucency, and they don't <i>quite</i> match up. Close, but not quite. And in a blurred photo of similarly dressed people in a crowd, similar shapes are going to appear.

There is the dude's arm which is extra-skinny at the wrist, but there are several possible explanations.. slightly goofy print on that particular cover, or maybe the compression of the digital signal for the original TV shot caused the artifact. Or, it could be the result of altering the photo, but nothing else in the vicinity of that arm is suspect, so I doubt it... notice how the Memory Hole doesn't circle any of the stuff to either immediate side of that arm?

I may be wrong, but I think the mag is being truthful this time.

[Griff]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami

However, the question Griff posed seems to be more about honesty in the media than whether or not the war was justified.

Yah, I was looking for more of a nut -n- bolts this is what do you look for kind of thing. I'm ready to leave the war behind.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Just maybe that arm was the result of one of Saddams torture chambers. Besides, all them a-rabs look alike anyway.
Seriously though, if the picture was altered beyond removing the network logos and transmission blurs that was wrong, but it doesn't change the facts of the incident.