Faked images in the news

by · Posted in: digital alterations

The New York Times and almost everyone else is running a story about the extra Iranian missile digitally added to a photograph. Many of the major news outlets ran the faked image on their front pages. Most of the news outlets are covering the possibility that Iran is releasing less-than-truthful information through its state run news agency, Sepah. It should be taken for granted that information from a military news outlet, especially a hostile one should not be taken at face value—it is almost the definition of propaganda. Who is in charge of photo editing at these major newspapers who can't instantly spot this as a fake? The halo around the first missle is glaring, as is the cloned smoke. It was so bad it even made photoshop disasters. With today’s technology, a photo from an unvetted source should be submitted to the same scrutiny as stories and rumors. When done with a little more skill these kinds of photo manipulations can be difficult to detect. If the Iranians had better photoshop help this deception would have easily gone unnoticed. Adobe is rumored to be working on photo authentication tools which may make it more difficult and hopefully with the help of people like Dartmouth College’s Hany Farid we will not depend on the eyes of busy photo editors to determine when an image is faked.