Back in early August, Congresswoman Katherine Harris complained that some newspapers had colorized her photographs. I came across this commentary about it at TalkLeft.
I enjoy a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, so I decided to see if her claims were plausible. First I took the photograph of her that appeared on TalkLeft, pictured here at right. Then I ran it through the photo editing program that came with my digital camera (Ulead Photo Express), and turned down the blue and turned up the red, just a little. The resulting image is shown below the original.
Note the flag in the background. On the first picture, the blue is a Royal blue; on the second, while not perfect, it is much closer to the Navy blue that is actually used for American flags.
Now, I am obviously not a professional photographer or photo editor; certainly nobody is paying me to do layout for a newspaper. So the tweaks done to these pictures are amateurish at best.
It only took me a couple of seconds and a single function on my photo editing software to make Katherine Harris look less like Tammy Faye Bakker and more like a normal person. For someone who does this for a living, it is a trivial edit. And if that someone has an agenda that may be furthered by making a subtle change, it is easy for that person to do.
Intrigued, I decided to try it again with some other famous people. Here is a picture of Ann Coulter with Reverend Al Sharpton. Messing with the color just a little bit gave Al a pink suit instead of white, and made it look like Ann is dying of embarrassment.
Of course, Ann may well have been dying of embarrassment, having been seen standing next to Reverend Al Freakin' Sharpton. However, I doubt that, as this picture is posted on her website. Maybe she was going for a Jekyll/Hyde thing, I dunno.
Katherine Harris may indeed have a point here.
Technorati Tags: Media
2 comments:
...but you "edited" a photo and manipulated the colors to assert that the orginal photo might have been edited? In a sense you said that there were means at the media's disposal that could have made Harris look more pleasing and since they didn't use them, they erred? Anyone who has seen that burgundy suit in person will tell you that its color in the first photo is true to form.
And anyone who has seen the American flag in person can look at the one in the original and tell you that it is too blue.
I think that whover first published the original photo jacked up the blue until her eyeshadow looked hideous.
Post a Comment