Suitably Flip

Mahmoud the Fauxtographer

May 2012 Update:  Nearly four years after this post was written, it's been resurrected as a big traffic generator, thanks to Iran recycling one of the crazier photoshops created to mock their 2008 missile fail.  It was traced back to the (now dormant) blog WhatTheCrap and includes not one, but dozens of cloned missiles, as well as one... Jar Jar Binks.  But Iran apparently still thought it would withstand western scrutiny.

Below is the original post smacking down Iran's in-house fauxtography back in 2008.

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Noted document debunker Charles Johnson has noticed something peculiar about one of Iran's bits of official propaganda following Wednesday's missile launch.

Unless Iranian missile exhaust tends to form remarkably regular patterns, someone's been busying himself with the clone tool.

See LGF for the original hi-res image with some of the curious regions highlighted.  I've taken the liberty of animating an overlay based on Johnson's apt pattern matching.  As a gif, it suffers some degradation from the resolution of the original, but you get the idea.

Silly Mahmoud.  We would've found you just as tough and manly with just the two missiles.

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Update:  This image, part of a framegrab from an Al Alam television broadcast of the launch (apparently taken at approximately the same time from a slightly higher elevation) makes it pretty clear which missile was conjured from borrowed pixels.

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Update:  Think it's only forged documents and still images that hornswoggle mainstream media outlets?  Think again.

Update:  The AFP retracts:

A handout picture released on the news website and public relations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards … shows an image apparently digitally altered to show four missiles rising into the air instead of three during a test-firing at an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert on July 9, 2008. The 2nd Right missile has apparently been added in digital retouch to cover a grounded missile that may have failed during the test.

Update: This seems like a good excuse for a commemorative movie poster.

Click image for full size.

 

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Mahmoud the Fauxtographer

May 2012 Update:  Nearly four years after this post was written, it's been resurrected as a big traffic generator, thanks to Iran recycling one of the crazier photoshops created to mock their 2008 missile fail.  It was traced back to the (now dormant) blog WhatTheCrap and includes not one, but dozens of cloned missiles, as well as one... Jar Jar Binks.  But Iran apparently still thought it would withstand western scrutiny.

Below is the original post smacking down Iran's in-house fauxtography back in 2008.

---

Noted document debunker Charles Johnson has noticed something peculiar about one of Iran's bits of official propaganda following Wednesday's missile launch.

Unless Iranian missile exhaust tends to form remarkably regular patterns, someone's been busying himself with the clone tool.

See LGF for the original hi-res image with some of the curious regions highlighted.  I've taken the liberty of animating an overlay based on Johnson's apt pattern matching.  As a gif, it suffers some degradation from the resolution of the original, but you get the idea.

Silly Mahmoud.  We would've found you just as tough and manly with just the two missiles.

---

Update:  This image, part of a framegrab from an Al Alam television broadcast of the launch (apparently taken at approximately the same time from a slightly higher elevation) makes it pretty clear which missile was conjured from borrowed pixels.

---

Update:  Think it's only forged documents and still images that hornswoggle mainstream media outlets?  Think again.

Update:  The AFP retracts:

A handout picture released on the news website and public relations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards … shows an image apparently digitally altered to show four missiles rising into the air instead of three during a test-firing at an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert on July 9, 2008. The 2nd Right missile has apparently been added in digital retouch to cover a grounded missile that may have failed during the test.

Update: This seems like a good excuse for a commemorative movie poster.

Click image for full size.

 

Digg This!