Those who read my Al Franken diary from a few days back and comments I’ve written on other diaries will recall that I have never claimed that the picture of Franken allegedly groping Leeann Tweeden on the airplane was photoshopped. I recall writing once or twice that it was not. I was sure of that even before Franken confirmed that it was genuine.
This is because I have done a lot of photoshopping myself. You might have spotted my images in science stories by Steven Andrew, aka Darksyde, either years ago or a couple of them more recently.
You’re less likely to have seen this one, though, a promotional image for a novel of mine:
Or my transformation of an ancient, bashed-up marble bust of Alexander the Great into the closest I could get to a photo:
My point here is that I know about photoshopping from doing it, which means I can also spot it.
Sorry to make you see this again:
I knew it wasn’t shopped pretty much with one look, because nothing looked wrong. It was taken using a flash, and the flash-shadows are all correct in their size, angle, width, sharpness or fuzziness of edge, and even the way they can’t be seen when the camera angle and flash angle line up. And they’re landing on all kinds of different things at different distances. Faking a photo always means adding at least one image artificially to another. Here it would have had to be Franken—but also all those shadows. I am not saying it couldn’t be done, but it would be fiendishly difficult. So I wasn’t surprised when he confirmed the picture was real.
But then there’s this photo, offered by Franken’s second accuser, Lindsay Menz, who went to CNN with the story, as evidence that Franken groped her rear at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010. According to CNN, Franken said he did not recall the photo-shoot, which is plausible considering that he would have had his photo taken with dozens if not hundreds of people at the event. Menz originally posted it on Facebook.
Now before you call me a conspiracy theorist, apologist, or sexual-abuser ally, hear the evidence.
All the evidence. One should never make such a claim on only one sign of photoshopping. (I see Trumpcult and/or Putinbots doing this all the time on Twitter.) A photoshop job will show multiple signs, especially if it is not well done. This one does and they are listed below.
I was not able to find an unaltered image that could be the basis for this one on the net. But that does not mean it doesn’t exist, or never did, on a camera memory and/or hard drive.
My opinion is that this was originally a picture of Franken alone against this same background, to which Menz was added in such a way to make them appear very close together. It would have been easy to do compared to the Tweeden one. Why? The background is simple (makes a huge difference), the dark figures contrast well against it (except in two places, about which more later, but also makes a huge difference), and the light is diffuse, so the shopper doesn’t have to worry about placing shadows precisely.
Here are the signs I see:
- The very first thing that struck me about this photo was how physically close Franken and Menz are to each other. (I commented elsewhere that it worried me.) I assumed they were friends, was very surprised to read that they were strangers. But really, they’re in a position that looks most like a husband and wife who have a loving relationship enjoying a vertical snuggle. And it is not just him apparently inclining his head towards hers so that they’re just about cheek to cheek, but her apparently inclining her neck to get her face close to his. The closeness of their bodies also is very intimate (and in fact implausible, as I’ll get to later). That degree of physical closeness is very odd for strangers, and her apparent participation in it is not consistent with her account, that he pulled her closer than she was comfortable with. When that happens it is instinct to pull whatever part of your body you can away, but she’s clearly not doing so with her head at all. (Others have noted the inconsistency of her pleasant smile, which includes her eyes, with being butt-groped.)
- Next I zoomed in, and the first thing I noticed was that it’s a poor-quality image, not very sharp. When you zoom in, it defocuses pretty badly pretty soon, and does so before it pixellates. (Meaning it goes out of focus before you can see individual pixels.) Compare that to the Tweeden picture: in that one, when you zoom in, Franken’s face goes a touch out of focus before it pixellates, but Tweeden’s, not at all, because she was at the distance of best focus.) Now such fuzziness can be due to the camera or phone being out of focus, but it can also be done purposely in post-production by using a blur function to hide signs of photoshopping. It does make it harder to catch.
- It’s also quite dark. If it were my image, I would try to enhance it by raising the brightness and contrast to make it happier and the faces pop more. This was not done. That could be because whoever had it either wasn’t inclined or didn’t know how; but it could also be due to what happens when you do brighten it, which I will show you a bit later. The original image might even have been darkened to conceal signs of photoshopping.
- The pic is not centered typically for a pair shot. The face that is dead centre is Franken’s. Menz says it was taken by her husband; one would think he would emphasize her more than Franken, or—most typically—leave equal space on either side of the pair of heads as people usually do instinctively. This is one reason I think the original picture was just of him, and she was added.
- The angle of light hitting the two figures should be exactly the same, but does not appear to be. It is daylight on a sunny day and therefore slightly blue when it hits figures in shade. On Franken’s face it appears to be coming from his left; on Menz’s it seems to be coming from closer to directly in front of her. It could be argued that this is due to his face shadowing hers, but that doesn’t explain the shine on her right cheek and on the centre of the bridge of her nose (between her eyes).
- Where is her left shoulder? The positioning of the front of her shirt and the smallness of his left shoulder suggests his shoulder is behind hers, meaning her left shoulder must be under his armpit. But if so, the distance between his armpit and the top of his shoulder is implausibly tiny. Both a person’s shoulders extend out an equal distance from the neck. When the body is angled, the more distant shoulder will appear smaller. But if you look at her and imagine where her left shoulder should be compared to her right, perspective cannot explain its disappearance. To get the faces close together, it’s basically been erased. Notice the join-point between their two bodies is hidden under a swath of her dark hair.
- The collar of Franken’s dark blue shirt has a lighter stripe. But we don’t see it on the right side on the collar, even though on the left it’s lying flat enough that it should show on the right if it’s lying flat the same way. You could argue that the collar is open and therefore higher on that side, hiding the stripe; but then more of his neck should be showing and the light, since it’s coming from our right, should shine on the inside of the collar at least a bit. What would be the point of disappearing it? Probably that when it was showing, it made the odd disappearance of her left shoulder more obvious.
- The join-point between their two faces is a crucial place to work on if you are pasting one face next to another to create the illusion that they are close together:
Note: I have altered absolutely nothing else; the only difference is brightening by (for replicability) 24 tones. If you’re on a laptop, stretch your neck higher or tilt your screen to get a view from a higher angle, and with the additional brightening from that you’ll see it more clearly. If you suspect I’ve altered something else, I invite you to get your own copy of this picture from the CNN story, brighten it yourself and look.
You might argue that, perhaps, the hard edge delineating her from him is just a slightly brighter strand of hair. But it shouldn’t be that bright, because her hair should be very well shadowed in the gap between them. The shadow is very dark on his side and should be equally dark on hers, as both are being hit with the same (very small) amount of light, but it’s not. Nor should the deep brown shade of her hair be that different from that of the shadow, because in deep shadows, colour is lost. (Think of night vision.) I know this from blending the edges of umpteen images I was putting together to make them not look fake.
- Related: I think the photoshopper overdid the deepening of the shadow on the right side of Franken’s face, making his upper cheek and, to a lesser degree, his temple appear oddly shaped. Doing that kind of shading is really tricky to get right.
- Also related: the part in her hair is the same brightness almost to its back end. Remember, it runs backwards along the top/side of her head. (When photoshopping, you must constantly remember that you are working on a 2D rendition of 3D reality.) Only in a picture of her unshadowed should it be the same brightness along its length. Her head should be shadowed by his so it should quickly gradate to darkness at the back.
- The edge of her right shoulder has a slight dark bluish halo, which is why there’s a slight unnatural-looking dark line between it and the pale blue background. Notice the blue is not the same colour as the shadow created by a bump in the fabric. That means it is not a shadow. What is it? The residue of a dark blue background from which her picture was cut, using a photoshop selection tool that discerns colour. If you are left with such a halo because you can’t set the selection tool to low-enough tolerance to eliminate it, you have to erase it completely to make the image look right. I have done this umpteen times, too. Contrast it with Franken’s ear against the background: no dark halo.
I think there are likely more signs that are more subtle. There are some that I have noticed but not mentioned as I’m not really sure. The above-listed ones suffice for me.
You might argue that she’s got stray hairs showing outside the edge of the main body of her hair, proving it’s real. (I saw that argued elsewhere about another pic.) They’re easy to do. Go back and look at Alexander. His hair is totally computer-rendered because a stone bust can never have realistic-looking hair, so I had to do it all over, and I added stray hairs for realism.
You might ask, as this woman is apparently not a right-wing operative, what would her motive be for 1) photoshopping to accompany a sexual abuse allegation on Facebook in 2010 and 2) taking it to CNN in 2017? Absent evidence such as that which connects Roger Stone and Putinbots to the Tweeden allegation, I don’t know and can only theorize. However, just because we do not know a motive doesn’t mean there isn’t one. People have all kinds of motives. And Roger Stone might have got a clue and decided not to tweet his moves this time. At any rate, lack of known motive doesn’t erase the photoshopping signs.
I look forward to a rational, evidence-based discussion in the comments. I will not answer personal attacks or aspersions cast on my motives, as that would promote a type of dialogue which I think weakens the effectiveness of Daily Kos as a progressive & Democrat-supporting site. For the record, I have been the victim both of repeated sexual assaults and a false allegation that led to charges against me that were ultimately dropped.
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I’m an SMWM (single mom with mortgage :-) ) who earns every dollar I earn by writing (though in the past I earned the odd one by computer art). If you’d like to support my work on DKos, please consider sending a donation my way. Suggested amount $3. Thanks to everyone who has sent me some love so far, but especially those who have been generous to the point of leaving me gobsmacked almost to the point of tears.
Wednesday, Nov 22, 2017 · 3:50:47 PM +00:00
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Karen Wehrstein
Re CT accusations: here’s the thing. To understand what is actually possible in terms of ratfucking, you have to take your thinking to a level of sneakiness that is beyond most people’s experience in the normal world. If it is difficult to do, that’s to your credit, really. If you find it hard or even impossible to believe, that’s natural. However, ratfucking is still a reality. Suppose I had claimed that Russians, with American help, were posting fake organizational Facebook pages on both sides, and trying to arrange demonstraions and counter-demonstrations that would turn into riots? If I had done that six months ago, I’d have been accused of CT. But it has now been proven. And it’s in the Russian playbook. See here.