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Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:45 pm
by tnf
This photo has about 3 pages of raving reviews on flickr and nobody seems to think that it looks like the bird is photoshopped but me.

Image

People are going on about the composition, the breathtaking beauty of the shot, etc., etc. I can't believe the shots on flickr that some people get worked up about...like this one.

Am I the only one that sees the outline around the bird where it looks like it was cut and pasted?

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:48 pm
by xer0s
Hard to tell from that picture. Is that the original size?

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:01 pm
by werldhed
the most convincing evidence to me is the reflection of the swan. No water is going to reflect that smoothly with an animal floating in it. No ripples or anything. And the swan meets the water is too fuzzy. With water that calm, there should be a distinct line.

Makes me skeptical.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:03 pm
by tnf
only available size.
Just thought the border around the bird looks awkward. But the ps experts here will be better able to tell than I can. It's not a big deal though.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:12 pm
by Tsakali
also looks like the swan is much better lit than the surroundings, but I know nothing about camera filter capabilities etc. so it could be real

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:21 pm
by Don Carlos
shooped

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:28 pm
by corsair
its fake beyond doubt, in fact, the entire water area seems fuct. for one, the water is perfectly level yet the reflection is taller than the real swan.
also the reflection of the left tree, and peaks of the mountains in the distance dont seem to align with their real counterpieces.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:57 pm
by tnf
People here can't seem to tell:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skizo39/3385625233/

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:05 am
by GONNAFISTYA
If it isn't photoshopped then that's the biggest swan in the universe. In fact it's so big it has it's own vanishing point in the photo (ie. perspective on the swan is different than the rest of the shot)

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:18 am
by Transient
I don't think it's photoshopped. Well, I'm not convinced, at least. The swan's reflection is not identical to the bird itself, it's 10% taller, it has about 5% less width, and several details are muted or missing (feather outlines). It also doesn't look like it was cut out from another image, and it's only better lit because it's in the foreground (where the fog is less dense).

The water may seem so still because it's an early morning shot, so there's little wind and what appears to be a film of fog over the top. Any ripples around the swan may be obscured by either the fog or the fact that the swan's barely even drifting. Of they may be there and just aren't visible, water's wierd like that.

The 2 trees are also convincing due to the reflections being offset since they're further away, plus there is a significant amount of distortion in their height (40% shorter) in the reflection, which I assume is from the trees being so tall that the reflection is imperfect.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:20 am
by Fender
tnf, your screenshot/save/compress makes it look much worse than it is.

flickr lets you hotlink, as long as you display a link to the photo page too.

Image

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skizo39/3385625233/

Why is the shoreline under the trees almost perfectly straight?

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:23 am
by tnf
Also, look at the reflection of the tree on the left...and then the one on the right...and see if you spot the same issue I do.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:25 am
by Don Carlos
The trunks in the wrong place on both of them? :)

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:40 am
by tnf
si.

I figured someone would have ranted about it by now considering how anal some people are about things like this, but he is probably deleting all the negative comments.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:46 am
by l0g1c
I agree that it's been heavily altered, but I don't see the photographer claiming otherwise.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:49 am
by Transient
Don Carlos wrote:The trunks in the wrong place on both of them? :)
Anyone who would have photoshopped them would have noticed something that obvious. They're in the "wrong" place because the trees aren't on the water, they're further back and the water warps the reflection.

Now that I have a better quality image to go by, though, I'm starting to see things I didn't catch before. To play devil's advocate, Fender has a point about the straight line below the trees:

Image

And I can now see points on the bird where it could have been cropped out of another image. Particularly around the beak and tail:

Image

Also the fuzziness is more prominent, which werldhed mentioned earlier. It doesn't look like the result of fog like I suggested.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:19 am
by tnf
l0g1c wrote:I agree that it's been heavily altered, but I don't see the photographer claiming otherwise.
If you look at the photographer's other shots, its obvious he does a lot of altering, so he might not be claiming otherwise. People sure don't see it though.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:21 am
by tnf
And to transient - I know they aren't on the water, I'm trying to see how the light source could be so that the reflection of one tree is to the right of the original tree and the other is to the left of the original. Could have to do with the depth of each tree maybe.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:30 am
by Chupacabra
it looks photoshopped to me. arent almost all of the pictures in the photo thread photoshopped?

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:31 am
by xer0s
Look how close the swan is to the shore. Now look how close the trees are to the shore. Nearly the same distance and the swan is as big as the trees...

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:44 am
by brisk
shooped

i can tell from the pixels and by having seen quite a few shops in my time.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:56 am
by xer0s
:olo:

Sorry that was really funny.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:24 am
by 7zark7
Memphis wrote:most comments posters are complete idiots
Too true... :up:

The majority of his comments are from people handing out those stupid flickr group awards. (Post one photo..comment on 5 :tard: ) I doubt any of the posters gave more than a glance at the photo before they commented and pasted their retard group awards.

We get a ridiculous amount of requests to join these groups....

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:03 am
by Kat
Not sure why no ones noticed.. but the trees are clones of each other, just re-sized slightly.. they both have the same general 'mass' shapes... a cheap assed alpha'd billboard tree sprite in other words.

Also the reflections of the trees are wrong... side offset is not indicative of distance... plus the tree reflections are cropped almost to the same trunk length regardless of their apparent distance from the water.. that just doesn't happen.

Way too many errors in this one for it not to be PS'd

If whoever this belongs to is claiming it's original they should suffer the shame of flickers users.. nothing like watching the results of mass betrayal.

Re: Does this look photoshopped to anyone else?

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:03 am
by obsidian
:olo: Not only is that photoshoped, it's pretty badly done with no artistic talent what-so-ever. Even if it wasn't altered, it's not a good composition.

I can imagine someone deliberately taking a photo of something to create a sense of surrealism, but I don't think this is the case here.