UK Intelligence Boss Blames Snowden And Reporters For Giving A 'Gift' To Terrorists

International Crisis: North Korea Is Getting Even Worse At Photoshop

from the fake-it-until-you-make-it dept

Tue, Oct 8th 2013 8:01pm — Timothy Geigner

There's something of a saying that goes "fake it 'til you make it." The idea is that you look and act as though you've already achieved some goal. For instance, let's say you want to graduate from that annoying weird nation all the other nations put up with but kind of hate to a big boy nation where everyone respects and fears you. Well, North Korea has been faking it 'til they make it. The problem is that they suck at faking it. They fake being an existential threat to America using video game footage and soundtracks. But threatening America is the big time, requiring big, complicated faking-it efforts. What about the little stuff? Say, head of party Kim Jong-un's required appearance for the opening of a children's hospital?

Er, that's an interesting picture. I really like the way the people in the picture pop, you know? Perhaps it's because of the colors, or maybe it's because this is one of the worst attempts at photoshopping I've ever seen.

But did you look at the shadows and the lighting? The figures appear to be superimposed—something that internet commenters in China were quick to notice. Online in neighboring Japan, amused internet commenters showed how easy it was to add individuals to this scene.

Oh well, back to being the weird kid, North Korea. Maybe when you learn to lie like the rest of the world you can come back and play with our toys.

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Filed Under: north korea, photoshop, propaganda

26 Comments

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Mark Wing, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:07pm

Maybe he's got a green screen.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:15pm

Somebody should write an addon that automatically runs noise analysis on internet images to see if they were edited or not.

The easiest way to do it is just to increase the filters values that are used to reduce noise to accentuate the already present ones.

2 different images have two different type of noise and they will jump out when exaggerated.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:31pm

Who is really there?
I can tell at least 3 of them is PS-ed into the pic. But how about the others?

Or is that everyone in the pic was not there, all PS-ed?

Just curious...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:50pm

http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=adfc5c550d646f89f915b7f443a76bf5bc0fc58b.255667

Read the tutorials to learn how to interpret the images generated.

http://fotoforensics.com/tutorial.php
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Drew (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:58pm

Supreme Leader's pants
This is probably just me, but if I were the Supreme Leader of a country, I'd get pants that fit me. Or I'd at least get them hemmed.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:59pm

Re: Who is really there?
Open source image forensics for all.
http://www.imageforensic.org/
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 9:03pm

Re: Who is really there?
The sky was edited, the building is different too, and most of them had been retouched.

Used imageforensic(online, with open source code available under the name Ghiro) tool and fotoforensics(online) to see it.
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Watchit (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 9:38pm

I can tell it's a fake. Because of the pixels... and the fact that Kim's head is a raptor.

http://i.imgur.com/BnelFcl.jpg
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 9:42pm

It stands out as being photoshopped because the background resolution is different than the figures in the foreground.

You see this a lot with people that are starting 3D graphics as they tend to make a figure and then use a wallpaper for the background. It is readily seen what was done for the same reason. The 3D graphic is of much higher resolution than the wallpaper in jpg.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 10:00pm

Re:
The sky and people are of low quality, the vegetation seems to be original and the building is of different quality from the rest.

To do it like them you should get a high quality background and put low quality objects on top.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 10:05pm

http://imageedited.com/

Results-
Image Edited?
Probably
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 10:10pm

Re:
Almost forgot this is a good one as well, but there are no results. Still it's easy to use just read their little guide.

http://29a.ch/sandbox/2012/imageerrorlevelanalysis/
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Old Fool (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 11:56pm

Those grey suits are really becoming, I can see why the Onion called him sexiest leader.
It's almost worth moving to N. Korea to wear one.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 12:54am

They all must be vampires, because they're not casting any shadows on the ground.
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Capt ICE Enforcer, 9 Oct 2013 @ 1:25am

Seen worse
I have seen worse, especially in the US when the government leaders give speeches about how they represent the people. Someone always Photoshop civilians being there when really it is big corporate CEO`s.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 5:35am

Careful...
...Dances With Wolves was a movie senominous with gorgeous backdrops that people thought were a blue screen due to color..
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nasch (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 6:25am

No way
It's not fake! It's, um... a fill flash! Yeah...
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 7:16am

Re:
Found the original image

http://i.imgur.com/1ALE43G.jpg
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 7:16am

I sense a Meme coming on.
That crowd will be appearing all sorts of places. I request a Miley Cyrus wrecking ball image when someone gets started, an Alligator park in the background and a group shot with the Teapublicans in the house.
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Michael Rivero, 9 Oct 2013 @ 7:55am

They are using a flash
The picture isn't photoshopped. The photographer is using a powerful flash to fill in the shadows even though it is a daylight scene. It's a common technique used by high fashion photographers, but is used less in the US because the result looks "odd" to most people.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 9:30am

Re: They are using a flash
That flash is probably polarized too since it affects image quality only in certain regions of the image.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ECA (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 10:14am

Re: They are using a flash
Iv seen this happen before..

Extra FLASH to get rid of the shadows..
but something is abit off in the picture..

For those that think its PS...
Do you know about PICTURE GRAINING from film?? then Digitizing, its weird..
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 10:23am

Re: Re: They are using a flash
We don't think, we know it is a PS.

The noise types don't match and the ELA(Error Level Analysis) also show different areas with different image quality.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dave, 9 Oct 2013 @ 12:30pm

Uncertain
Not sure about this. It looks initially like too much fill-in flash but it certainly does look a bit odd, even allowing for that!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 2:05pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwoSFQb5HVk

North korean funk for those who havent seen
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