International Crisis: North Korea Is Getting Even Worse At Photoshop

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

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.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: north korea, photoshop, propaganda


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Mark Wing, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:07pm

    Maybe he's got a green screen.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    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...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:50pm

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:59pm

    Re: Who is really there?

    Open source image forensics for all.
    http://www.imageforensic.org/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    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

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 10:05pm

    http://imageedited.com/

    Results-
    Image Edited?
    Probably

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    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/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 12:54am

    They all must be vampires, because they're not casting any shadows on the ground.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    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..

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    nasch (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 6:25am

    No way

    It's not fake! It's, um... a fill flash! Yeah...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 7:16am

    Re:

    Found the original image

    http://i.imgur.com/1ALE43G.jpg

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    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 ]

  21. identicon
    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 ]

  22. icon
    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..

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    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 ]

  24. identicon
    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!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 2:05pm

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

    North korean funk for those who havent seen

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. identicon
    dilshad, 2 May 2016 @ 10:25pm

    web and graphics design video Training courses

    Dear friends?
    If you want to become web and graphics designer

    please visit my website.
    http://d-a-graphic-tutorials.weebly.com

    The web and graphics design students to seek courses in this web site are often made
    For example:
    ""CorelDraw Training video , photoshop Training video , HTML Training video , PDF bOOks and etc..."""
    In the simplest video training course to help you become the Web and graphics designer.
    thanks.....

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.