Friday, September 11, 2009

Photo Tampering Throughout History

We all know by this time that any photo can be doctored if someone tries hard enough. Hany Farid has created a thorough documentary of altered photographs throughout history.
You can check out his resume here: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/bio.html
His career ranges "from working with federal law enforcement agencies on digital forensics, to the digital reconstruction of Ancient Egyptian tombs, Hany works and plays with digital media at the crossroads of computer science, engineering, mathematics, optics, and psychology."
He introduces the research with the following paragraph: "

Photography lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1860s, photographs were already being manipulated, only a few decades after Niepce created the first photograph in 1814. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout history.

To help contend with the implications of this tampering, we have developed a series of tools for detecting traces of tampering in digital images (contact me at Ma'at Consulting for more information about our services)"

Check out the photographs we always took for granted from Lincoln to Sarah Palin and beyond.

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