Photoshop?

Posted by Miss Cellania in Pictures on November 7, 2008 at 12:04 pm



A photograph of North Korean leader Kim Il Jong was released Wednesday to dispel rumors that he is ill or dead. The UK’s Times newspaper and the BBC cried “Photoshop!”

In the photo, the shadow cast by Mr Kim’s calves runs in a different direction to the shadow cast by the soldiers on either side of him, the Times pointed out. In addition, a black line running along the stand on which the soldiers are positioned mysteriously vanishes on either side of Mr Kim - suggesting his picture may have been superimposed onto the image.

Such a suspicion was reinforced when a BBC designer examined a close-up, and discovered apparently mismatched pixels to the right of Mr Kim’s legs.

Link -Thanks, JEFFSss!


Previous post
this post? Please Email this               
Next post

FROM THE NEATORAMA ONLINE STORE - Your purchase helps support the blog!

COMMENT

35 comments to "Photoshop?"

  1. Endroren
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    Now that you show this close up, notice the missing shadow between his legs.

  2. Pudifoot
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    I love how North Korea is ran by a dead guy that is running it on behalf of his dead father.

    And they say America has issues!

  3. Dave
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    Does he normally cast a shadow?

  4. hooper
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    Even if this freak dies, there are many others to take his place. Just like Castro.

  5. Xinavera
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    Rule number one: hire someone with 1337 Photoshop skills. Reminds me of the cloned Iranian missile photo.

    @Dave: lol

  6. Pudifoot
    November 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    Hooper: Fortunately we can always make more bullets :-)

  7. Sid Morrison
    November 7th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    This past week Shorpy.com ran another “recent pic” of Kim meeting with other commie brass. Today’s picture is GOOD photoshopping by comparison. In the one I refer to, the entire group looks to be hovering over the concrete on which they are “standing” — it looked like they were pasted right on like Colorforms.

  8. 1244563
    November 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    How dare you Americans question our Glorious Leader’s health and well-being? He lives on and as does the glory of North Korea!

  9. AJ
    November 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

    This could be something entirely innocuous, such as the white barrier behind him being dirty, so it was cleaned up in Photoshop. It would explain the odd shadow, the lack of a black horizontal line and the “mismatched” blue line (a section that was cut out and left empty).

    I want to see the full-size version of the entire photo. It looks like the shadows behind every soldier’s leg is doing something different… providing total shadow, half shadow, etc. The shadow two soldiers to the right has a much straighter shadow than the two tilted ones next to Kim Il Jong.

    My guess: Photoshop work was done to present a more-perfect image, but it’s not necessarily evidence his entire body was Photshopped into the image. The shadows on his own clothing caused by ripples in the garment appear similar to those of the men around him.

    Seriously, they don’t have hundreds of images of their leader standing in front of soldiers? I’d be surprised if they needed to doctor such an ordinary image.

  10. Thomas
    November 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    Kim Jong Il can’t be dead, he’s the glorious leader of the triumphant and eternal Korean people who shall continue to receive his blessings until time eternal.

    Your corrupt, capitalist analysis of this photo only shows your disloyalty to our honored leader and will surely result in your summary execution.

  11. Scotty A
    November 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    oh. You just sentenced a room full of North Korean digital artists to death by starving.
    Oh no wait.. that’s their benefits package!

  12. Justin
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm

    Yeah scotty that’s exactly what I was thinking. Someone’s gonna get shot for this!

  13. Ali S.
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    Well, my guess is that the photoshop team is gonna be getting the barrel end of a gun very soon. Yeesh!

  14. Christophe
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    Who photoshopped Davy Crocket coonskin hat on the general?

    Communists are not what they used to be….

  15. CheeseDuck
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    Wow. That’s pretty crazy.

  16. niccomm757
    November 7th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    Something fishy is going on here. I was looking for a larger version of this photo on the Google, and found three photos of pretty much the same scene, but with different people.

    Compare the photo above with the one from today’s NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/asia/07kim.html?scp=3&sq=Kim% 20Jong%20Il&st=cse). Clearly not the same group of soldiers around him. Also notice that the leg shadow is what you’d expect. That horizontal line? Missing from this photo too.

    But…compare again with the photo found here http://www.lindsayfincher.com/news/kim_jong_il.jpg.
    “Correct” shadows, horizontal line in place. Also different body shadows, indicating a different time of day. Finally, he appears to be wearing brown shoes as opposed to black shoes as above (but that could be a trick of the light).

    What does it all mean? At the very least, it means that Kim Jog Il likes to get his photo taken in front of groups of soldiers. But I don’t understand why the horizontal line is missing from some shots.
    So… were the pictures taken on the same day? If so, why the different color shoes, and what about that pesky horizontal line?
    Different day? More plausible but, again, what’s with the horizontal line?

    Any one have any ideas?

  17. redphone
    November 7th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Every photo they’ve released smells of photoshop. I must commend them on their spectacular attention to lighting though. That’s usually the thing that everyone forgets.

    Just makes it all the more bizarre when they release a photo with other glaring errors.

  18. Johoma
    November 7th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    I know for a fact that I have seen that same image of Kim in another photo shoot that ran in the times magazine two or so years ago, damned If I can find a link though. It looks like they superimposed his image from two years ago on the new roster of troops.

    (Not the image i saw but in the same photo set for sure)
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232617,00.html

  19. HWANG BUK-LES
    November 7th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    KIM IL SUNG LIVE TO RIPE OLD AGE OF 82.

    KIM JONG IL IS IN TIPTOP HEALTH, HAVE 15-20 MORE YEARS OF HAPPYHAPPYJOYJOY.

    KIM DIVE NUDE AT 500 AM IN AMNOK RIVER, TO PROV HIS VITILITY. TEMPATURE LOW AS 4 DEGREE CENTIGRADE. WHO OF YOU CAN DO THE SAME

  20. Xinavera
    November 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    So the next guy in line is Kim Dive Nude? Must be a distant cousin or something.

  21. ted
    November 7th, 2008 at 6:34 pm

    Why would htey need to shop it? Just use a stand-in.

  22. AC
    November 7th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    Why do people continue calling North Korea communist? It’s a dictatorship that wishes it was communist.

  23. Roy
    November 7th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    Some poor North Korean computer scientist is getting is balls electrocuted right now. I hope the newspaper is happy.

  24. Max Power
    November 8th, 2008 at 2:35 am

    AC, any communist country has been a dictatorship so far.

  25. AC
    November 8th, 2008 at 2:47 am

    There never has been a true communist/socialist country…

  26. Jeremy
    November 8th, 2008 at 3:19 am

    Photoshop team? They probably have a classroom of 5th graders chained to a drafting table.

    Its not a bad job considering it was made with paste, a dull piece of broken glass, human tears, and a bic pen.

  27. Gerry
    November 8th, 2008 at 7:14 am

    Can’t be Photoshopped…….they don’t have electricity.

    (hmmm, do they have hand-cranked laptops in NK???)

  28. dgaicun
    November 8th, 2008 at 8:05 am

    The “Axis of Evil” can’t even Photoshop a picture without signaling utter incompetence, and I’m supposed to be worried about their military capabilities?

    What, are they going to make a nuke out of Windex and wrapping paper tubes?

  29. renderanything
    November 8th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    I saw the pic on shorpy too, and they mentioned some pictures released a few weeks ago that show him in front of nice green foliage that doesn’t fit the season. Hmmmm, don’t think he’s exactly up and about.

  30. Joe Red
    November 8th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    This looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and from having seen quite a few shops in my time.

  31. meh
    November 9th, 2008 at 3:06 am

    Any bet Kim got a horde of perfect look-alikes. Shopping this images does not make sense other than “improving” it.

  32. Jonnie
    November 9th, 2008 at 7:23 am

    he for sure had a stroke and had advanced brain surgurey. He’s a vegetable in a bunker.

  33. Mektoub
    November 10th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    I think I’ve found the source picture at Darkroastedblend.
    http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SQ1o_k5hGmI/AAAAAAAAjwk/yHh269HUnXg/ s1600-h/y45y4yhfthjf.jpg

  34. Learn Photoshop
    December 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    Woa……I”m not sure what this means for the world, but never thought about how technology could be used in such a manner. Yikes.

  35. Jacques Penellope
    April 10th, 2009 at 12:20 am

    Just recently Kim has come out in a new video and has proved himself alive.

    http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=235&sid=6104739

    Best link I could come up with in the short time I have atm. He looks old and sick. But this should answer plenty of your questions


PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT

Neatorama Comment Policy
You don't have to register or login to comment, but it's easier if you do so. Comments aren't censored, but those that are abusive or off-topic may be edited or deleted.


Stay updated on the comments with Comment RSS