More Photoshop Fun!

Alert Internet sleuth and Photoshop whiz Jen sent this on, and I thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to post it. Again, for those who are quite dubious already of Gov. Palin's story, this will just be more proof which you don't need; for those who think everyone at this blog (and primarily me) belong either in the nut-house or on the moon or both, I'm sure you'll be able to see clear evidence of pregnancy here. Nevertheless, I am posting it anyway.

First, this photo has not been "Photoshopped" which is taken to mean altered in some way. (Like putting someone's head on another body, or removing blemishes from a girl's senior picture.) What we've done is altered settings (specifically brightness and contrast) which allows us to see detail that is already present in the digital data of the photo that you can't see at the "standard" settings.

This photo is available from a public source. Anyone who wants can download the photo. I will tell you what settings were used to achieve our effects; if you have Photoshop you should be able to duplicate this exactly. If you have another photoediting software, you may have to use slightly different numbers but I would guess you will be able to get very similar results.

Here's the photo. (Larger versions of each photo are available by clicking.)


Here's the original source. This photo was taken on 3/14/2008, exactly 35 days before Gov. Palin allegedly gave birth to a six pound child. She was allegedly in her seventh month here, 31 weeks gestation. This was roughly one week after she announced that she was pregnant.

Most people's first response would be: You can't see anything. And it's true. You can't. You have pretty much a mass of black around her midsection. We can see she's wearing a jacket and (probably) a skirt, along with her signature scarf, but pretty much the tummy region is a mass of black.

But with the magic of Photoshop, we can see more than we ever dreamed possible. By adjusting the brightness and contrast, we can see clearly what is jacket, what is scarf (and there's a black stripe at the bottom of the scarf... can't see that on the original picture, can you?), and what is skirt. We can see shadowing and delineation between them. Because we are shooting up at the Governor, you can also get a good clear shot of her tummy.

Here's the first iteration.


This photo has the brightness upped to +80 with the contrast left at 0. The jacket, skirt, and black stripe at the bottom of the scarf are now visible.

Now, our next version.





This version has the brightness set to +80 and the contrast set to +85. The shadowed space between the jacket and the skirt is now well defined, and the line of the front of her stomach is clearly visible. And... in my opinion... clearly very flat.