Dr Adequate writes:
I don’t know that you meant that photo to be accurate, but even without knowing its providence, as a former digital imaging professional, I can say with a high degree of confidence it is a fake.
I'm not so sure.
Here's CNN's video of Bush kissing Abdullah. It can't be the same incident, Bush is wearing a different tie, but my point is why would anyone fake a photograph of something that has actually happened, and of which to judge from the clicking of cameras in the video there must be about a jillion actual photographs, not to mention the video itself?
And
here's video of yet
another kiss.
Faking a photograph of Bush kissing Abdullah would therefore be a complete waste of time.
Who knows, maybe he normally keeps his eyes open and someone thought this would be more funny?
I recall news stories of him kissing people as per their custom. I don’t dispute that he’s kissed people, I dispute the image presented here.
I don’t have Photoshop on this computer, but at a glance, the shadow area on Bush’s right shoulder appears darker than the shadow areas on the other Muslim or background.
The shadow area on Bush’s right shoulder doesn’t conform to reality. Even if one supposes some odd angle of light, why doesn’t that angle cast a harsh light or hard shadow on the other Muslim?
There’s a blob on what is supposed to be the right shoulder of Bush’s jacket. This is consistent with a poor attempt create a shoulder out of an image which has an object in the foreground of the jacket. I suggest the object is possibly the collar of the jacket of the person he actually kissed.
Bush’s right eye is in shadow how could one light Bush without him either casting a shadow on the other Muslim or the other Muslim casting more shadows on his own face?
There’s a line running under Bush’s chin and over to his color which actually extends out from his neck. The most reasonable explanation is that it is a poor attempt at a masking one image of Bush into another. This indicates that the original background was darker.
The other Muslim has a large nose, but it seems doubtful to me that Bush could put his nose and lips where located without Bush’s cheekbone being pretty much where the other guy’s right lens is.
There’s a halo around Bush’s hair (most noticeable where his hair meets his jacket). This is more consistent with one image being feathered into another than it being a case of the hair being backlit.
Image artifacts. If you blow the image up in your browser to 200%+ you should see much less artifact noise on the Bush area of the image. If you’re unfamiliar with artifact noise it is a type of pixilation, which in this image appears mostly where the white of the headdress edges against other colors. You can see it as a sort of patchiness in many parts of the Muslim. The loss of data in the patches tends to have the effect of corrupting the color of images. This is more pronounced when the colors are saturated and we see a bit of that here in this image. For instance in the shirt there is some added green hues, and in the face some coral. Presumably when merged the Bush portion of the image either had more original data or had not suffered as much data loss though compression.
The Muslim shows signs of additional unsharp masking, where the Bush image appears not to have been.
It is problematic that the Muslim seems more overall in focus while the image of Bush seems slightly out of focus. Both the Muslim’s near and far eyes seem more in focus then either Bush’s eyes.
****Edited to add****After writing that it occurred to me to see if I could find the source.
The image used was used on this page:
hermes-press.com - contact with domain owner | Epik.comIf one scrolls down the section above Jihad you can find this other kiss which even at a glance one should see is a fake.
Edited by Trae, : Added a couple of links.