odd picture

[nogoodnik]

So I'm guessing it's a hanging parasol and somebody has manipulated the photos and/or the story to manufacture a mystery for us.

I'm guessing you're probably right, why else would anyone want to remove a perfectly normal garden item.

The only other explanation I can think of is that whoever took the photos disliked the way the umbrella looked in between their heads, but only remembered to edit it out of one photograph — which still means the people in the photograph ought to know what it is*, but then again, it's not that uncommon for reasonable people to be completely confused by a familiar object seeming unfamiliar out of context. And I'd think that something not appearing in one photo and suddenly seeming to zoom into view in the second would be "out of context" enough.


* assuming it's in their yard, which wasn't actually clarified.

 

[nogoodnik]

I've just knocked up a second analysis here to help demonstrate why I think the "anomaly" (i.e. umbrella in my opinion, but whatever) was edited out of the first photograph rather than being hidden behind the man's head.

To summarise, the piece of the object seen "emerging" from behind his head matches exactly with the part of the object seen in the second photo in the same exact spot. As in, it doesn't seem to be a different "leading edge", but a part of the left-hand side of the object which has been left in.

I've also sharpened part of the second image to make it clearer where I'm seeing the oval shaped blurred area — though honestly, it looks so "Photoshop blurred" to me even in the original image that I'm surprised more people don't see it. :? Though I guess if you think it doesn't look blurry, you think it doesn't look blurry, and me continuing to say I think it does won't change that.


My original recreation of this blurred area (in my previous image) might have been a bit inferior as I did it in approximately three seconds and I can see that the original image seems to have a bit more effort — I think they've cloned the light blobs out which I left in, etc., but that would honestly only add a few more seconds, it's pretty easy.

 

[IamSundog]

NoGood - nice work. When first looking at these I did notice the oval area in the first pic that corresponds to where the "thing" is in the second pic. And I thought it looked odd - like it was either edited or was a warp in space-time such as you get when a small UFO is about to de-cloak in your garden.

When you look carefully along the bottom of this oval - especially in your sharpened image - you can actually identify some of the sunlit highlights that have been photoshop cloned. The cloning starts below the blurred oval, just below the 6 o-clock position on the oval.

QED. Thanks for the entertainment, Hornbuck.

 

[IamSundog]

Just to stomp this thing to death, and because my boss is out of the office, here's unassailable proof that image editing software has been used to edit the “thing” out of Pic #1....as I see Tamyu correctly stated 12 days ago:

**CLICK ME**


Comparing Pic #2 and Pic #1:
- You can see that within my white polygons there’s good correlation of the sunlight highlights on the leaves.
- However “Area 1”, which is bright and distinctive in Pic #2, is missing from Pic #1.

Looking just at Pic #1:
- “Area 2” and "Area 3" have clearly been cloned to cover "Area 1" and the “disk”

Ooooh snap! Fess up, Hornbuck!

 

[Moooksta]

A photo of a family behind which is a hanging garden parasol and the pictures has been Photoshopped. NEXT!!!

:lol:

 

[decipheringscars]

Just to stomp this thing to death, and because my boss is out of the office, here's unassailable proof that image editing software has been used to edit the “thing” out of Pic #1....as I see Tamyu correctly stated 12 days ago:

**CLICK ME**


Comparing Pic #2 and Pic #1:
- You can see that within my white polygons there’s good correlation of the sunlight highlights on the leaves.
- However “Area 1”, which is bright and distinctive in Pic #2, is missing from Pic #1.

Looking just at Pic #1:
- “Area 2” and "Area 3" have clearly been cloned to cover "Area 1" and the “disk”

Ooooh snap! Fess up, Hornbuck!

Thanks for that! It helps - I was having trouble seeing the cloning.

I can definitely see why you might want to Photoshop that parasol out of the photo, since it really does distract ("What is that?"). Maybe it was missed in the other photo, or maybe it was just Photoshopped out of the photo the photographer thought was better, and maybe both the family and the photographer were guests at someone else's place and forgot about that parasol over there.

(Why would a parasol be over there, though? -- maybe just placed out of the way when not in use?)


Edited to add:
It looks like this thread has been quite useful to let people exercise their analysis of photo manipulation.

 

[IamSundog]

I can definitely see why you might want to Photoshop that parasol out of the photo, since it really does distract ("What is that?"). Maybe it was missed in the other photo, or maybe it was just Photoshopped out of the photo the photographer thought was better, and maybe both the family and the photographer were guests at someone else's place and forgot about that parasol over there.

The parasol may have been photoshopped out of one pic for cosmetic reasons, but would the family be unaware of the photoshopping? This is their family picture. Even if they were unaware, would they find the object mysterious for more than a few seconds? "What's that? - - oh right, the parasol."
And they're still completely mystified days later when Hornbuck is forwarding questions to them from FTMB?
And then Hornbuck just happened to stop responding right about the time that a garden parasol was first suggested.

Hmmm...

 

[kamalktk]

I can definitely see why you might want to Photoshop that parasol out of the photo, since it really does distract ("What is that?"). Maybe it was missed in the other photo, or maybe it was just Photoshopped out of the photo the photographer thought was better, and maybe both the family and the photographer were guests at someone else's place and forgot about that parasol over there.

The parasol may have been photoshopped out of one pic for cosmetic reasons, but would the family be unaware of the photoshopping? This is their family picture. Even if they were unaware, would they find the object mysterious for more than a few seconds? "What's that? - - oh right, the parasol."
And they're still completely mystified days later when Hornbuck is forwarding questions to them from FTMB?
And then Hornbuck just happened to stop responding right about the time that a garden parasol was first suggested.

Hmmm...

On the other hand, a parasol in the garden is so commonplace that it wouldn't be particularly memorable, particularly if this isn't their garden, but just a garden they posed for their photo in.