Readers may recall that we caught NOAA NCDC red handed putting in a photoshopped flooded house a couple of years back for an official government report.
Image above taken directly from the CCSP report. Read more here
Then there’s the famous polar bear on the ice floe image ursus bogus.
And let’s not forget Al Gore’s hurricanes for his book cover:
So when Tom Nelson asked today “Who’s got time to investigate BlackSmokeGate?” I decided to take on the task. Here’s the photo in question:
Tom was rightfully concerned that white steam rather than smoke comes out of these plants, as shown in this photo.
This station has been identified in the comment section of the article using it as Eggborough power station. Check out the white cloud coming from the power station in this Wikipedia photo.
I decided to run a simple but well known tool to detect if Photoshop had been used. Bingo!
Output from http://www.pskiller.com/
Basically all that was done was to highlight a part of the steam with the point to point select tool, feather it and adjust the contrast to make it look darker.
[UPDATE: I found a different version of the image on the web at Sky News here and ran it through PSKiller’s detector. It’s even more damning:
PS Quantization tables are a dead giveaway. ]
I’ll bet somebody could find this image original in some stock photo library. It is from John Giles PA Wire. It gets a lot of play according to Nelson. For example here it is used in conjunction with Climategate2:
Nelson asks:
If you have time to compile a list of the mainstream media uses of this photo, please let me know. If you’ve taken some action to protest this propaganda (maybe a letter to an editor?) please also let me know.
By the way, has this photo been altered in any way? [YES – Anthony]
Update: A TinEye search for the top image yields 92 results.
A TinEye search for the bottom image yields 94 results.
To illustrate how easy this is to make black smoke from steam, I located an image of a smoke stack online of the Zimmer Power Plant Smoke Stack in Moscow, Ohio, here
Then I applied the simple technique I described.
- highlight a part of the steam with the point to point select tool
- feather it
- adjust the brightness and contrast to make it look darker.
Granted it was a rush job and I didn’t go all the way to the right in the plume, but this took all of 45 seconds:
See how easy that is to make black smoke where there was only steam before?
UPDATE2: Here’s another example of Photoshop at work. The greens must really hate this power station in Britain. “Black” smoke from cooling towers? Really? Everyone knows they produce water vapor, and even the sun angle doesn’t look right in this one from the Guardian.
It doesn’t survive the test either:
And yet if you do an image search for this power station, you’ll find nothing like this image anywhere else except on the Guardian Website.
UPDATE: Autonomous Mind looks into the photo above, conversing with the photographer is interesting more for what he doesn’t say. Well worth a read here:
Has the Guardian published fauxtography?
– Anthony
Why has Eggborough Power station come in for so much attention? It is not the largest in the UK, which is Drax, though Drax has started to burn wood chips for some unaccountable reason. I trust they will return to coal soon if only to up the power output.
This is not a new problem, in fact it pre-dates photo-shop and the like. About thirty years ago I wrote to the editor of the Telegraph about a photo they had printed which had a giveaway clue that it had been altered. I suggested that it reduced confidence in their publication but his rather snotty reply claimed they only adjusted photos to make them clearer, even though that particular example had gone much further. Nothing new under the sun.
Geoff Sherrington @ur momisugly 1.21am
Gee Geoff, would you be able to produce a reasonable likeness to one of those 1885 blue 4 pence Inverted Black Swan stamps?
Living in Thailand I could have given them any number of pictures of flooded houses from the ongoing (4 months and counting) flooding disaster. Naturally the government – at the urging of the UN secretary general who happened to be in town doing photo-ops wearing a life vest – blamed global warming. The real reason was the idiot agriculture minister decided to release 9 billion cubic metres of water from the upcountry dams at the very instant that 7 billion cubic metres of seasonal monsoon water were flowing down off the central plateau and it hit fair and square on the main flood plain north of Bangkok, where previous governments happened to have placed the country’s main manufacturing plants (including the all important electronics and automotive factories – numbers 1 and 2 export earners) cutting down the forests and filling in the run off canals as they did so.
I think this is one reason governments love the whole scam, it allows them to blame someone else for their horrendous foul ups.
Ah,photographers… (2) Well, already in the 19th century photos were made up as composites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/business/media/28fitness.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/J/Jolie,%20Angelina&_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1322309772-pJU204UbEVO2NA1/aYXvlw
http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too_b328
http://www.fourandsix.com/
http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/Hany_Farid/Research/Entries/2011/6/5_Digital_Forensics.html
http://www.oddee.com/item_96803.aspx
http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/33096.aspx
http://photos.denverpost.com/mediacenter/2011/05/great-fakes-famous-doctored-photographs/#name here
http://www.frankwbaker.com/isb.htm
Geoff Sherrington says: November 26, 2011 at 1:21 am
[…]
BTW, a reputable stock agency would perhaps be interested in the laws broken by users who modify their stock images without express permission. It’s like a copyright infringement (and it’s an insult to the photographer as well.)
In the art world, where people do mixed-media/collage, changing an original image 35%,is enough to render it a new image, avoiding copyright infringement. ( in the US )
Have a go at this photo. I’d be interested to hear the interpretations from the armchair critics here.
http://www.thelocal.de/money/20111125-39103.html
I have look at both images of the towers. To me, in the first image, the tower and vapor looks out of portion as if the tower and the vapor were taken at different distances. Also it looks as if the image of tower was taken at a different time of day than the vapor. Too much lost of detail on the shaded side of the tower. But what do I know, I’m just an old construction worker.
This photoshopping reveelation increases more and more my belief in man-made global warming. I mean it is all man-made; the photos, the hockey-sticks, the hidden declines, all of it is man-made. All scams, in fact, are man-made.
Laurie says:
November 26, 2011 at 2:57 am
It seems odd to me that from the same stack a plume with both white billows and dark would emerge. See the upper part of the plume? Billows white as snow. How would that happen?
______________________________________
Well Laurie, how does that happen? Never heard of man-made global warming? LOL
There are some pretty naive people commenting here. Suggesting that the press don’t do things like this because there are rules against it seems pretty laughable considering the current telephone hacking enquiry currently under way in the UK.
As for the image in question, I am prepared to believe that it is pretty much as taken and that Photoshop was used for legitimate purposes. I live about 10 miles from Fiddler’s Ferry power station (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fiddlers_Ferry_power_station_-_geograph.org.uk_-_205758.jpg). The cooling towers generate massive quantities of vapour and depending on weather conditions can have a massive effect on the local climate. I have observed on an otherwise clear, sunny days, clouds forming above and downwind of the towers. The clouds extent literally for miles and are of sufficient thickness to blot out sunlight from the unfortunate residents underneath, for hours at a time. The shaded area is clearly visible from high ground around Daresbury a few miles south-east of the station across the Mersey.
PS I am a regular user of Corel Photopaint to modify photographs to create images for clients which would be difficult or too costly to create otherwise.
This is old news for Canada’s CBC too:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006020.html
Ron, I see that every morning. The steam plume is backlit by the dawn and it appears Black. If you look at that picture, the plumes are fluffy and the coloration is completely wrong for black smoke. It appears to be a series of short cooling towers with a wet scrubber on the right.
Jordan said
“Rosco – when you burn coal and oil (and other fuels) there is no escaping the need to dispose of combustion products. ”
I think we all know that – the simple fact is in the past smoke stacks were dirty and today there is almost no visible emissions of smoke or particulates – a huge improvement that those old enough to remember appreciate.
I never said anything about CO2 – obviously there is no installed technology to remove it – BUT the real pollutants – the sulphur oxides, particulates etc – have been removed to an amazing extent.
It is disingenuous to call a boiler a heat exchanger. To enlighten you – heat exchangers recover water from the steam. The emissions from heat exchangers is water vapour and very little else.
For your info the idea of a boiler is to increase the pressure in the steam and “superheat” it – I’m sorry to inform you that steam is contained in the boiler /turbine system not released as you seem to imply by your comment.
My Dad was a power station engineer and I have engineering qualifications – I found your comments discourteous – you should appreciate there have been massive strides in pollution reduction – that was my job for 30 years to enforce antipollution laws .
No one ever said 100% had been achieved – all I highlighted is the dishonesty that Anthony identified – the misuse of harmless emissions of water vapour designed to hoodwink gullible people.
Steve Keohane says: November 26, 2011 at 5:36 am re 35% altered content
I can’t start to imagine how one would conclude that 35% of an image (or more or less) was altered. Perhaps you could give an example. Some organisations split images into altered and unaltered classes for purposes like competition or news reports. I have no objection to manipulation, so long as it is stated.
………………………..
Ron says:
November 26, 2011 at 6:26 am. Have a go at this photo.
Almost impossible. The RAW file, perhaps, but not this tiny jumble.
You might keep in mind that people, including me, who have worked for years on subtle ways to detect alteration are not going to reveal their secrets. That would simply allow fakers and cheats to work around the detection methods. You might be surprised at the extent of cheating among some of the big names in photography world-wide, who seem to think that their greatness takes them beyond the rules of mere mortals. On the bright side, I suppose a few past counterfeiters honed their skills in the many idle hours spent in prisons.
If you look at the right stack, you will see smoke. The left stack is mostly steam. As to “Photo Shop” I doubt if it was needed to “get” the needed picture, just to “size” the picture for the article print. pg
Geoff Sherrington says: November 26, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Steve Keohane says: November 26, 2011 at 5:36 am re 35% altered content
I can’t start to imagine how one would conclude that 35% of an image (or more or less) was altered. Perhaps you could give an example.
I can’t give an example, I am told this by an artist with a PhD in art, who taught art for 20 years. It is a legal concept, presumably determined in court. Sounds like a very messy pursuit should one try to take up that exercise.
Geoff Sherrington says: November 26, 2011 at 8:33 pm
You might keep in mind that people, including me, who have worked for years on subtle ways to detect alteration are not going to reveal their secrets.
I imagine digital pixels are easier to detect than chemical grain fakery, as a chemical negative fake can be generated, and would be an original image. The digital side is another matter. I stumbled into a career via a teenage hobby of photography and darkroom experience in the sixties. After working for two start-up IC fabs, went to a big house, HP. I spent my last two years researching two sub-micron optical microscopes with digital measuring capabilities. One was heavily enhanced digitalization, from a company that was doing satellite image enhancement for the gov’t, essentially creating ‘new’ pixels by interpolation from surrounding pixels. This was well over 20 years ago, CCD chips were small, and only in grey scale. It has been interesting to see how the shift from film to bytes has transitioned.
Rosco – you tend to overstate the performance of flue gas clean-up, and references to “heat exchangers” were vague.
A boiler is a heat exchanger, so nothing disingenuous from me on that one.
The boiler transfers thermal energy from the hot flue gases to the water circulaing in the steam cycle.
The boiler doesn’t pressurise steam in the Carnot or Rankine cycles – that’s the job of the boiler feed pump.
From your comments, it looks like you are referring to the condenser. But that’s reading between the lines – you never actually made it clear.
Saying that sour oxides have been removed to “an amazing extent” is the type of hyped-up claim that usually attracts criticism here.
SO2 and NOx removal rates can be in upper-ninety %, but thats for optimum steady state conditions and maximum output. Most fossil-fuel-fired power stations only spend some of their time at optimum conditions, and spend much of their time responding to demand and providing balancing services. Removal performance is lower in practice.
As somebody said above, one of the generating units could have been going through a start- up when the above photo was taken of the Eggborough Power Station stack. I can assure you that there will be a dark-smoky plume for quite some time as the boiler is slowly warmed during a start.
I made no suggestion that steam in the steam cycle is released (although there is a steady release of steam known as “blowdown” which is necessary for management of boiler water chemistry).
It’s a pity that you found my comments discourteous, but yours were vague and made exaggerated claims. That kind of thing can reflect badly on the discussion on these boards.
Look again at the main topic of this discussion – it is the Eggborough stack. There is a lot more than water vapour in that plume. I hope that people don’t go running off to take issue with that photo by claiming that the plume is steam. Fine if people want to raise objections to other photos of cooling towers.
“”””” robertdavidgraham says:
November 25, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Here is another image by John Giles of the same stack, that you can analyze with TinEye and PSKiller: http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,2306742_4,00.jpg “””””
So all those who claim that the sun is behind this “cloud”, and the thickness (density) of the cloud is preventing light from shining through it, please point to exactly where behind the cloud the sun actually is.
Note that the near side of the chimney is totally featureless, with all pixels virtually at zero. I suggest that this could not occur, if the sun is behind the cloud; much more likely that is is dead center behind the chimney. Referring to robert’s above posted picture, of course.
I’ve looked at a lot of clouds in front of the sun; never seen one that looks quite like that one; the black areas simply don’t match the cloud thickness or density, specially with the sun actually behind the chimney; if it was behind the cloud, the left edge of the chimney would be sunlit.
Sorry the sun is a hald degree near point source, and as clar as that blue sky is (in the foreground) the near sun scatter would be small. (but not zero).
I’d say the picture is faked somehow, even if just with filters.
It looks Photoshopped to me
I have written (snail mail) to Geoffrey Lean asking him to publish the original unadulterated image. In case you didn’t know, his stance on climate affairs resembles that of a typical Team member, and he gets to write in The Telegraph perhaps two or three times a week, I seem to remember. Now Christopher Booker (Sunday Telegraph amongst other English papers) is entirely different. He’s a true sceptic and an effective author.
RE: Eggborough et al … I love riding the train from London to York (or driving on parallel motorways / A roads). Seeing the massive power stations makes me utter … KING COAL!!!! YEAH BABY! Cooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllll …………… !
As someone with almost 500K digital images under his belt I’d like to weigh in.
Angle one- angle.. Digital cameras have a lot less stops of contrast than the eye. They do not see into shadows well, and tend to darken the midtones in the shadows. You can easily get the effect of the darker clouds on the bottom by shooting past or off to one side of the bottom to a lighter area. The camera meters to the lighter area, leaving the bottom quite dark. I use this technique frequently to get the effect that I am looking for, often on sunsets and sometimes on snowmobiling pictures.
Item two is LEVELS. Take the photo into Photoshop or Fireworks. In Photoshop I believe it is Image>Adjust>levels. In Fireworks it is Extras>Adjust Color>Levels.
Move the center slider responsible for the mid tones most of the way to the right. It drops the mids from the image, leaving the bottom of the cloud quite dark. Try it once.
I use that same center slider moved a little to the left to overcome the deficiency of digital cameras to look into shadows. It lightens up the mids giving some detail in shadowed areas. That cuts both ways, and I can make that cloud quite dark and menacing with the adjustment of that one center slider.
If your cooling tower is producing black steam, the problem is not nuclear power, but the local water quality.