Need your expert help - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/02/2007 11:45:48 AM · #1

I am a photography lover and I dabble here and there, but I am nowhere near the calibre of the rest of you. I am a lurker who eagerly waits to receive my DCPChallenge Weekly Update in my email and am always in awe. Having said all that, I have a very odd request...

I run a board for women struggling with a particular kind of infertility. As you can guess, it's an sensitive topic and we all get quite emotionally involved in each other's lives. Yesterday a member produced a picture of a positive pregnancy test saying that she's "miraculously" become pregnant. Ever the skeptic I am and based on other things she's said and done that seem "off" to me, I went on an internet search to find the pregnancy test that I was sure she swiped from another site. I found it. The picture she shared with us was cropped and resized and had a little bit of processing done to it, but I KNOW it's the same picture that is on another site.

You all know enough about photography and photo processing to confirm my suspicions here. I know that it's pretty much impossible to recreate the same shot composition of one picture in another. The lighting, the angle, the way the shadows fall, the orientation... there are so many different elements that would have to be perfect to make two pictures identical and I suspect even a pro would find it challenging. So, I'd like you to take a look. Here is the picture that she shared on my web site that she said was her test: //img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/Jesterette/BabyDreamerHPT.jpg This is the original picture I found on another site: //www.fertilityfriend.com/tg/entry/7617889.html And here is the original picture after I did a little photo processing TRYING to get it to match hers (I cropped it and resized it and tried to get the contrast/color/brightness changes to match, but didn't do as well as I'd have liked): //img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/Jesterette/FertiltyFriendHPT.jpg

Is there any way I could be wrong about this? I wish I could make my edited picture match hers perfectly so I would have undeniable "proof" but I just don't know enough about digital photo processing to get it exact. I don't know if it's even really possible to get it exact. I'd really like your expert opinions and advice though. I feel quite confident that I am right about this, but I would hate to find out I was mistaken, blow the whistle and then have a whole lot of egg on my face.

Thanks so much for even considering such an odd request. :)

Message edited by author 2007-02-02 11:52:01.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

02/02/2007 11:54:20 AM · #2

How I'm supposed to tell from an image less than half the size of a postage stamp is beyond me.

Interesting support group...

lifternessjt

Canon EOS-50D

Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

02/02/2007 12:04:28 PM · #3

I'd say that's the same pic. Yours and hers match perfectly, except yours is a little sharper.
Like routerguy said... Interesting support group...

Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS for Nikon

02/02/2007 12:17:16 PM · #4

vbvThanks for your responses. That's the size of the picture she shared (which also seemed odd to me) so that's all I have to work with.

We're just one of many infertility support groups out there. This isn't the first time something like this has happened on our site so I really try to stay on top of it. In this particular instance, you folks here were the first people I thought of who might be able to help me. Sorry she made the image so small. I'm quite sure that was by design. Thanks for taking a look anyway.

Message edited by author 2007-02-02 12:21:17.

Greetmir

Nikon D60

02/02/2007 12:22:20 PM · #5

I don't think you could be sure with such a tiny tiny cropped picture that this was any more than a picture of the same machine with similar lighting ... but why the heck would she crop it SO TINY and have it so pixilated for any kind of proof? ... I am not convinced it is genuine but that does not make deception a fact.

You could ask how she captured this image ...

Message edited by author 2007-02-02 12:22:51.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/02/2007 12:23:20 PM · #6

Seems like the sort of suspicion and paranoia a) best left out of support groups and b) rather easily proved or disproved in a few short months.

soup

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

02/02/2007 12:23:55 PM · #7

under the circumstances i would think time would tell whether it's real or not.

TechnoShroom

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

02/02/2007 12:24:19 PM · #8

Just curious but why out her? If she's "faking" such a thing then she has issues way beyond infertility problems.

02/02/2007 12:48:57 PM · #9

Well, as far as it being revealed in a few short months, you'd think so, right? That's not always true though. Since this is purely done online and images are easy to gather from all over, it's quite easy to "fake" a pregnancy for a long time. I was on another group where a woman faked her entire pregnancy with a litany pictures, faked the birth and told a lovely birth story, and then for months after shared pictures of a beautiful baby girl (and her "husband" too). It was later discovered by the members there that she had taken all the images from someone else's photobucket site and just added different names and dates to the images. We live in a strange world.

I most definitely agree that someone who falsifies something like this has problems beyond infertility. But why would I out it in this instance? Primarily because this woman is selling and/or working with someone who is selling herbal medications and "detox" teas that she is claiming "undid" her tubal ligation and helped her conceive this miracle child. I believe she is just trying to get the hopes up of the women on my board so that she can sell them her concoctions and make a quick buck.

Message edited by author 2007-02-02 13:15:58.

TechnoShroom

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

02/02/2007 01:14:04 PM · #10

Originally posted by Jesterette:

But why would I out it in this instance? Primarily because this woman is selling and/or working with someone who is selling herbal medications and "detox" teas that she is claiming "undid" her tubal ligation and helped her conceive this miracle child. I believe she is just trying to get the hopes up of the women on my board so that she can sell them her concoctions and make a quick buck.

Well in that case get a rope. I wouldn't even care about the first situation but fraud is something different altogether.

soup

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

02/02/2007 03:44:27 PM · #11

i would ask for the original camera file with EXIF info be submitted to you.

when that doesn't happen ban her from the site, and post a message codemning her actions for all to see.

you would have to have some sort of documented terms of use that users agree to - that she violated - to really press her much more than that.

Message edited by author 2007-02-02 15:45:53.

Canon EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II

02/02/2007 04:44:36 PM · #12

Originally posted by TechnoShroom:

Well in that case get a rope. I wouldn't even care about the first situation but fraud is something different altogether.

I couldn't agree with you more!

Originally posted by soup:

Thank you! This is exactly the route that I am taking. I private messaged her and asked her to see the original picture. I tried to word my message to her in the most non-threatening, non-accusatory way possible. Her response back to me wasn't nearly so kind. LOL She got extremely nasty and extremely defensive. She removed the image of the pregnancy test from her signature and said she was leaving the board. She had been telling ladies on the board for days that she was getting positive pregnancy tests every morning. She should have been able to produce many pictures to prove me wrong (at which point I would have apologized profusely).

She did violate a couple of the terms of use. The first: "that you will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false" and the second: "You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board." That website the picture came from has a very clear explanation of their copyright beneath each picture. So, based on all of these things, I do believe she's going to be banned from the board.

Thanks very much for your help everyone. Sorry to bring this very odd drama to your little piece of digital photography heaven. :)

debitipton

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

02/02/2007 05:02:36 PM · #13

I sure hope you get to the truth soon. Having been through infertility and all the pain and heartbreak that comes with it -- I know women would be willing to grasp at just about anything that will give them a glimmer of hope.

Good Luck!

chinpaca

Canon EF 35-80mm f/4.0-5.6 III

02/02/2007 05:25:14 PM · #14

I'm with you.
Did you post a warning about her?

NathanWert

Canon EOS-90D

Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM

02/02/2007 06:22:20 PM · #15

Fraud is a serious thing.

As for the picture I overlayed the small one on the "original" and they matched perfectly (not counting coloring, just shadows).

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

02/02/2007 06:52:12 PM · #16

FWIW, I too think the coincidence of the shadows and angle is suspicious. It's very possible that the source of the photo was another edit of the shot you found. "Her" shot also looks like it has the remains of a watermark near the bottom, which leads me to suspect it was lifted off a site somewhere.