Unsharp Rice

Note: I write a weekly technology column for USAToday.com.

There’s a growing controversy about an AP photo of Condi Rice in USA Today that’s being called “doctored.”

It’s obvious why. On the left, the original. On the right, what ran:

So I decided to play with Photoshop to see what it took to make that happen. Did it require several subtle manipulations, or was it a simple thing (and thus more likely the result of a assembly line photo mentality — remember, this isn’t a USA Today photo; they got it from the AP wire).

The answer took about 10 seconds to find. The change is likely the result of using the Unsharp Mask filter, which is the standard way of sharpening a photo.

Here’s the process in action. You can see the original, and in the Unsharp Mask box is the result using fairly standard settings. (Click to enlarge it.)

Was it malice? Probably not. There are hundreds of AP photos coming on the wire every day, and chances are someone simply applied the standard filters and popped it into the publishing system.

(You might comment that my unsharp-masked photo isn’t as striking as the one USA Today ran. I simply used my default Unsharp Mask settings; their’s is probably different.)

Of course, it’s always fun to pick on the media, and someone should have noticed this, but when you’re talking one shot out of thousands, I’m not surprised that it got through.