Chinese News Photoshop Fail Turns Chinese Men Into Chinese Friendly Giants

from the BFGs dept

The being-bad-at-Photoshop arms race continues! For some reason, there appears to be a culture of “fake it ’til you make it” going on with some of our international rivals. Previous iterations include Iran’s using Photoshop to ensure that everyone knows one of their new jets can’t actually fly, as well as North Korea (of course) transposing several national leaders into photos to pretend like they opened a school for children (like anyone would believe that).

And now we can add China to the list, given that they’re piss-poor attempt at manipulating a photo to look like leaders visited a really old women somewhere resulted in the insinuation that Chinese men have been eating their Wheaties and have turned into big, smiling giant-folk.

According to China News (via HugChina), the above photo supposedly features the vice mayor of Ningguo county and other officials “visiting” a 100-year-old woman—a very small one hundred year old woman, surrounded by a halo and giants.

Quick, someone save that happy old lady from the uber-men surrounding her! And these aren’t even your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Chinese mega-men, either. They’re ghost giants, as evidenced by that last guy on the right how appears to be made of a non-corporeal substance the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Ghostbusters were still employed!

Now, the image and the report have reportedly been taken down to ensure the Chinese people don’t fly into a panic about the ensuing gigantic dominance, but wouldn’t it be easier for the Chinese government to have actually visited this sweet old lady rather than parry the ensuing laughter over this poor propaganda attempt?

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Comments on “Chinese News Photoshop Fail Turns Chinese Men Into Chinese Friendly Giants”

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36 Comments
4h8vb0 (profile) says:

I’m as happy to rip on countries for faking photos as the next person, but this is absurd. Anyone with eyes can tell this isn’t photoshopped to ‘fake’ it, it’s photoshopped out of logistical necessity.

Two pictures were clearly taken on the same balcony (you can see the same balcony railing in both parts of the picture, with it’s distinctive double-vertical posts), but one was taken looking to the left, and one looking to the right.

The picture of the old lady was poorly inserted as an ‘inset’ of sorts, presumably because the balcony is so small they couldn’t fit all five in the same shot.

You can judge the size of the balcony by assuming that the men are looking down at the woman’s face (edited out of the ‘large’ photo), which appears to be no more than a metre in front of them. Adjusting for the distance between her face and her knees while sitting, they must be practically standing on her toes.

It’s a small balcony, and someone just merged two pictures because they couldn’t fit everyone in one picture.

Not everything you see is sinister.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re:

However you want to spin it, the photo is still attempting to show something that did not happen.

You might say that it’s not that big of a deal, it’s just a simple photo after all, but when you start making excuses for the government to lie to it’s citizens(and if they’re willing to do so over something this minor, they’d obviously have no problem ‘fudging’ a few things for anything bigger), then you’ve admitted that such lying is acceptable, something most would probably disagree with.

Finally, assume for a minute that you’re right, that there just wasn’t enough room to show everyone at once, if both parties were in the same house at the same time, and space was really an issue, how hard would it have been to move to a larger area for the picture?

Anonymous Coward says:

I’ve never seen anyone like the guy on the right, able to stand with a post in him. Not before him, not behind him, but IN him.

I believe that is the first 1/2 ghost, 1/2 man I’ve ever seen.

The problem with it being or not sinister 4h8vb0, is that the photo is faked. It’s an obvious fake to the most unknowledgeable of photo editing. It’s how you throw doubt into propaganda. It’s obvious that the whole photo is wrong which leads you to the point that the event very likely didn’t happen as pictured. Haven’t we heard enough about politicians claiming something that isn’t yet?

4h8vb0 (profile) says:

Re: Re:

See the AC reply to my comment above.

“Probably the editor wants to have a photo that showing the woman’s face, but the original can only show her back, so they do a photo merge to fulfill the need.”

It’s no more fake than there being a magic floating road in the sky in this image. It’s just been done with a fade, not a border.

4h8vb0 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

The only difference between this and the West, is that they didn’t pair their images well, and they used a fade instead of a white border.

See eg:

http://cdn1.independent.ie/migration_catalog/article25420213.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/beaa8677-48de-4d88-bacf-4a55a4ec85e4.jpg

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2013/03/25/horti1.jpg

http://www.pgs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HalverGroupPic_Crop-600×400.jpg

http://ll-media.tmz.com/2007/08/30/0830_hogan_crash_tmz_fm_01-1.jpg

inset, noun: a small picture or map inserted within the border of a larger one.

horse with no name says:

not important but...

It’s a nice break away from Mike’s endless grinding at the NSA story, popping up every piece of information like it was the end of the world. Probably be faster for him just to text message the few hundred that showed up on the weekend…

Oh wait, this comment will be held for moderation because I am telling the truth.

ltlw0lf (profile) says:

The Scientologists need to up their game…they are being beaten badly by the communists in a game they should handily win (being that they are all in at the crazy game, where the communists actually have some logic and reason behind their crazy.)

I do agree that this looks more like a composite of two pictures at different angles than a picture where people were added who weren’t there.

ltlw0lf (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Huh? That is two ways of saying the same thing.

I meant as opposed to the Koreans who weren’t at the school opening they were supposedly supposed to be at and were later ‘shopped in. This appears to have really happened, just the picture was a composite of two pictures taken at different angles. Still cheap, but more “understandable”.

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