The president and his cut-in commanders

The above picture is from a Reuters article entitled “Bush seeks diplomacy to resolve Iran nuclear issue.”

Its caption is as follows:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (front row C) sits with commanders from the Basij Militia in Tehran May 7, 2006. The United States aims to resolve the Iran nuclear stand-off peacefully and diplomatically, President George W. Bush said on Tuesday.

There’s a problem, however: The image appears to be photoshopped. (The flatness of everyone is not necessarily evidence, for objects in a photo can be made to appear flat by manipulating the image’s depth of field.)

If you’ll take a look at the man with the white turban—farthest to the right on the row immediately behind Ahmadinejad—you will notice that his face “hangs” in front of the turban, which is off-center.

Now, let’s take a gander at the man at 10:00 from Ahmadinejad. Now look at the man behind him. The man behind Mr. Ten O’Clock looks like he’s standing outside with the sun in front of or above him. The edges of his head are rather lightly lit.

For my final bit, I would like to direct your attention to the turbaned man in the fourth—possibly fifth or sixth—row from the top of the image. Look at his face. It’s not there; it’s merely a black rectangle.

Whoever made this image did a poor job making it look convincing, and I’m not entirely sure why one would need to fake it.

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