Redstate

now i will vote for her for prez.

she will scare away all the competition and the terrorists.

I think it was a sloppy job of legitimate digital enhancement, and I'm willing to forgive it if USAT promises to never do it again. (Yeah!)  They bumped up the brightness and the contrast and it seems they also did some sharpening on the photo, but then it looks like they also modified the pixels on the eyes and made her look like something out of bad Japanese anime.  It just looks to me like someone producing the images was rushed or not very skillful, and they went a bit overboard on the eyes.  Some $9/hr temp. at US News is going to get a Photoshop class out of this once the chewing out is over...

I know that in many cases it's appropriate to do enhancements of digital photographs, and in many cases it dramatically improves the image quality.  But it takes some skill and a bit of judgment to strike the right balance and achieve actual enhancement, not caricature.  They also could have chosen a different photo...there are plenty of photos of Condi out there, why did they have to pick such a murky photo in the first place?

Still, it's good to see that people are waking up to the ease with which a story can be influenced by doctoring the photos accompanying it...I've always wondered about this one, myself...and never got any answers.

...I think it's possible to get too het up about all this. It was a crappy job of enhancement, or highlighting, or whatever, but it's unsupported to say it was on purpose. Newspapers come out every day. Every single day. Stuff happens.

It was a lousy job of EDITING too.

but at least they didn't use the photo where they'd accidently given her horns and a Hitler mustache.

The kinds of things that can go wrong...  ;)

With everything that's going on right now - Plamegate, Miers, Delay, Hurricane(s), Iraq, Iran - this is the diary that makes it to the top of the site to get everyone outraged?

A shoddy digital enhancement that takes place every day in understaffed newspapers operating under tight deadlines? Sure.

An evil conspiracy to make Condi look like  (what was it again?), a demon? Seems a bit melodramatic.

In all likelihood, this ehancement was done by some dopey 25 year old graphic designer who barely knows who Condi Rice is five minutes before deadline.

is pretty lousy too.

Is an art form.  It's very difficult to do well, and I think it's even tougher to do well with women.  Extemporaneous snapshots are very rarely flattering (for men or women) especially when someone is as serious as Condi can be.  She can seem harsh, even foreboding.  It's a double standard, but that's how it is.

Here's an exercise for all you avid Photoshoppers out there:  fix these pictures. If you can.

It wasn't such a long time between this:

13 Nov 2002 Condoleezza Rice declares: "He already has other weapons of mass destruction. But a nuclear weapon, two or three our four years from now -- I don't care where it is, when it is -- to have that happen in a volatile region like the Middle East is most certainly a future that we cannot tolerate."

And this:

12 May 2003 National Security Adviser

Condoleezza Rice declares: "U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction."

There are many things about this war that have simply been accepted on blind faith, and I think the caption is fairly accurate in that we need to know these limits.  With our forces already fighting a war on two fronts, without adequate logistical support in many cases, we need to know that we're not going to further strain our military by attacking Iran and Syria.  Is it conceivable at all that we'd send the entire National Guard overseas?

I hope not.  

With the recruiting turnouts lower than ever, is this an option that the current administration would actually pursue?

About the pics, neither of her photos is flattering.  That one does look like something out of a horror movie, and in the other her eyes look kind of glassy, reflective, and maybe a little bloodshot.  

So our choice is either she-devil, or stoner.  It's not much of a choice at all.

All they did was apply the Unsharp Mask filter.  These things sometimes happen by accident.

I don't see outrage--this is sort of funny, and I think this post in that spirit.

Unsharp Mask is a very standard, almost de rigueur digital photo enhancement.  But if you're rushed, or not particularly skilled, it's easy to make the photograph worse if you choose the filter parameters improperly.  I really doubt that the person at USAT intended it to be so glaring (no pun intended) but I think it is an editorial slip-up.  They should have run the slightly murky, slightly blurry original instead, I think.

Sometimes people don't realize that one of the most time-consuming aspects of digital publication is the artwork and photography.  Unless you use stock photos or take someone else's work, these elements are a real challenge  to do well.  And frankly, Condi is a tough person to photograph, I think.

I think Drudge is making a little too much out of this.  He's really been scraping the dregs of the barrel in the past few weeks...his favorite subjects seem to be easy links to the weather, various tales of perversity and depravity (today's story is about the One and Only Female Sexual Predator in the United States) the occasional stupid siren about gas prices.  I think he's been reading a little too much carnival literature recently.

These are the same symptoms that we are looking at here.

...people post lengthy, well-worded responses to my dumb jokes.

This was no accident- not by the person that did it. It's JUST the eyes... it would take a deliberate tool and color selection, and then making the change.

Really, really, really bad.

The brightness, sharpness and contrast are all different between the two photos.  I haven't done a histogram analysis, but I can tell you from my Vast Experience™ that the retouched photo was meant to be an improvement that went the wrong way.

I tend to agree with you. It's pretty funny, and I would hope that the spirit of this post was on the lighter side.

That said, when I read lines like:

"another case of offensive photo doctoring"

"since this alleged mistake was made on the most viable Republican candidate for 2008, I have real doubts about their sincerity."

it seems like the original poster was quite exercised. Which seems odd.

Is that Michelle Malkin is taking this so seriously.  Must be a girl thing.

Find it hysterical how fired up Malkin is on this.

Then again, a story like this is totally in the Malkin wheelhouse. She is the master of manufactured outrage, and this is the perfect vehicle to do so.

I giggle in her general direction.

And I have to imagine, somewhere in Washington DC, Condi Rice is rolling her eyes (dimly lit or no) at this nonsense.

And then the person that did it somehow... doesn't notice? When he uses whatever tool(s), he wouldn't see the effect?

That's an impossible level of incompetence.

Raven hair and ruby lips

sparks fly from her finger tips

Echoed voices in the night

she's a restless spirit on an endless flight

wooo hooo witchy woman, see how

high she flies

woo hoo witchy woman she got

the moon in her eye

I giggle in her general direction.

And I have to imagine, somewhere in Washington DC, Condi Rice is rolling her eyes (dimly lit or no) at this nonsense.

Glad we agree on something, Cones.  This is really beneath Michelle's talent and it's a waste of time.  I'm sure Condi Rice doesn't care about the 100 pixels or so by a semi-qualified Photoshop monkeylad at USA Today.  She's probably much more concerned about the statements by the President of Iran, the fact that Republicans in at least three states think she should run for President even though she has categorically stated that she doesn't want to, and whether or not the Sunnis are going to get on board with this whole democracy thing in Iraq, and we should be too.

Michelle can worry about her eye-makeup at a later date, IMHO.  I'm a little disappointed that RedState got sucked into this story.

Manufactured outrage - it is the crack cocaine of the blogosphere.

Likes moths to a flame, like moths to a flame ...

Time's version            Newsweek's version

Where the excuse sounds thin, is that you can't convince me they didn't have a better photo to use.

This happens often with the press. It is a subtle way to get digs in for somebody who doesn't care for that person.

Sort of why the Enquirer seeks to publish awful pictures of celebrities.

with one of her photos done a while back.

Maybe she is applyint her experience and feelings to this one.

It also makes for a trivial distraction, which conservatives sort of need right now.

First thing I thought when I saw that photo was "Since when was Condoleezza Rice a Goa'uld?"

I was blogging this topic yesterday and decided to do some photo editing of my own. I did a subtle remake of schumer along the lines of the subtle ways they always demonize Ann Coulter's photos, then I went a little silly on Harry Reid.

I would do Howard Dean, but .. well come on. He already looks crazy.

Here's the blog.

know much about digital technology as I'm still trying to understand and use my 1950's Brownie box camera, I think you point it at the naked old lady I've lured into my shack but I'm not sure.  Still it's odd that the only part of Rice's face that seems to have been altered is her eyes.  This is probably just the complaint of pajama clad shut ins seeking to destroy the media and to top it off are not journalists.  In any case i'm convinced that our media is not biased, not vicious, and not nuts.

If a Republican or Conservative news organization or news blog had done this type of photo doctoring to any African-American Democrats, there would be a tirade all over press by the liberal media, the NAACP, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and the Congressional Black Caucus.

But because they are African-American conservatives, it's okay for them to be racially abused like this.

This is a double standard that needs to go away.

This is awful and it's more than just unsharp mask at work here.  The image contrast and brightness have been tweaked with in such a way that might normally improve the image but were put to bad effect here.

I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as anybody, but just like the Time magazine photo of OJ Simpson, this is a tempest in a teapot.

This is what the heralded blogosphere is in a tizzy about? A creepy picture?! My god, what's next? Crucifixion of waiter for getting her dinner order wrong? Are we really the same people who brought down Dan Rather?

There are a half-dozen different issues this website could be advancing. Instead, on all the pressing matters of the day, it seems to be ducking its head and hiding behind...

I just can't stand it.

FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S JUST A PICTURE!

the "aluminum foil" filter in photoshop.

I'm just amazed at the time that was spent on this.

They only "enhanced" her eyes. It was done on purpose.

the differences are subtle. The eyes were changed intentially.

You'd prefer we discuss "whatever God" made Bush pick Harriet. Or how you "used to" believe X conservative ideal but you've "come around".

You attempt to downplay it as ridiculous. I suspect if similar photo "treatment" were applied to photo's of, say, Cindy Sheehan, the reaction would not be the same. Just a suspicion.

I work with photoshop daily, hourly, by the minute, as part of my job.

I retouch photos for the web all the time.

I enter contests at Worth 1000 all the time.

In other words, I'm familiar with photoshop and photo editing.

I would never, ever, ever have looked at that end result and considered it acceptable. I would never, ever, ever have seen those eyes and thought to myself "those don't look snake-like at all".

There's simply no possible way. Whoever touched it up did so, saw the result, laughed to himself, and posted it. Because he liked how it made her look evil. He probably snickered with his pals over it for the week it was up there. And he's probably self-righteously outraged that his motivations have been called into question, since that is how the left-wing nutbag brain operates.

This photo editor knew what he was doing and he did it out of spite.

Is to blame and they should cut it out.  I just don't know how newsworthy it was, considering everything else the Secretary of State has on her plate right now.  I was dismayed because Michelle chose this tiny subject to concentrate on and devoted so much of her energy to it.  Meanwhile, Josh Marshall is the guest blogger over at the WaPo and has Paul Begala as a commentator over at TPMCafe.  So we're sitting here concentrating on some bug-eyed pictures and once again, the liberals outflank us on really important matters.  Talk about taking your eyes off the ball to concentrate on the way the grass was mowed.

YOu can explain away Condi's picture as a bad edit, but you can't explain turning Steele into "Little Black Sambo."

The fact that the man who made it is an African American isn't an excuse either.  

I suspect the liberals would explode with rage, if somebody doctored a picture of Rangel or Jackson into Little Black Sambo.

Apparently, now that it's beginning its tenth season, Stargate SG-1 is now the longest running American sci fi series ever.

Personally I think it would be cool to have a Tok'ra in the cabinet.

Poor Ted Danson.  And he was sleeping with Whoopi Goldberg at the time, so you would think he could have had immunity from being called a racist...

I would swear I could here a demonic deepening in Chuck Schumer's voice as he heralded the withdrawal.

by doing some sharpening stretches.

? ... ok