"And the face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale..."
The face of (Muhammad) (Karl Marx) (Rasputin) (Jesus) that so many around the blogosphere are seeing today is, alas, a mere figleaf of their imaginations. Sorry, kids, it just isn't there.
How do I know? I used an ancient reporting technique. I walked to the corner and looked for myself at the real cover on-sale now for $5.95 [Pass]. Nope. No face. Instead, there's just your average highlight on the apple representing either a reflection of one of the main umbrella lights used for portraiture photography, or something dropped in by the Newsweek photoshop jockey making everything nice on the final image.
Now I had some fun with this in the sidebar yesterday, but like many things on the web, "If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing." Today, this thing is all over. What people are freaking out about is either a subtle photoshop (which I doubt), or an artifact of pixillation that happens when an image is reduced and optimized for web display. The latter is by far the most likely explanation.
The whole kerfuffle brings to mind the infamous spotting of "Nig" in the Hillary Clinton "Who Answers the Phone at 3AM" spot.
Here's that apple under normal copying from website to website:
See a ghostly bearded face? Of course you do. Want to see it more clearly still. Here let me hit the same image with a whiff of the Unsharp mask.
Chilling, what? So, grasshopper, the question for you is: "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?" Answer: Neither. Hie thee to a magazine rack and look for yourself.
Posted by Vanderleun at March 16, 2010 11:49 AM
Like I am going to go to some effort, so that I can see a smiling version of that face. I think the real Photochop question is how many pounds did they take off.
Posted by: Fat Man at March 16, 2010 1:12 PMI tried to clean the image up a bit. This is what I got.
I could see where the image might be the photographer's reflection if he were sitting at the end of the conference table and had a window behind him with a rather unattractive window treatment--better yet, the drapes stuffed up behind the rod to let in more light--no, fuck it, it's Marx.
Posted by: ahem at March 16, 2010 4:19 PMWill anyone under 45 get the song reference in the title?
Posted by: Aquila at March 16, 2010 6:22 PMIt looks like the manifestation of God from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
Posted by: TmjUtah at March 16, 2010 6:34 PMI went looking for the current issue today, and the one on the newsstands was dated March 15, and had a different cover...what is the date of this one?
Posted by: Menderman at March 16, 2010 6:36 PM@tmj: I thought the same thing.
Somewhere, Graham Chapman is smiling.
Posted by: WWWebb at March 16, 2010 9:35 PMsatan
Posted by: reliapundit at March 17, 2010 6:58 AMNah, that ain't Marx--it's Orested Brownson!
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=Orestes%20Brownson&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
(Now there's a guy who ought to be better known...)
Posted by: Edgewise.Sigma at March 17, 2010 1:23 PMDems just could not see the image. Repub. Saw it right away.
Posted by: Ed at March 17, 2010 4:03 PMDems just could not see the image. Repub. Saw it right away.
Posted by: Ed at March 17, 2010 4:32 PMRegardless the outcome, they are both bad apples.
Posted by: Cheezburgrrr at March 17, 2010 8:35 PMJames Clerk Maxwell
Posted by: M. Simon at March 20, 2010 5:15 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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