Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Most of these are well-vetted and before the age of photoshop. View at your own risk!
Real ghost photos?
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
There was photo manipulation before photoshop. There was also pareidolia.
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2010/01...etouching_and_improving_negatives_and_prints/
One of my finds of a trip to Troubadour Books (which might be the closest you can get to being inside Borges’ Library of Babel; see a couple of posts about Troubadour here and here) is a book called “The Art of Retouching and Improving Negatives and Prints” (ThARINP), which, and this I learned just now, is available at the Internet Archive (Needless to say, I prefer my 1948 copy). ThARINP tells you how photographers Photoshopped portraits before they had computers.
Why do this? ThARINP has this to say:
If you’re a commercial portrait photographer (remember those ubiquitous portrait studios?) this made a lot of sense. For example, a pimple is the “unessential” that the camera’s lens can’t ignore - so as the photographer you have to break out your tools and get to work. Here are some of those tools (I rotated this Figure):
Changing the order of the sample images a little bit, here are some of the “before” and “after” examples from the book. The first must have been lifted from an earlier manual:
The second is very subtle, and it’s more or less along the lines of the kind of standard portrait Photoshopping we are very used to:
The final example is less subtle, and of course, we are very familiar with it, too. It might come as a surprise to some that even before computers and Photoshop existed photographers were able to so blatantly (and more or less convincingly) manipulate photographs:
Note how the “after” image has a certain look of artificiality - just like those heavily Photoshopped people on magazine covers, which all look as if they were androids.
Of course, if you’re familiar with the history of photography, you know that photographers have always been able to change photographs in very drastic ways. But I thought given all this talk of Photoshop it would be good to show some examples of photo manipulations that are sixty years old.
If you want to know how photographers did it, read the book. As I mentioned above, there is a copy available online at the Internet Archive. Of course, going to an actual shop like Troubadour is more fun - who knows what else you might find?[/quoet]
Yeah... photo manipulation has been around for quite some time
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
There were also ghosts before photoshop too. Hence the photos..
Well, since you just said in your latest thread that ghosts can be indistinguishable from ordinary humans, any photo of a person is potentially a ghost photo!
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Only if the person was dead when the photo was taken.
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Certainly, but as you agreed, there is no way to tell, right?
It's like in The Sixth Sense: if you die and nobody tells you, there's no way for you to know!
Indeed, by your logic, we all must be ghosts!
Dammit... is that why I can't seem to lose this weight? I can't imagine a dead body has a very good metabolic rate!
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
No genius. There are tell-tale signs a person might be a ghost. Are they wearing outdated clothes? Do they suddenly appear and then disappear? Are they someone who is known to have died? Do they NOT make noise when they walk? (See Kittamaru for details on that one.) Simple stuff like that. This ain't rocket science..
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Well then, clearly these people might all be ghosts:
And since people who died recently would wear today's clothing, then any person you see in a picture or meet might be a ghost as well!
Dunno - but not suddenly appearing or disappearing wouldn't preclude one from being a ghost. After all, that last garbage thread you posted was about a still photo. No appearing/disappearing visible in it.
I don't know and neither do you. Nor do you know if they are known not to have died. Again: any person you see in pictures or in person is a potential ghost based on the criteria you gave in your previous garbage thread.
No one makes noise in a still photo and a person walking in socks makes no noise. Again: anyone you meet or see in a picture is a potential ghost by your nonsense criteria.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Really? Are they people we know have died? Did they appear or disappear shortly after this photo was taken? Did you forget the list already?
Not if they appear and disappear or are people we know have died or make no noise as they walk.
Oh so now where talking about photos instead of real persons? Sounds like you're moving the goalposts just as you always do.
Yes..we'd know someone was a ghost if we knew they had died. There's no way you can deny that.
Ah but then if they're dressed in out of date clothing, appear and disappear, and are someone who has died, we know they're a ghost. All the other criteria still apply. So you don't need to hear them walking.
I don't know the answer to those questions and neither do you -- so you must accept that they may be ghosts.
We have always been talking about real people in photos. That's what you've been posting here for a long time. I just added the real people you see on the street because you are moving the goalposts forward with your ridiculously all-inclusive criteria.
You're reading what I said backwards. I said if you don't know that they had died, you could assume they were a ghost. Just like with the people in my photo and the woman in your photo in the other thread.
None of those criteria apply to any of the still photos you've posted, except possibly the first, which as I've shown, is meaningless.
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Landau Roof
Registered Senior Member
I am not disagreeing with you, but I wear out of date clothes. I have little fashion sense and even less spending money. I suddenly appear and disappear.
Landau Roof
Registered Senior Member
Did you miss me?
Landau Roof
Registered Senior Member
I take pride in walking noiselessly. I've always admired the hobbits and never wear anything but soft-shoes like moccassins. I can sneak up on stray cats! Not that I try to. They just don't hear me coming.
And oh!, I guess I mustn't be a ghost though because I know next to no rocket science.
And oh!, I guess I mustn't be a ghost though because I know next to no rocket science.
Landau Roof
Registered Senior Member
Yes. And I've snuck up on mushrooms too. I'm rather a fun guy.Do you love mushrooms?
I've walked up on foxes, which scared them more than me. I walked up on a black bear once, too, and that scared us both.
