4 ms·

How a baseball image got photoshopped by robots

61 points by arepb 15y ago

killerswan 15y ago
Huh? Since when does "In no way would we manipulate any photos" equate to having software automatically shuffle people around in the stands? I bet this software automatically manipulates photos for them every single day.
- jrockway 15y ago
  What they're saying is that it's an accident rather than "yeah, we photoshop our photos to make the crowd look bigger --- standard procedure." Who cares anyway?
- nikcub 15y ago
  should go through the archives on MLB.com - I bet there are plenty of other examples
MrNibbles 15y ago
Looks to me like someone has cloned areas to cover the score overlays that were present in the original. You can see a line in the top right of the manipulated image - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... Which matches the position of the score banner shown on the original - http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.... Unlikely this was done 'accidentally'
- Groxx 15y ago
  Nice find, that makes a lot of sense. There's another line in the top-left, note the blue-jacket guy getting cut off at about the same height.
fizx 15y ago
Sounds like this could be a seam-carving or patch-match algorithm in play. These are used to resize images without distortion. A research video called "Image Resizing by Seam Carving" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc
- sp332 15y ago
  There's an even better version that works with video: http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/seam-video.asp http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/seam-video.asp
- hmottestad 15y ago
  Here is how it's done in photoshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI (2:45) It seems someone decided to remove the banner from the video frame. Have a look at the left guys hat, there is a little "v" from where the banner was (in the top red oval). Edited: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... Original: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b....
- ndunn2 15y ago
  Hmm I remember seeing that video before. Extremely clever technology.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  The image cannot be the result of seam-carving because SC does not result in duplicated patches of the region. Moreover, the patching up (as others mentioned, to remove the scores) results in both non-zero offset both horizontally and vertically, which will not happen if you run SC (you'd expect either horizontal or vertical movements).
eps 15y ago
This is most certainly an artifact of using "content-aware fill" in Photoshop CS5. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/caf_in_ps.html http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/caf_in_ps.html
geraldalewis 15y ago
Just to clarify: no robots were involved in photoshopping the image. Regardless of the author's "trusted source's" statement, the image is clearly shopped to remove the score overlays on a video still (as @mrnibbles http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571979 mentions). The cloned areas of the original image indicate that whatever entity did the shopping had a contextual understanding of the image, which means it was a human (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... -> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.... -- note that the foreground subjects are not `cloned`). This was either a quick hack job by a person, or the work of an extremely sophisticated machine vision program.
- spydum 15y ago
  Figured I wouldn't be the only one to spot this -- seems obvious this is the reasoning. Article got it wrong..
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- mung 15y ago
  um.....
rorrr 15y ago
This is clearly photoshopped. No algorithm would do this.
brianbreslin 15y ago
I was half hoping this would be a picture of a Florida Marlins game edited to actually have fans in attendance :-P (I'm from Miami) http://www.flickr.com/photos/miamism/3655690286/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/miamism/3655690286/

61 points by arepb 15y ago

Huh? Since when does "In no way would we manipulate any photos" equate to having software automatically shuffle people around in the stands? I bet this software automatically manipulates photos for them every single day.

jrockway 15y ago
What they're saying is that it's an accident rather than "yeah, we photoshop our photos to make the crowd look bigger --- standard procedure." Who cares anyway?
nikcub 15y ago
should go through the archives on MLB.com - I bet there are plenty of other examples

MrNibbles 15y ago

Looks to me like someone has cloned areas to cover the score overlays that were present in the original. You can see a line in the top right of the manipulated image - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... Which matches the position of the score banner shown on the original - http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.... Unlikely this was done 'accidentally'

Groxx 15y ago
Nice find, that makes a lot of sense. There's another line in the top-left, note the blue-jacket guy getting cut off at about the same height.

fizx 15y ago

Sounds like this could be a seam-carving or patch-match algorithm in play. These are used to resize images without distortion. A research video called "Image Resizing by Seam Carving" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc

sp332 15y ago
There's an even better version that works with video: http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/seam-video.asp http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/seam-video.asp
hmottestad 15y ago
Here is how it's done in photoshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI (2:45) It seems someone decided to remove the banner from the video frame. Have a look at the left guys hat, there is a little "v" from where the banner was (in the top red oval). Edited: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... Original: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b....
ndunn2 15y ago
Hmm I remember seeing that video before. Extremely clever technology.
HardyLeung 15y ago
The image cannot be the result of seam-carving because SC does not result in duplicated patches of the region. Moreover, the patching up (as others mentioned, to remove the scores) results in both non-zero offset both horizontally and vertically, which will not happen if you run SC (you'd expect either horizontal or vertical movements).

eps 15y ago

This is most certainly an artifact of using "content-aware fill" in Photoshop CS5. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/caf_in_ps.html http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/caf_in_ps.html

geraldalewis 15y ago

Just to clarify: no robots were involved in photoshopping the image. Regardless of the author's "trusted source's" statement, the image is clearly shopped to remove the score overlays on a video still (as @mrnibbles http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571979 mentions). The cloned areas of the original image indicate that whatever entity did the shopping had a contextual understanding of the image, which means it was a human (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.png http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/5733655921_b28748984b_o.... -> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5734289061_34f76398e9_b.... -- note that the foreground subjects are not `cloned`). This was either a quick hack job by a person, or the work of an extremely sophisticated machine vision program.

spydum 15y ago
Figured I wouldn't be the only one to spot this -- seems obvious this is the reasoning. Article got it wrong..

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mung 15y ago
um.....

rorrr 15y ago

This is clearly photoshopped. No algorithm would do this.

brianbreslin 15y ago

I was half hoping this would be a picture of a Florida Marlins game edited to actually have fans in attendance :-P (I'm from Miami) http://www.flickr.com/photos/miamism/3655690286/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/miamism/3655690286/