The blogosphere is all a-lather over the supposedly faked images of Kim Jong Il.  Let’s add some perspective to all this.

I’d also like to add that I may have a small conflict of interest – my own wife is my Photoshop expert, but you might like to check her website for proof of her knowledge and abilities.

Let’s start with the easy things.

Firstly, there is much confusion regarding what we are dealing with – making it very difficult for the lay person to make their own judgement.  For instance if you look at this site we are offered a wide-angle image and a zoom.  It’s a real pity that the zoom was not taken from the wide!  If you look carefully, in the wide, all the soldiers are in full uniform with peaked caps and starched jackets.  In the zoom, they’re in fatigues with “Russian Bear” hats.  Plus the leader is in a clearly different stance.

Australia’s own Asher Moses reported on this yesterday, relying on the same Russian bear photo mentioned above.  Moses’ article points out three ‘issues’ with the image, all of which are refuted by digital forensics expert Hany Farid author of a recent Scientific American article on the subject.

The three objections are these:

1. That there is a dark line behind all the people except Kim Jong Il.  Many commenters have offered images where there is no-one in that location and clearly the line is still not present – speculation is that this was simply set up as the place for Kim to stand.

2. There is a suggestion that the angle of leg shadow is different for the soldiers compared to Kim.  Farid suggests that the back-board is curved, effectively changing the perspective.

3. There is an odd flaring to the side of Kim’s left shoe.  This is generally dismissed as a JPG artefact.

However, there is a much bigger problem that no-one seems to have previously noticed.