Is this image photoshopped?

[Leon Retro]

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A courier was meant to deliver two parcels to me a few weeks ago. A card was put through my door saying the parcels had been left in a 'safe place'. Unfortunately, they weren't there.

So I went on the courier's website and tracked the parcels. It said they had been delivered and a photo was shown to prove this. Looking at the photo(the one above on the right) I could clearly see it had been photoshopped.

I took the photo on the left to demonstrate how that area should look with a parcel. You can clearly see that the courier's photo has been photoshopped with obvious 'cut & paste' stuff going on. There's no way the image could look like that without photoshopping.

The same courier company was involved with a delivery person forging my signature and stealing my parcel. That was a few months ago and I was told that the driver had been reprimanded. It seems that maybe they are still employed and still up to no good.

So I contacted the police, who told me they don't get involved in this sort of thing, as it's not a priority. I did send them the image above but they refused to comment on whether they think the courier's photo is photoshopped or not.

The company who sold me the goods say they have seen the courier's photo and are happy with it, so they refuse to give me a refund.

What do you guys think? Can you see that the courier's photo has obviously been photoshopped? The image looks like a huge cut & paste mess to my eyes.

[Brad]

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. WTAF!? Dude.

Please name the courier company. Then, we need to get this on that there twitters and name the courier AND the company who are backing them up. FFS, that is ridiculous.

[Brad]

There is no way you would lose your case in a small claims court, which is what I'd be doing next.

[Dogg Thang]

That photo is a mess, no doubt about it. But had it been photoshopped by anyone with even the slightest hint of how to use Photoshop, you likely wouldn't see the glaring problems that are in the image on the right. And I'm not convinced delivery people spend their time on Photoshop. It looks to me like that image was taken while in motion and it has glitched rather than their being deliberate tampering. You wouldn't create that image to look like that deliberately.

It's not the answer that you want to hear but, looking at the part of the image that has the most integrity, it looks like those two parcels were there.

But if they are taking photos to use as evidence that they've left parcels, they should be taking better pics because that one is a mess.

Edit: One of the photography thread regulars could likely tell you for sure what's up with that image. It looks like an '80s music video effect. Maybe [MENTION=2447]EvilBoris[/MENTION] or [MENTION=42]MartyG[/MENTION] know?

[Colin]

As DT says, even despite them being taken from different distances and angles you can still see enough to see they've both been taken in the same place. Whether the parcels remained there by the courier is another matter.

[Brad]

Upon further inspection... it's as Dogg Thang says. It is a photo of your bin. I mean, that photo doesn't hold up as evidence because it's so corrupted but is it possible the parcels were left and then taken by a third party?

I let Amazon & UPS leave things in my porch. I reckon it's pretty safe but if anything were to go missing I'd have no comeback really.

[EvilBoris]

Rather than any half assed attempt at photoshop, I'd put that down to the phone trying to take a photo (HDR or some other automatic process kicking in) and their being too much motion in the shot and the merge has failed.

[Leon Retro]

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. WTAF!? Dude.

Yeah, it's crazy how bad the photoshopping is. You can see the person has 'cut & paste' and created a mess. They obviously haven't a clue what they're doing.

The same delivery company had a driver who forged my signature and stole a parcel a few months ago. I can only assume that they weren't sacked.

There is no way the image would have all those image problems because the camera was shaky. No, that just isn't possible. A shaky camera doesn't create obvious 'cut & pasting'.

The delivery person should get an award for 'Worst Photoshopping' of the year.

Why has the bin suddenly got two wheels -- one grey, one green? Why is one of the parcels see-through? Why is the blue bag all in pieces with parts of it now on the left on the image?

I think it's such a bad photoshop that some people simply can't believe someone is that stupid. But it's just a case of Britain's Dumbest Criminal.

[Leon Retro]

I did a really bad photoshop of my image to replicate the courier's photo. It's easy to see that lots of 'cut & pasting' has been done.

[EvilBoris]

There is no way the image would have all those image problems because the camera was shaky. No, that just isn't possible. A shaky camera doesn't create obvious 'cut & pasting'.
:

It can do , many phones now take multiple photos simulaneous and stitch them together to create a better image.
I don't know why they would have photoshopped it, there are clearly 2 parcels on that photo.

The bits that are missing are actually all parts of the image that would have been brighter. The white stick on the side of the bin and reflected light in the folds of the blue plastic

If you post the original image file, I can possibly tell you more about it

[Dogg Thang]

Genuinely not sure why you phrased it as a question when you didn’t want an answer.

[MartyG]

I'd concur with Boris, long exposure and the phone trying to be clever and use multiple exposures with HDR turned on can give odd results. If it was a photoshop job it'd be far less obvious.

[Leon Retro]

there are clearly 2 parcels on that photo.

You can actuall see 3 parcels. One of them is in a position that doesn't make sense -- like it's floating.

I think people are complicating the matter because it seems too ridiculous. I can clearly see that 'cut & pasting' has been done.

Why the photoshopping/doctoring is so bad, is just a mystery that I'll never solve. It just annoys me that the company who sold the goods don't think something fishy is going on when they saw the images.

Genuinely not sure why you phrased it as a question when you didn’t want an answer.

I just wanted some confirmation after being told the courier's photo "looks fine" by the retailer.

I'd concur with Boris, long exposure and the phone trying to be clever and use multiple exposures with HDR turned on can give odd results.

I've studied the image enough to be sure that 'cut & paste' stuff has been done. I understand that a shaky camera can cause effects, but not to the extent seen here. There are far too many details that show it has been photoshopped.

[Blobcat]

Jesus, I haven't used photoshop for about 10 years and I could do a better fake photo in 5 minutes.

Looks like he used Potatoprint shop.

[Dogg Thang]

Jesus, I haven't used photoshop for about 10 years and I could do a better fake photo in 5 minutes.

You could. And this is exactly how it’s clear this image isn’t Photoshopped.

Leon, EvilBoris and MartyG know photography - they are resident experts here and you should listen to their interpretation of the image. Unless your Photoshop knowledge trumps theirs (possible - I don’t know what you do for a living?). If you only wanted confirmation of your thoughts and not actual information, asking questions is probably best avoided.