Marina Amaral, illustrator of the wonderful history book “The Colour of Time,” busted the HuffPost using “digitally manipulated photos” in this slideshow of historic drag queens, including one of inventor Thomas Edison:
Article by the Huffington Post: "10 Historical Photos and Stories of Drag Queens"
The FIRST photo is a digitally manipulated photograph of THOMAS EDISON. I've already debunked it a thousand times and I'm still amazed that people don't recognize the face.https://t.co/EuLX2QfLZs pic.twitter.com/Hrevps7yLO
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
Others in the series are fakes, too:
These are all fake too (featured in the same article). pic.twitter.com/t9hHjQDuF2
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
Finding the fakes is not easy, however, even for professionals:
Correction: this one is real. pic.twitter.com/E3XlqnrNdc
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
“It is hard to know” what’s real and what’s not:
It's not their fault. The person who manipulated these photos should have written a disclaimer on them or something. Unless you have a trained eye or have seen the original photos, it is hard to know.
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
It’s a scary thought that these might find their way into the history books one day:
Doing this is different from adding colors. When you add elements and change the images so dramatically, you change the story and context and make people believe they are portraying something that is not even real. I bet these are being used in history books somewhere.
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
Another example:
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
And another:
Created in Photoshop from images in the Brady-Handy Collection at the Library of Congress. pic.twitter.com/yXsqsK8Tu1
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
It’s not just the HuffPost that was fooled:
And again, this has nothing to do exclusively with HuffPost. These photos are available on several other websites and people really believe they are real.
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
FWIW, some of the photos may be real:
I think these are possibly real: 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 and maybe 10. https://t.co/envcVyP6wE
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) February 14, 2019
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