I've seen it all now...

[thecoalman]

CSI and the unrealistic video and image enhancement they do gets mentioned here a lot however I've seen a pretty crazy example. Not sure if it was CSI or another show as I don't watch much TV but anyhow this is the scenario. There's a ticket laying on the ground on a basketball court that the TV crew filmed, it's a wide shot so the ticket would occupy the space of about 10X10 on the video... roughly.. It's also at an angle so the perspective is skewed.

They enhance and read the seat number off the ticket... even giving it the right perspective and making it perfectly legible. It was so legible if there was fine print on it you would have been able to read that.

Am I just out of the loop? Do they always go that far beyond what is possible? I've seen some pretty laughable examples but nothing that compares to that.

[gadgetguy]

I don't remember which show it was, but my favorite was enhancing the reflection from a rear view mirror in a moving car driving past, to see a suspect out of view of the camera on an ATM machine. I like those little reminders that I'm watching fiction.

[Faustus]

I can actually do this with my computer. You should upgrade to a Mac.

[thecoalman]

I would but I'm too busy trying to remove all the shit Quicktime installed on my computer. :P

[stiltman]

They're able to do this. It was recreated on MythBusters last season.

These TV shows are now shot in Super HD at 10Kfps

[thecoalman]

In this particualr scene I don't care if it was shot in IMAX they wouldn't been able to do what they showed...

Besides the footage they were enhancing would have been from regular sports TV crew,

[Faustus]

These TV shows are now shot in Super HD at 10Kfps

Thats how I shoot my home movies these days. 8)

[ViRaL1]

We (The United States) do have the technology to do this, but I can't comment further.

[yoda313]

I can actually do this with my computer. You should upgrade to a Mac.

Hah thats a good one! Another piece of fiction there! (nothing personal just aimed at mac not you faustus )

[vhelp]

Ok. I'm not saying that anything can be done, but *IF* the photo was based off an actual
negative from an analog camera -- you know, the ones where you had to manaully make the
adjustments -- I still have my Pentax K-1000, its probably or potentially doable though with
limited results and prob not as close to what you saw on tv.

I don't know what the analog cameras resolutions are in terms of K's, but I'm sure that in the
digital work, its still far less than that of a manually operated camera vs. a digital one. The
way I see it, digital has limits set to it, while analog doesn't.. you can scan the image almost
to infinity with the right scanning equipment and get distinct details of various objects and
things. Course, I may need to be corrected in a few things, but I think you understand me to
some degree. Otherwise, i'm just theorizing

But, the more I research and practice in my image analysis work the closer I'm becoming a
believer in *some* aspects (with limits) of truth in these bizar scenes.

-vhelp 4686

[Midzuki]

Faustus wrote:

I can actually do this with my computer. You should upgrade to a Mac.

Since when the Macs contain Goa'uld technology

[Supreme2k]

Hah thats a good one! Another piece of fiction there! (nothing personal just aimed at mac not you faustus )

No need to apologize. He is a piece of fiction


Anyone remember that image resizing program that someone posted about in, I'm thinking 2006? They had a postage stamp sized gif and (supposedly) resized it to crystal clarity and added detail (it was of a water-skier). Never could reproduce that effect myself

[thecoalman]

I've seen some pretty good examples of scaling images but none that add anything of course. Simply put they examine the image for edges and maintain them which is about the best you can expect when you scale an image. Adam mentioned using Neat Image to do his and I tried it with some success. You scale the image in steps, make sure to use bicubic. Lightly use neat image in between each step. This will take the fuzziness off the edges.

I know some of the things they do are possible, for example if you had a black image with a pattern in it that was one shade off you wouldn't see the pattern normally. However you could easily extract just the pattern if you wanted too.

Some of this stuff can be done but like I said they could have read the fine print on the ticket in the example I posted whichsimply was not going to happen under any circumstances.

[adam]

Our office pays big bucks for video enhancement services for use with prosecution. We only do it on the big cases where there is good footage to begin with (unlike on CSI et al where there is always surveillance of the crime happening.) They basically do what vhelp described and scan multiple frames to derive more information and combine it into new "uber" frames. The results are completely uninspiring. Sometimes you can pull a logo off of a shirt or a hat. We recently used it to look at someone's socks because we believed that the killer and accomplice switched shoes after the murder. In the real world there simply is no, "enhance" button.

Other things in these shows that strike me as painfully fake are fingerprints and DNA. In real life you don't find prints on everything. The object has to have the right qualities to sustain a print, and even if there is one it usually doesn't have enough points on it for identification. Same with DNA, its only unique if you leave enough loci behind. Without a sufficient number DNA can maybe narrow down the suspect to say, one fourth of the population. In other words, its useless. Very rarely do you get perfect identification with DNA. Its usually more useful in eliminating suspects. Another thing, unlike on CSI, DNA results don't some back in 30 mins. Try 3 months.

I actually like CSI, just because its fun. Now the show that truly distorts reality is Shark. You know, that's the show where the person gets murdered on Monday and they start the trial on Tuesday.

[FulciLives]

Although I dearly love the movie BLADERUNNER it has perhaps the most "offending" scene of photo manipulation. They actually track onto something you couldn't see in the photo because it was behind something but somehow they go "around it" to see a mirror and in return they see a reflection of something in the mirror and do a print out.

Doesn't bother me because of how awesome the film is otherwise plus I first saw it when I was like 10 or something and my imagination was not as "locked in" as it is with an adult. Hey it's the future and they can do kewl shit like that I figured LOL

Of course despite being set in a super duper techie future the print out was still somewhat "blurry" LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Midzuki]

FulciLives wrote:

Although I dearly love the movie BLADERUNNER it has perhaps the most "offending" scene of photo manipulation. They actually track onto something you couldn't see in the photo because it was behind something but somehow they go "around it" to see a mirror and in return they see a reflection of something in the mirror and do a print out.

Doesn't bother me because of how awesome the film is otherwise plus I first saw it when I was like 10 or something and my imagination was not as "locked in" as it is with an adult. Hey it's the future and they can do kewl shit like that I figured LOL

Of course despite being set in a super duper techie future the print out was still somewhat "blurry" LOL

Do you remember "Search"? (from the 70's, starring Burgess Meredith, Tony Franciosa et al.).
They already had such kind of techno-"sorcery"/-bullshit

[KBeee]

I think the most outrageous enhancement I ever saw in one of those CSI shows concerned a woman who thought she might be a killer because she sleep-walked, and woke up outside near a dead body.
But with just 3 clicks of a mouse button, the CSI lab managed to enhance a low quality, monochrome, night time, overhead cctv picture and see from the reflection in her eye the face of the true killer.

[FulciLives]

That last remark reminded me of the old theory: the one where "when you die the last thing you saw will be imprinted onto your retina" and that there is a way to "extract" that image.

Hence if you were killed someone else could see who dunnit!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[lordsmurf]

IYou scale the image in steps, make sure to use bicubic.

Easily one fo the worst image resize methods. Use something based off of non-square methods, such as fractal resizing. I often use Genuine Fractals Pro to salvage photos (digital sources, not scans).

For printed images, I use a scanner with good glass, preferably at the negative or slide level. No flatbeds here.

[thecoalman]

Easily one fo the worst image resize methods. .

Should have clarified that, Adam's method was for those without a fractal plug-in. Bi-cubic in my experience is the best method when you only have standard selections.

[lordsmurf]

There are a number of free ways to use Lanszcos and others. I've actually found some good use converting an image to a single-frame video through VirtualDub. It's a "poor man's" way of using non-linear/non-cubic upsize filters.

Photoshop has some free ones, I believe, though I don't use them.

On the paid side, I've experimented with AlienSkin and DXO Optics ones as well, though I find them over-advertised and lacking in a real-world usage.

I've had discussions with law enforcement agencies in the past, and have even consulted a couple of smaller operations (especially those on limited budgets) about methods to extract more data from video or photo. If I didn't like what I do now, I'd pursue a criminology A.S. degree, attached it to my existing experience, and go into the forensic media field.

There's a lot of advanced tools out there, I only know about standard media software methods (especially that of Photoshop).

Anytime you mention CSI, eyes always roll. Some folks even get pissed. There is apparently a really bad problem with juries now now expecting "clear quality" evidence when such a thing is impossible. They have to educate the juries now over what is an isn't possible using forensic methods, and go over why "tv shows" are fictional. It's an added step that didn't exist 10 years ago. A lot of "digital manipulation" confusion too, as many people think that means "fake" instead of "digitally processed to improve quality and clarity". That's one pain-in-the-ass thing I've heard about that has really kept me away from that field, as it brings in a lot of stress. I'm sure Adam (or any other courtroom-using person) could go into better detail on that. I just hear the ranting side of it.

[RabidDog]

VHelp .. Its not the resolution of the camera in analog photography its the resolution of the film. Eg really good quality film will have grain sizes a lot smaller than cheaper film. and the grain size is generally the lowest resolution you can go, equivalent to a pixel. I have heard that in general film is regarded as having a resolution in digital terms of approx 25kx25k but again films ability to capture shades, numbers of colors is greater than digital. I suppose its like mp3 versus Vinyl/CD/Reel to Reel tape. A low bitrate mp3 is easily to tell but for most people a very high bitrate mp3 (320k+) is indistinguishable from the original source.
A lot of people think satellites can read a newspaper on earth, but its an Urban myth.
CSI is laughable, Nobody spends that much time on any case, unless its the Kennedy Assassination. Its reassurance TV, making us believe that evil-doers will get caught, and the good will be proved innocent. Unlike Reality.

Cases where CCTV is not available
DIana crashes in Tunnel..strange
Demenzes is shot in Tube station.. 3 days after major Bomb alert...unbelievable.

[KBeee]

There was a case a year or 2 ago in the UK where the Police used in evidence to a jury, a picture taken from a CCTV camera of someone committing a crime, and although no details could be made out clearly, the general appearance matched the accused being tried i.e. dark haired, general build etc. Then it was found the Police had "Digitally Enhanced" the picture by making it 10-20% narrower, so the fat guy in the picture more closely matched the man on trial.

[lordsmurf]

Poor glass can very much affect the perceived "resolution" of an image, due to softness. Especially at wide apertures. These things (glass, image sensors, tape quality, etc) cumulatively affect and effect the final image quality.