David G. Healy

Greetings,

I am slowly getting a feel for using this web site.

I have only today (12-30) seen this thread about "Fair Play." Thanks for the flattering comments. Of course I am willing to discuss any aspect of Fair Play (or PRAISE, or whatever) but am a little hesitant to jump into it, if only because there doesn't seem to be much interest in the thread. (Should I insert one of those smiley things here?)

I'll check back and take it from there.

Happy New Year,

John

welcome Mr. Klein....

Since it is the silly season i will ask what some may consider to be a silly question.

Is it possible that when the Moorman photo was taken, rather than Sitzman facing elm st, she was facing more Easterly towards the pergola. ?

This is how her pose looks to me in Willis 5 ( She seems to be looking East towards the perola and not at the limo )

Also for many years researchers have been trying to pick out her face in Moorman.

The shape i see, resembles the dark scarf shape of the back of her head, as can be seen in the opening frames of Zapruder.

I don't recall ever seeing this possibility discussed. ??

Your thoughts.

This is not meant to challenge anybody's long held views, it is just an exersise in thinking outside the square.

I'll be frank with you Robin, I can look at that Moorman 5 photo and see Sitzman on the left of Zapruder, then next time I view it she's on the right of Zapruder....adding to the mix -- on a tight insert of the same Moorman 5 either time, I can't tell who is in front of who..... Above all, I, nor anyone I know can ID whoEVER it is that's on the pedestal. (that'll bring BM out of the woodwork and a few emails from GaryM)

David

When COPA - the Coalition on Political Assassinations was first being formed, it was suggested that some day a network of independent researchers who had already worked on solving the US political assassinations of the 60s, would be ready to help prevent or solve future political assassinations when ever they would occur.

While the assassination of Bhutto was shocking, and will have an impact on what now happens for some time to come, we shouldn't be surprised that political assassination is still being used as a routine tool of action, especially in that corner of the world.

The very first BBC commentator on Bhutto's murder that I heard mentioned the assassination of President Kennedy, and how that murder sparked the same type of questions, unrest and insecurity that this assassination has brought on.

In addition, 9/11 was preceeded by two days the political assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance by the same perpetrators, but that muder went practically unnoticed and unhearled.

If you look at the early edition newspapers from September 11, 2001, there is, of course, no mention of the attacks that took place that day, but there is, burried somewhere in the back pages, a small news article about the assassination of the leader of the Northen Alliance in Afghanistan.

Now will this assassination, like the one in September 2001, be a preliminary attack, setting the stage for something bigger?

BK

according to FOX News OBL has a communique coming out today, sometime....

'Craig Lamson' wrote:

...

Does not matter. The point is that it is POSSIBLE. Costella says it is IMPOSSIBLE. End of story.

I'd say the beginning of the story: show us, examples that is. After all I provided examples of optical printing techniques, not to mention equipment nomenclatures. Surely this wasn't going to pass unnoticed....

Or is the technique simply illusion. After all, one can NOT make a soft edge negative and/or photo SHARP! So show us a few of these darkroom illusions....

Well David they made the unsharp mask process in Photoshop based on the same principals. If you don't think it works, fine with me. Try a google on local contrast.

As for examples I'm still waiting for Costella to provide empirical examples of the claims he has made. What's the matter, the scientist can't use a camera?

The story is over regardless of your feelings. Costella screwed up with this claim. The only question that remains is will he correct it.

If he graces this forum re debating the above, be prepared to go technical........ he be the one who does the CODE!

Who is THEY, please? Frankly, the argument is a none starter. As IF we don't know the photo/film printing industry is fraught with illusion -- i.e., making something out of nothing, eh? Or, as they say, no tickey-no washy!

I do recall Kai Krauss had a hand in writing quite a few of Photoshop's primary plug-in filters, unsharp mask and gaussian blur comes to mind (sometime after Adobe's creation of the Illustrator program). Kai went on to other great software advances in plug-in filters, app's and things, Kai's Power Tools and MetaCreations specifically. Perhaps you know Kai, I met him at Brooks, Santa Barbara [when Brian Ratty was on staff there] -- Kai was a student there (way back when)

Have you heard JCostella Ph.D has made great advances in image compression/decompression schemes-codec? HD too! Released just a few weeks ago....

If he chooses to debate, I suspect he's grounded in basics - word to the wise

They..are the photoshop team David...as you well know. Why debate the process or the code David, thats a strawman.

And yes I am aware of Costella's jpg-clear. Interesting, but of no use in this discussion. He can code...great...can he use a camera?

The question and answer in this case is simple and the process nor the code have nothing to do with it. If you say something is impossilbe without modern computers and the truth is that it is, you have made a mistake. Thats the answer. The question still remains...will Costella correct his mistake.

not a strawman Craig, after all, most digital photo plug-in filters (specifically Photoshop's) were brought to life by darkroom folks (in search for something they could not do in their labs and/or darkrooms.... with the aid and assistance of a coder of course....

Till I see examples, comparisions AND documentation -- no mistake....

I've never seen a blurry photos edges enhanced in a old-time photo lab..... softened yes, sharpend NO....

'Craig Lamson' wrote:

...

Does not matter. The point is that it is POSSIBLE. Costella says it is IMPOSSIBLE. End of story.

I'd say the beginning of the story: show us, examples that is. After all I provided examples of optical printing techniques, not to mention equipment nomenclatures. Surely this wasn't going to pass unnoticed....

Or is the technique simply illusion. After all, one can NOT make a soft edge negative and/or photo SHARP! So show us a few of these darkroom illusions....

Well David they made the unsharp mask process in Photoshop based on the same principals. If you don't think it works, fine with me. Try a google on local contrast.

As for examples I'm still waiting for Costella to provide empirical examples of the claims he has made. What's the matter, the scientist can't use a camera?

The story is over regardless of your feelings. Costella screwed up with this claim. The only question that remains is will he correct it.

If he graces this forum re debating the above, be prepared to go technical........ he be the one who does the CODE!

Who is THEY, please? Frankly, the argument is a none starter. As IF we don't know the photo/film printing industry is fraught with illusion -- i.e., making something out of nothing, eh? Or, as they say, no tickey-no washy!

I do recall Kai Krauss had a hand in writing quite a few of Photoshop's primary plug-in filters, unsharp mask and gaussian blur comes to mind (sometime after Adobe's creation of the Illustrator program). Kai went on to other great software advances in plug-in filters, app's and things, Kai's Power Tools and MetaCreations specifically. Perhaps you know Kai, I met him at Brooks, Santa Barbara [when Brian Ratty was on staff there] -- Kai was a student there (way back when)

Have you heard JCostella Ph.D has made great advances in image compression/decompression schemes-codec? HD too! Released just a few weeks ago....

If he chooses to debate, I suspect he's grounded in basics - word to the wise

'Craig Lamson' wrote:

...

Does not matter. The point is that it is POSSIBLE. Costella says it is IMPOSSIBLE. End of story.

I'd say the beginning of the story: show us, examples that is. After all I provided examples of optical printing techniques, not to mention equipment nomenclatures. Surely this wasn't going to pass unnoticed....

Or is the technique simply illusion. After all, one can NOT make a soft edge negative and/or photo SHARP! So show us a few of these darkroom illusions....

I'm afraid this is going to get lost in the Who is Bill MIller thread.

Is Costella correct in this claim that there is a blur mistake in some of the Zapruder frames Life published?

http://www.assassinationscience.com/johnco...intro/blur.html

Lets take just one simple example of Costella's "science"and see exactly how well he did in his research and how well his "peers and experts, like you Jack, did at reviewing his work.

Costella tells us this in his section on the blur mistake...

"Some people might ask: could Life magazine have just “sharpened” the image before publication?

Unfortunately, in 1963 there was no way to sharpen images, without modern computers. "

Well thats just not the case. Since I understand how the process of sharpening a conventional photographic image works USING FILM, I knew Costella was blowing smoke. But I wanted to know if the information existed and was easily available on the net to a researcher and his team of experts who might be working on a book. All it took was a google search and a wealth of informagtion was available at my fingertips about the process of using UNSHARP MASKING to sharpen film based photographs without the use of a computer. Now I'm sure that many of you have used unsharp masking in photo processing software to sharpen up digital images. But did you know that this process was actually developed to be used with film?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking

Unsharp masking is an image manipulation technique now familiar to many users of digital image processing software, but it seems to have been first used in Germany in the 1930s as a way of increasing the accutance, or apparent sharpness, of photographic images.

In the original process, a large-format glass plate negative was contact-copied on to a low contrast film or plate to create a positive. However, the positive copy was made with the copy material in contact with the BACK of the original, rather than emulsion-to-emulsion, so it was blurred. After processing this blurred positive was replaced in contact with the back of original negative. When light was passed through both negative and in-register positive (in an enlarger for example), the positive partially cancelled some of the information in the negative.

Because the positive was intentionally blurred, only the low frequency (blurred) information was cancelled. In addition, the mask effectively reduced the dynamic range of the original negative. Thus, if the resulting enlarged image is recorded on contrasty photographic paper, the partial cancellation emphasizes the high frequency (fine detail) information in the original, without loss of highlight or shadow detail. The resulting print appears sharper than one made without the unsharp mask because of the increased accutance.

In the photographic procedure the amount of blurring can be controlled by changing the softness or hardness (from point light to fully diffuse) of the light source used for the initial unsharp mask exposure, while the strength of the effect can be controlled by changing the contrast and density (i.e. exposure and development) of the unsharp mask.

In traditional photography unsharp masking was usually used on monochrome materials, however special panchromatic soft-working black and white films were available for masking photographic colour transparencies. This was especially useful to control the dynamic (density) range of a transparency intended for photomechanical reproduction.

We don't know what processes Life magazine used to prepare the Zapruder frames that Costella questions in his blur mistake segment. Its clearly possible that they could have used unsharp masking to increase the sharpness of the frames in question for publication.

Costella was wrong to assert that sharpening of photographs was impossible without a computer. It is possible and the process might have been used in the Life images. As such his agrument about the "blur mistake" is suspect.

so, is it *on-the-record* that LIFE Magazine used this "sharpening" process on any Z-frames they published? For that matter, on any image they published? EVER?

Bumped for Dr. Costella.

you're a busy beaver today... I doubt the Chaney WFAA interview is going away anytimesoon -- propping up Miller isn't going to get any CT to bite....

I hope John will add to this thread, now that he has "released" his smoking gun.

In case you did not hear him explain it on Dr. Jim's Dynamic Duo internet radio

show last nght, he presents UNIMPEACHABLE WITNESSES (police chief, secret

service chief, policemen, etc) who describe an innocuous event (at the time) all

verifying that MOTORCOP CHENEY IMMEDIATELY RODE FORWARD IN THE

MOTORCADE TO INFORM THOSE IN THE LEAD CAR OF THE SHOOTING.

Extant films and photos DO NOT SHOW CHENEY GOING FORWARD as described.

There is no reason for anyone to lie about Cheney's ride, THEREFORE THE FILMS

AND PHOTOS ARE NECESSARILY FORGED. All describe the actions of Cheney

very consistently and believeably.

Any jury in the world would accept this testimony over questionable photos.

Jack

This the same logic as used hereunder:

Many witnesses recall the car came to a full stop. No film (Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix, Hughes) shows the car come to a stop. THEREFORE THE FILMS AND PHOTOS ARE NECESSARILY FORGED!

Sounds familiar? In effect I am asked to accept that some eyewitnesses are more reliable than 4 films.

Wim

you say the film are reliable?

Bumped for Dr. Costella.

whenever Dr. John Costella posts concerning DP JFK assassination related film - photos, the trolls appear.....

Bumped for Dr. Costella.

LMFAO you're a year and a half late champ! Is it any wonder Roland Zavada said he did not need your assistance....

Jack wrote

[...]

Hickey with the AK47, two on the running boards and two in the front.

Where are the other four?

Jack

I think you meant to say a M-16.

And how might that be, Michael?

You're a self-professed bright guy. Figure it out yourself.

LMAO!

What a sad thread this is!

Except for the splice in the beginning , THE ZAPRUDER FILM WAS NOT ALTERED IN ANY WAY!

This ranks in the same category as Badgeman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjv59Xqlwds

Wim

Sad? Why sad? The reason for that "SPLICE" in the beginning is....? Badgeman discussion deals with an anomaly 'in' a still photo, this thread deals with something that SHOULD appear in DP film.... and doesn't appear.....

So don't be sad Wim, every move us Z-film alterations make needs to be discussed -- get Dr. Costella's data and prove him wrong -- you should be able to find someone that can challenge his findings.... till then champ, you're wishful thinking is in vain.....

Again, the reason for that "SPLICE" in the beginning is....?

David Healy

C Lamson and I have more than none thing in common (other than much heated discussions and outright attacks).

Now David, I've always considered it just light hearted banter between peers...

testy light hearted banter..... LMAO!

Craig Lamson wrote:

This is like talking to a tree stump. Once`again and maybe it will get past the bark this time. I stated WHITES internet image were worthless. I also explained in great detail ( including a link ) how it is possible to post images to the internet that are not degraded in any way. I also explained how I have posted drum scan crops that match pixel for pixel the data tha came from the drum. Post your images in PNG format Bill. Sheesh

Bill Miller wrote:

Craig ... scan an image of Badge Man out of a book and post it in Jpeg and then in the format of your preference so we can see this vast difference for study ... I say that the image will be the same - prove me wrong!!!

And this is conversation about a 1st generation photo/print quality issue? Who cares what Badge Man in a book looks like! That gets someone closer to the original quality... Are you reading what your writing? Do you know what an image *loseless* codec is? This is ridiculous.... Perhaps you should get to work on that forum signature block of yours...

No Bill, what I want is for you to stand up for the claims YOU make. If you are posting information from Groden...it is YOU who is responsible for the accuracy of that information...since it is YOU who is using this information as fact. Simple enough. Do you undertstand? And again you make this claim that I have done something...prove it or remove it Bill.

Finally on Gary Mack.

I like Gary but once again we see him "on the run" As Gary is well aware Whites internet images are WORTHLESS for use in study.

Your last comment is the same line of nonsense that David Healy used over Zfilm alteration. You ask me to post the images I have and yet you bitch that that Internet only offers worthless images for study. Its a no win situation that allows you to keep dancing all day long. I guess that you either need to talk with Groden one on one and to get off your behind and go look at the images used for yourself so not to rely on how they look on the Internet. Now how serious are you, Craig? Groden was the one who created one of those copy negatives and can get as technical as you want to about what he did to get from point A to point B, but it appears that you are not really interested in dancing with someone of his expertise. Mack was with White when they worked with those best prints and probably still has some of them in his collection, so get your tail to Dallas and get as serious about seeing these images as your trying to pretend to be. You already said that seeing them on the Internet is worthless .... so now you have little choice but to do it right - although I believe you to merely be grandstanding and won't spent an ounce of energy to follow through that narrow window you have created. You may remember that it was an Internet image that was posted on this forum showing the drum scan. I don't recall you ever saying the drum scan was worthless because it was being compressed and posted to the Internet. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. Talking out of both sides of your mouth doesn't look like you are really here to learn or to teach if the Internet images are worthless ... so what other purpose could you have for running up post after post and not actually doing something as simple as emailing an expert like Groden so to at least first find out what he did to create his copy negative?

Bill Miller

my-my you're getting sensitive there old chap...

For years I've called for a central photo repository where assassination researchers have access to DP 11/23/63 1st generation (*verifiable*) films (full size) film .mov files and assassination related PHOTOS in either .tiff or .png (both lose-less codecs)...

C Lamson and I have more than none thing in common (other than much heated discussions and outright attacks). He happens to be a professional (with much photographic work on the net ) the PRIMARY however happens to be: many years in this photo/film/video business.... he also was kind enough to provid me [amongst other CTer's] a cd with the Moorman 5 .tiff image years back (which I still have [and NO I can't ID Zapruder or Suitzman on the pedestal]). My opinion concerning Moorman 5 issues remains the same: it's a canard.....plain and simple.....

You on the other hand post to your hearts content making broad sweeping generalizations based on poor quality 72dpi imagery, then hide behind Gary and Groden's told me so's... utter foolishness...

So if Groden has something to say, get his sorry rearend here....same for Gary (after all, Gary HAS the good-great imagery, correct). Less of course the pithy commentary/excuses that he's the caretaker of the images and bound by museum dctates.... that's BS and he knows it and most of us know it.....

An email from Moe Weitzman exists (and I've seen it) concerning dear Robert Groden and his Z-film actions. What Moe knew and DIDN'T know (he does now) about Robert G.'s relationship with the 35mm Zapruder film blowups Moe produced for LIFE magazine.

Getting real boring listening to you front for Robert Groden and Gary (who lurks here more and more daily).... REAL boring

Reason for edit: changed word to its initials

Craig Lamson wrote

I guess you 'missed' this part David...

"Both the Thompson original image and Dr. Costella's enlarged version contain compression artifacts, presumably from the source JPEG image file. The edges show signs of ringing, which is a byproduct of the compression inherent in JPEG, but also may be a sign of edge enhancement. Dr. Costella's processing of the image inevitably contributed its own artifacts.

Unsure of the effect of these artifacts on gap measurement, we decided to get as close to the Moorman original as we could. Josiah Thompson took his negatives to Octagon Digital in San Francisco to have one of them professionally scanned on a drum scanner. He had the 4 x 5 negative scanned at 2400 DPI with no edge enhancement, no tonal adjustments, and no other processing. The scanner generated a 110 MB, 8-bit grayscale image to CD as an uncompressed TIFF file."

Perhaps I did miss that part...... although I was there for the entire fiasco called the Moorman5 street-grass debate issue. Only to have that debate capped off with David Lifton's Pig on a Leash article (re Moorman's DP interview with Gary Mack- Producing)

Although you, I and a few others may understand .jpeg compression artifacts (which vary depending on % of compression) it may be helpful for those that aren't up to speed concerning jpeg compression to show the difference between a .tiff Moorman5 image and the same Moorman5 compressed at utilizing the jpeg codec-100% & 75% (two jpeg image versions).

Frankly I'd prefer to view Octagon's "drum" scan data file, was that in .RAW format or .tif? Frankly concerning the Moorman 5 Polaroid, GIGO... I don't care what format it was digitized under or output as.....

I've yet to find one person who can ID Abraham Zapruder as the person standing on that pedestal -or- Marilyn Sitzman for that matter based on the Moorman5 photo --- -OR- any other photo in the *entire* DP archive of 11/22/63 film-photos....

[...]

The drum scan

In 1967, Josiah Thompson hired a professional Dallas photographer to copy the original Moorman Polaroid. The photographer returned to Thompson two 4 x 5 inch black and white negatives and 8 x 10 prints from the negatives. When the Moorman controversy arose recently, Thompson scanned one of the prints on a consumer-grade flatbed scanner and made the image available to the JFK research community.

a *flatbed* scan is NOT a *drum* scan.... How the hell did this scan get called a drum scan? If your above is correct, referring to Josiah's "research" Moorman5 image as from a drum scan is misleading....

Evidently Miller is pressing hard for a job at the 6th Floor Museum, AGAIN

Frankly I think the best is yet to come. Consider the forthcoming Bugliosi Reclaiming History HBO special (one of a ten part series produced by Tom Hanks).... complete with unflinching support for the WCR. Not to mention endless diatribe concerning those that disagree with the entire WCR/SBT-LHO did it all by his lonesome effort

isn't that called "altering" film? For our viewing pleasure of course

No - it is called "resizing" one image to fit another image of the same, but different sized.

yep, resizing = altering a image OR film clip...... gott'a be honest here, Bill!

Tom wrote:

...

From information provided to me, Shaneyfelt is the one who altered the West Survey Data Block (CE884), and of course Gauthier was the one who, in conjunction with Specter, "slipped" it into evidence.

...

This guy was a very BUSY guy..

To me it seems, that the wall in the Z -film got a much higher (unnatural)"Zoom-In" than the Lincoln(and it's passengers) on elm, which indicates that the Z-film was made out of at last two different copies. (With two different Zooms.)

Karl - different zooms - different lenses makes the difference. The camera used in the first video has a far wider field of view. Look at the train car in the Nix film - its huge due to the way the lens magnified it. From a cursory glance at the two films - a few adjustments and they could be made to overlay IMO.

Bill

isn't that called "altering" film? For our viewing pleasure of course

[...]

Duncan, so we have no confusion here .... Groden is

[...]

Bill

oh my..... "no confusion", where have I seen that before!

Cite away; I have no secrets.

What you are doing is simply demonstrating my caution with respect to you is justified.

looks like it might be time for you to step down, eh?