Craig Lamson Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 What Wim posted is exactly what is seen in the drumscan, is that "multi-generational or degraded"?No. It might not be as sharp around the BM area as one would like but it's not the piece of cra* you are making it out to be. No one can use the clearest, sharpest print because they were never published in full. So what Wim posted was the best available to him, you or I. Are you thick or what??? The drum scan is not one of Josiah's best prints ... Josiah and Gary Mack would be one of the first to tell you this and I believe that information has been posted before. I have left a message with Mack to email some data on the drum scan and I will post it once I have received it. And I agree that the Moorman image Wim refers to is the best that he can probably get his hands on, but who cares! That's like saying 'I have this dirty window in my house that I cannot get any cleaner and it doesn't offer the sharper view that someone else had looking through it before it became so dirty, thus what is seen through it now is the most reliable view.' To take that position is one of the most irresponsible approaches I have witnessed from anyone to date. Jack White and Josiah Thompson had the best prints and they have shared crops from them. In other words - they had the clean glass to see through many years ago while the prints we have today are the dirty ones. It seems that the Badge Man critics prefer to work backwards. So to those who think the drum scan is so great ... then recreate Jack's Badge Man or the Hat Man image from it!!! It cannot be done. It is impossible to use a print that has lost its clarity and by merely adjusting the lighting or contrasting of the print that this will somehow create something out of nothing. By the way - people can use the clearest images of the Badge Man and Hat Man area because people like Jack, Groden, and Thompson provided the images so many years ago. Would it be nice to see the entire image from the best prints - sure it would, but Badge Man is the issue and he is only in one location on the Moorman photo and we have been given a view of the best print showing his features. Complaining about not seeing the remaining print doesn't take away from the information these men have provided us concerning these key areas even though some are trying to pretend that it does. Bill Miller WHo is thick? The drum scan is NOT from a print.... 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. Dr. Costella used a version of this image file for his gap analysis. As part of the analysis, he magnified the image 3 times larger and rotated it to compensate for both camera rotation and scanner rotation. 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. http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/mgap/drum_scan_gap.html So lets see some of these "best images" Bill. You make a LOT of noise about them but have YOU ever laid eyes on them? DO you have a very high res scan of ANY of these so called "best images'? Can you state with complete fact that these "best images" are more faithful to the original Moorman that say the drumscan? Can you state with complete fact that the detail in badgeman is the actual detail found in the Moorman original? Or is this "detail" the result of the repeted copy and print process? Is the difference in fact due to fading of the original Moorman? DO you know what the original Moorman even LOOKED like when these "best images" were made? Did these "best images" add new detail to the original moorman in the form of new film grain? What was the characteristic curve of the copy film used? High contrast or low film stock? Fine or course grain? What film developer and what time/temp Diffusion or condenser enlarger? What paper grade? What paper developer? Was the contrast of the first print from the first copy negative extremely high as is usual for newspaper publication? Did this contrast alter the image by eliminating highlight detail and compressing shadow detail, thus creating new edgelines wher noe existed before in the original Moorman? Could the Moorman lens/film f-stop even record the detail found in badgeman? Now who is "thick" again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Lamson Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) Sorry, my only goal is to separate fact from fiction, Wim That's a topic that would cause a more heated debate than the JFK assassination. You guys grab onto a later poor print and then bitch that clearer images from earlier prints cannot be trusted over the latter faded prints. That argument is utter nonsense. We can be thankful that crops were made from such early prints or else everyone would remain in the dark as to what was seen on the original Moorman photo. From Gary Mack about the Drum Scan and its clarity .... Hi Bill, The drumscan is useless for studying fine detail in the Moorman photo. The scan is of a 4x5 copy negative of the original Polaroid AS IT EXISTED IN 1967. By that time, the Polaroid had faded siginficantly, and the loss of clarity was shocking. In 1984, when Jack White and I were doing follow up work on Badge Man images, we examined 8x10 prints made from the same negative used for the drum scan. Because of the lack of clarity, we never used any of the images from the 1967 negatives (there were two). Our work used superior prints made in 1963/1964 when UPI still had high-quality copy negatives of the original picture. . Gary Mack Again I will ask of Mack the same things I asked you...plus... Gary how do you know the loss of clarity was "shocking? Did you EVER see the Moorman first hand before it had faded? If not how can you state as fact..." the loss of clarity was shocking" Edited December 7, 2007 by Craig Lamson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David G. Healy Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) [...]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 Edited December 7, 2007 by David G. Healy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miles Scull Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) [...]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 Miller is pumping out a smokescreen. The issue of the image quality is a smokescreen which hides the insuperable proportionality problem. Arnie is just too tiny. Edited for spelling. Edited December 7, 2007 by Miles Scull Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Lamson Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 [...]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 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." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David G. Healy Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) Craig Lamson wroteI 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.... Edited December 7, 2007 by David G. Healy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Lamson Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 Craig Lamson wroteI 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 was saved as an 8 bit tif. We asked that the scanner tech not apply the standard curves to the image data not to apply any sharpening. What was supplied by Octagon was just the data as it came from the drum. I'm not suprised to not see Zap clearly on that image. The lens was very defraction limited...it was stopped down to shoot iso 3000 film in bright sunlight at 1/100 of a second. Add to that the filmstock had a VERY low ability to resolve. Add to that the camera was handheld. Sadly we can't post a tif image on the web. The best we can do is a png which is a lossless format. I have in the past posted crops from the 100+ mb drum scan file on Pbase. The full image is too large to post. If you have a specfic area in mind I will be happy to post a crop. Or if you drop me a pm with your email addy I will put the full png on my ftp and give you a username and password so you can download the file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Miller Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) Again I will ask of Mack the same things I asked you...plus...Gary how do you know the loss of clarity was "shocking? Did you EVER see the Moorman first hand before it had faded? If not how can you state as fact..." the loss of clarity was shocking" Craig, now you are sounding like Miles. Crops from the very prints before fading took place were made and ended up in Josiah's and Groden's books. Mack has also answered your question in the past, but I guess your grandstanding has damaged your memory. If we look at what Mack said in the quote that I posted - you will also find part of your answer there as well, even though it is probably not the answer you are wanting to hear. Mack writes, "Our work used superior prints made in 1963/1964 when UPI still had high-quality copy negatives of the original picture." Now let us see if we cannot put our heads together and see if your question was indeed answered. The assassination happened on the 22nd of November of 1963. Mack said that the prints made in 1963/64 from high quality copy negatives that UPI had were what he and Jack used. Now does that sound like he and Jack saw the best Moorman images before the fading took place ... sounds that way to me. Now instead of asking questions that have already been answered ... how are you coming on those questions for Groden and has he answered you yet? Bill Edited December 7, 2007 by Bill Miller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Miller Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) 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.... You tell him, David!!! Also tell him that we cannot identify Phil Willis, Rosemary Willis, Croft, Betzner, Brennen, Toni Foster, Sam Holland, Simmons, Dodd, The Franzen's, The Chisms, Millican, and a long list of people .... so why are we even bothering to be on a JFK assassination forum??? There is however an image of Sitzman standing next to the pedestal post assassination being interviewed in Trask book "National Nightmare" and there is the footage of her in the Zapruder film as she and the Hester's wait for the motorcade to arrive. Now granted that Sitzman seems to be the only woman in Dealey Plaza dressed as she was, but that doesn't mean that she didn't go hide somewhere during the assassination while someone else wearing the same clothes as her had gotten up on the pedestal. And what if we could recognize the woman's face who is on the pedestal in Moorman's photo ... it could be a clever disguise. Yes, David ... without fingerprints and DNA ... we cannot assume anything about the assassination images. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I certainly sleep better at night knowing that the most paranoid watch-dog is on duty. Bill Miller Edited December 7, 2007 by Bill Miller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Miller Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 (edited) Miller is pumping out a smokescreen.The issue of the image quality is a smokescreen which hides the insuperable proportionality problem. Arnie is just too tiny. Miles, If you are going to try and pretend to be accurate when it comes to understanding perspective and scaling, then you should at least be sure that when you align reference points from two images up that are said to be of the same person - you must have the same distance between the top of their head to the top of the shoulders stretched equally. Your image failed to even get that much right, thus maybe you are not the one to be defending one side or the other. Bill Miller Edited December 7, 2007 by Bill Miller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miles Scull Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Miller is pumping out a smokescreen.The issue of the image quality is a smokescreen which hides the insuperable proportionality problem. Arnie is just too tiny. Miles, If you are going to try and pretend to be accurate when it comes to understanding perspective and scaling, then you should at least be sure that when you align reference points from two images up that are said to be of the same person - you must have the same distance between the top of their head to the top of the shoulders stretched equally. Your image failed to even get that much right, thus maybe you are not the one to be defending one side or the other. Bill Miller Nonsense. I made Arnie & BM larger than in M5 just to make this tiny Arnie quite clear in a rough inset. The disproportionately tiny Arnie, like Shorty, is so pronouncedly obvious that even you would see a wee floating torso. Here's a reminder: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Lamson Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 (edited) Again I will ask of Mack the same things I asked you...plus...Gary how do you know the loss of clarity was "shocking? Did you EVER see the Moorman first hand before it had faded? If not how can you state as fact..." the loss of clarity was shocking" Craig, now you are sounding like Miles. Crops from the very prints before fading took place were made and ended up in Josiah's and Groden's books. Mack has also answered your question in the past, but I guess your grandstanding has damaged your memory. If we look at what Mack said in the quote that I posted - you will also find part of your answer there as well, even though it is probably not the answer you are wanting to hear. Mack writes, "Our work used superior prints made in 1963/1964 when UPI still had high-quality copy negatives of the original picture." Now let us see if we cannot put our heads together and see if your question was indeed answered. The assassination happened on the 22nd of November of 1963. Mack said that the prints made in 1963/64 from high quality copy negatives that UPI had were what he and Jack used. Now does that sound like he and Jack saw the best Moorman images before the fading took place ... sounds that way to me. Now instead of asking questions that have already been answered ... how are you coming on those questions for Groden and has he answered you yet? Bill Oh yes. Those images that turned into HALFTONES! Are you now going to tell us all how good halftones are for judging images? I thought you worked from the best images and here you are touting HALFTONES! Please..you just blew your foot off Bill. So the correct answer to the question is no you have not seen those "best images". You are only posting hearsay. Mack: No you have not answered the question. What Mack saw were different examples of the Moorman copied and printed by different people using different equipment, different processing methods and at different times. Garys blanket statement stinks to high heaven. Gary HAS NO CLUE how much of the differences between the different copy prints of the Moorman were caused by fading or the copy process. He can't because he NEVER saw the Moorman original before the fading began. And then we have the questions of the actual fading process. How did it progress? Did the d-max go first? Or the d-min? The midtones? Was the process equal over all of the image tones or was it selective? Lots of unanswered questions. Answers we can never fully know. I've no doubt the Moorman faded. I've no doubt that copy prints of differing quality exist. I've no doubt that the methods and materials used to produce these images were different. I also know that Gary has made a very bad statement. How can I answer Groden? He has not posted anything yet. I'm here and ready when ever he shows up. Edited December 8, 2007 by Craig Lamson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Healy Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 I agree that the Moorman image Wim refers to is the best that he can probably get his hands on, but who cares! Me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Healy Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 (edited) Again I will ask of Mack the same things I asked you...plus...Gary how do you know the loss of clarity was "shocking? Did you EVER see the Moorman first hand before it had faded? If not how can you state as fact..." the loss of clarity was shocking" Crops from the very prints before fading took place were made and ended up in Josiah's and Groden's books. Misinformation again. What is seen in Six Seconds has been worked on to bring out thr shape at the fence, what was done to it, we don't know exactly know & Gary Mack just recently said that print was "terrible". The "Killing of a President" shows us absolutely nothing apart from one tiny blow-up of Badgeman from Jack's work. Crops from the very prints before fading took place were made and ended up in Josiah's and Groden's books. Bullcrap Edited December 8, 2007 by Alan Healy language edit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Healy Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Here's a direct crop from Craig's 12MB file for David. http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff188/B...161So6XaM9P.png It shows exactly what is seen in Wim's crop. Kathy uploaded a crop showing, "the three figures" above the wall, here's an idea what the rest of the image you posted looks like Kathy. http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff188/B...illersDream.png Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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