Well, here's something to chew on.

[David Lifton]

Tink:

Could you please clarify something:are these 3 x 4 inche transparencies? Or 4 5 " transparencies? Your post refers to them as 4 x 5, but I believe that in the court documents, they are referred to as 3 x 4. If you know, please do clarify.

Thankyou.

DSL

[John Dugan]

great thread with great visuals. Thanks.

[Craig Lamson]

Josiah, in your photos there is little difference between the blackness on the back of Kennedy's head at the cowlick and EOP. In both the color print posted by Jack and the the black and white in Horne's book, however, the cowlick area is much lighter than the back of the head below. There appears to be a sharp shadow line. Now, is it possible your camera failed to pick up this shadow? Is it possible that the dark shape on the White and Horne copies is some sort of artifact? I don't know.

I do know however, that our eyes and brains are imperfect and that we read shades of colors differently than we read the shades of black and white. Believe it or not, the orange square on the side of the cube below is the same color and shade as the brown square on top of the cube. The surrounding squares influence our interpretation. (If one punches a peep hole in a piece of paper so that one can view the squares in isolation one will see that this is true.

That's a really big problem Pat, its easy to shift tonal relationships by changing film type, changing paper contrast while printing in a analog process, changing the film processing or digitally via the curves, levels or other similar processes. And in many cases when you do this data is lost and you can't get it back.

In the case of the Horne scan, we don't have a clue what was done to the image when thay made the 6k scan. We know that did a digital reversal and also color corrected to remove the base coloration of the negative film stock. Beyond that we really don't have a clue, heck the scanner they used might impart curve adjustment "under the hood" before the file ever made it to someone's computer.

In my opinion it was silly to go that many genrations away from the film to do this work. 5 Generations is crazy when you can be at 1. Every film generatation adds its own curves characteristics to the pie. Why do that FIVE TIMES? Because that prefer to scan neagatives? Insane.

When I was involved in the Moorman drum scan with Tink, we had many discussions on how to process the file. In the end we decided NOT to process the original scan file at all and instructed the scanner operator to NOT add any levels or curve corrections. In my oppinion thats the only way to assure that the data that goes public is unvarinished. And thats how ANY scans that might be made to deal with black patch issue must be made, if we are to apply any trust to them.

[Jack White]

Jack? I wonder how you would behave/move at that age when the phenomenal infusion of various chemicals to the body happens.

However, thats a minor point. Her hand moves little faster in all the sequence. Her wrist twists. Jack, sometimes you're really on the ball and on others you off with the pixels...

What does age and infusion of chemicals have to do with Jackie's features disappearing?

With his brains blown out, how does JFK keep his arm raised to shoulder level...infusion of chemicals?

Jack

Thanks, Jack for this blowup of Z317. Which version of the Z-films is this from?

That was from a version on the internet more than 10 years ago. I do not know any more than that.

It is recognizable by the black bars with frame numbers.

Jack

[Dean Hagerman]

Like me, I imagine all of you are looking at the TV footage from Haiti. Pretty awful. I’m sitting here in my home only about 220 yards from the San Andreas Fault thinking about what would happen with a similar quake here. Last time... the Loma Prieta quake... I was on the Golden Gate Bridge when it hit. I thought I’d gotten a flat tire. I pulled up at the toll station, opened my door and looked back at my left rear tire. It was fine. Then I paid my toll and noticed that all the traffic lights were off on Lombard Street. When I got to Union Street, all my friends were out on the street. That’s when I learned there had been an earthquake.

I live in Northern California as well, although I am far away from the San Andres fault

I felt the 6.5 earthquake that just hit Eureka, it rolled and shook for about 15 seconds here in Redding

But obviously the 6.5 that just hit Nor Cal is already a forgotten memory (except for those in downtown Eureka) in light of the Hati earthquake

And interesting fact from the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, I was at home in Redding watching the World Series, very excited that both teams were from Northern California and that the game was at my teams home Candlestick

I remember Al Michaels talking about Jose Canseco, and I remember vividly talking with my father about who was better Will Clark or Jose Canseco when the screen went green with a TV station we will be right back message

Right after that we heard the book shelfs hitting the wall and felt a very faint rolling motion, it was very faint, we could barley feel it

Then when the game came back on and they showed the lights at Candlestick swaying back and forth my dad and I knew that the quake we had felt had been far away in the Bay Area

Then we stayed glued to the TV all night long watching the images of the city on fire, the Bay Bridge and the Nimitz Freeway

It is something I will never forget, I cant even begin to imagin what it must have been like back in 1906 when the almost 9.0 quake destroyed San Fransisco

Thanks for sharing you memory of the 89 quake Tink

Dean

[Todd W. Vaughan]

Jack? I wonder how you would behave/move at that age when the phenomenal infusion of various chemicals to the body happens.

However, thats a minor point. Her hand moves little faster in all the sequence. Her wrist twists. Jack, sometimes you're really on the ball and on others you off with the pixels...

What does age and infusion of chemicals have to do with Jackie's features disappearing?

With his brains blown out, how does JFK keep his arm raised to shoulder level...infusion of chemicals?

Jack

Thanks, Jack for this blowup of Z317. Which version of the Z-films is this from?

That was from a version on the internet more than 10 years ago. I do not know any more than that.

It is recognizable by the black bars with frame numbers.

Jack

In that case I beleive it is from what is soemtimes called the "Thompson Version" of the Zapruder film, which my understanding is identical the version that was played on the 1988 NOVA show, specifically during the Josiah Thompson portion of the show. A VHS copy of this was circulating sometime in the early 1990s. I have a copy now on DVD.

If true, that might make it's orign lie with Moe Weitzman/EFX, as the NOVA show was produced by Robert Richter and Ricther had Weitzman's last copy.

Perhaps David Lifton could chime in here.....

Edited January 15, 2010 by Todd W. Vaughan

[Todd W. Vaughan]

Like me, I imagine all of you are looking at the TV footage from Haiti. Pretty awful. I’m sitting here in my home only about 220 yards from the San Andreas Fault thinking about what would happen with a similar quake here. Last time... the Loma Prieta quake... I was on the Golden Gate Bridge when it hit. I thought I’d gotten a flat tire. I pulled up at the toll station, opened my door and looked back at my left rear tire. It was fine. Then I paid my toll and noticed that all the traffic lights were off on Lombard Street. When I got to Union Street, all my friends were out on the street. That’s when I learned there had been an earthquake.

I live in Northern California as well, although I am far away from the San Andres fault

I felt the 6.5 earthquake that just hit Eureka, it rolled and shook for about 15 seconds here in Redding

But obviously the 6.5 that just hit Nor Cal is already a forgotten memory (except for those in downtown Eureka) in light of the Hati earthquake

And interesting fact from the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, I was at home in Redding watching the World Series, very excited that both teams were from Northern California and that the game was at my teams home Candlestick

I remember Al Michaels talking about Jose Canseco, and I remember vividly talking with my father about who was better Will Clark or Jose Canseco when the screen went green with a TV station we will be right back message

Right after that we heard the book shelfs hitting the wall and felt a very faint rolling motion, it was very faint, we could barley feel it

Then when the game came back on and they showed the lights at Candlestick swaying back and forth my dad and I knew that the quake we had felt had been far away in the Bay Area

Then we stayed glued to the TV all night long watching the images of the city on fire, the Bay Bridge and the Nimitz Freeway

It is something I will never forget, I cant even begin to imagin what it must have been like back in 1906 when the almost 9.0 quake destroyed San Fransisco

Thanks for sharing you memory of the 89 quake Tink

Dean

While I was in Michigan, I was watching the game on TV as well and remember that night too.

[Will Emaus]

Josiah, in your photos there is little difference between the blackness on the back of Kennedy's head at the cowlick and EOP. In both the color print posted by Jack and the the black and white in Horne's book, however, the cowlick area is much lighter than the back of the head below. There appears to be a sharp shadow line. Now, is it possible your camera failed to pick up this shadow? Is it possible that the dark shape on the White and Horne copies is some sort of artifact? I don't know.

I do know however, that our eyes and brains are imperfect and that we read shades of colors differently than we read the shades of black and white. Believe it or not, the orange square on the side of the cube below is the same color and shade as the brown square on top of the cube. The surrounding squares influence our interpretation. (If one punches a peep hole in a piece of paper so that one can view the squares in isolation one will see that this is true.

That's a really big problem Pat, its easy to shift tonal relationships by changing film type, changing paper contrast while printing in a analog process, changing the film processing or digitally via the curves, levels or other similar processes. And in many cases when you do this data is lost and you can't get it back.

In the case of the Horne scan, we don't have a clue what was done to the image when thay made the 6k scan. We know that did a digital reversal and also color corrected to remove the base coloration of the negative film stock. Beyond that we really don't have a clue, heck the scanner they used might impart curve adjustment "under the hood" before the file ever made it to someone's computer.

In my opinion it was silly to go that many genrations away from the film to do this work. 5 Generations is crazy when you can be at 1. Every film generatation adds its own curves characteristics to the pie. Why do that FIVE TIMES? Because that prefer to scan neagatives? Insane.

When I was involved in the Moorman drum scan with Tink, we had many discussions on how to process the file. In the end we decided NOT to process the original scan file at all and instructed the scanner operator to NOT add any levels or curve corrections. In my oppinion thats the only way to assure that the data that goes public is unvarinished. And thats how ANY scans that might be made to deal with black patch issue must be made, if we are to apply any trust to them.

Josiah, I would definitely wait and look at their original to see what they've found.

Beyond what Mr. Lamson is saying, you've got a slew of variables that could have impacted it's appearance as printed.

-The way the file was saved, JPEG compression could be an issue but it might not, it all depends on how they saved the file.

-If the page the image is on was saved as a PDF you probably have pretty severe downsampling of the image there too. It's quite possible that they downsampled the 6K image to 450 or lower when saving the page.

-Then most likely the page was run through a workflow system, and although it sounds strange if the file hasn't already been converted to grayscale by this time you could have a number of changes to the file applied while it's processed before plate; even UCR or GCR could have been applied if the image hadn't already been converted.

-Plate curves will change it more

-Then of course when printing you have the line screen and stock which will degrade the image more.

What it adds up to is the printed piece isn't going to be solid proof of anything.

Given what's being alleged, you would hope that they have all of their initial settings documented to demonstrate that nothing has been modified during the scan/saving stage...

[Robin Unger]

Negative Comparison.

[Pat Speer]

Negative Comparison.

One can clearly see the shape on the back of the head. Can you do the same for Tink's copy?

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Not only was this artifact (of painting over the blow-out in black) conspicuous in the "6k" scans, but David Mantik has already studied them and verified that the same artifact (and others) are present in the 4x5 scans at the museum, as I have previously observed. So your argument has no force whatsoever. Plus, of course, the transparencies in the museum suffer from multiple defects, including (1) that frames 331 and 332 are reversed, (2) that frames 341, 350, and 486 are missing, (3) that the spliced frames at 155 and 156 are also missing, and (4) that the spliced frames at 208, 209, 210, and 211 are missing, too. Since Costella has restored these frames and removed pincushion and aspect ration distortion from the film, his enhanced version--called "the Costella combined edit", which is archived at http://assassinationscience.com--is clearly superior for viewing the complete film. So which is best depends upon your purposes. There is nothing wrong with what has been done in creating a 6k version and studying its properties, while verifying their presence in the 4x5 slides. I find it highly offensive that you would attempt to mislead those who know less than you do about all of this. Observation, measurement, and experiment are fundamental to science. The 6k was an experiment that has paid off!.

Doug has asked me to add the following note of clarification about the scan studied by the Hollywood film experts: Each "6K" scan was a scan of a 35 mm dupe negative frame, on which was recorded an image of the 8 mm extant film, with empty space on either side of it.  (In other words, the 8 mm film frame, by its very nature, could never fill the image frame of a 35 mm strip of film, even after it was magnified in an optical printer by Monaco film lab, the Archives contractor in San Francisco.)

The Hollywood group scanned the entire 35 mm film frame at 6K, but then cropped the image so that the extra space is not shown---so that only the full frame of the Z film is shown. Each cropped 6K image is 4096 x 3112 pixels (along the horizontal and vertical axes), which means that in its cropped form, it approximates a "4K" scan in terms of the number of pixels actually composing the useful image content.

Each one of these 4096 x 3112 pixel "6K" scans (sometimes called "4K" by the research group because they are cropped) consists of an amazing 12.75 million pixels of information (4096 x 3112=12,746,752 pixels)!  And each one of these frames is 72.9 MB in size.  (Too big to be transmitted on the internet.)

Josiah, in your photos there is little difference between the blackness on the back of Kennedy's head at the cowlick and EOP. In both the color print posted by Jack and the the black and white in Horne's book, however, the cowlick area is much lighter than the back of the head below. There appears to be a sharp shadow line. Now, is it possible your camera failed to pick up this shadow? Is it possible that the dark shape on the White and Horne copies is some sort of artifact? I don't know.

I do know however, that our eyes and brains are imperfect and that we read shades of colors differently than we read the shades of black and white. Believe it or not, the orange square on the side of the cube below is the same color and shade as the brown square on top of the cube. The surrounding squares influence our interpretation. (If one punches a peep hole in a piece of paper so that one can view the squares in isolation one will see that this is true.

That's a really big problem Pat, its easy to shift tonal relationships by changing film type, changing paper contrast while printing in a analog process, changing the film processing or digitally via the curves, levels or other similar processes. And in many cases when you do this data is lost and you can't get it back.

In the case of the Horne scan, we don't have a clue what was done to the image when thay made the 6k scan. We know that did a digital reversal and also color corrected to remove the base coloration of the negative film stock. Beyond that we really don't have a clue, heck the scanner they used might impart curve adjustment "under the hood" before the file ever made it to someone's computer.

In my opinion it was silly to go that many genrations away from the film to do this work. 5 Generations is crazy when you can be at 1. Every film generatation adds its own curves characteristics to the pie. Why do that FIVE TIMES? Because that prefer to scan neagatives? Insane.

When I was involved in the Moorman drum scan with Tink, we had many discussions on how to process the file. In the end we decided NOT to process the original scan file at all and instructed the scanner operator to NOT add any levels or curve corrections. In my oppinion thats the only way to assure that the data that goes public is unvarinished. And thats how ANY scans that might be made to deal with black patch issue must be made, if we are to apply any trust to them.

Edited January 15, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Robin, Would you please download my chapter from from http://www.und.edu/instruct/jfkconference/

and, if you could, upload pages 16 and 17 of the chapter on this thread? Frame 374 matters. Thanks.

Zoomed Frames:

[Craig Lamson]

Not only was this artifact (of painting over the blow-out in black) conspicuous in the "6k" scans, but David Mantik has already studied them and verified that the same artifact (and others) is present in the 4x5 scans at the museum, as I have previously observed. So your argument has no force whatsoever. Plus, of course, the transparencies in the museum suffer from multiple defects, including (1) that frames 331 and 332 are reversed, (2) that frames 341, 350, and 486 are missing, (3) that the spliced frames at 155 and 156 are also missing, and (4) that the spliced frames at 208, 209, 210, and 211 are missing, too. Since Costella has restored these frames and removed pincushion and aspect ration distortion from the film, his enhanced version--called "the Costella combined edit", which is archived at http://assassinationscience.com--is clearly superior for viewing the complete film. So which is best depends upon your purposes. There is nothing wrong with what has been done in creating a 6k version and studying its properties, while verifying their presence in the 4x5 slides. I find it highly offensive that you would attempt to mislead those who know less than you do about all of this. Observation, measurement, and experiment are fundamental to science. The 6k was an experiment that has paid off!.

Doug has asked me to add the following note of clarification about the scan studied by the Hollywood film experts: Each "6K" scan was a scan of a 35 mm dupe negative frame, on which was recorded an image of the 8 mm extant film, with empty space on either side of it.  (In other words, the 8 mm film frame, by its very nature, could never fill the image frame of a 35 mm strip of film, even after it was magnified in an optical printer by Monaco film lab, the Archives contractor in San Francisco.)

The Hollywood group scanned the entire 35 mm film frame at 6K, but then cropped the image so that the extra space is not shown---so that only the full frame of the Z film is shown. Each cropped 6K image is 4096 x 3112 pixels (along the horizontal and vertical axes), which means that in its cropped form, it approximates a "4K" scan in terms of the number of pixels actually composing the useful image content.

Each one of these 4096 x 3112 pixel "6K" scans (sometimes called "4K" by the research group because they are cropped) consists of an amazing 12.75 million pixels of information (4096 x 3112=12,746,752 pixels)!  And each one of these frames is 72.9 MB in size.  (Too big to be transmitted on the internet.)

Josiah, in your photos there is little difference between the blackness on the back of Kennedy's head at the cowlick and EOP. In both the color print posted by Jack and the the black and white in Horne's book, however, the cowlick area is much lighter than the back of the head below. There appears to be a sharp shadow line. Now, is it possible your camera failed to pick up this shadow? Is it possible that the dark shape on the White and Horne copies is some sort of artifact? I don't know.

I do know however, that our eyes and brains are imperfect and that we read shades of colors differently than we read the shades of black and white. Believe it or not, the orange square on the side of the cube below is the same color and shade as the brown square on top of the cube. The surrounding squares influence our interpretation. (If one punches a peep hole in a piece of paper so that one can view the squares in isolation one will see that this is true.

That's a really big problem Pat, its easy to shift tonal relationships by changing film type, changing paper contrast while printing in a analog process, changing the film processing or digitally via the curves, levels or other similar processes. And in many cases when you do this data is lost and you can't get it back.

In the case of the Horne scan, we don't have a clue what was done to the image when thay made the 6k scan. We know that did a digital reversal and also color corrected to remove the base coloration of the negative film stock. Beyond that we really don't have a clue, heck the scanner they used might impart curve adjustment "under the hood" before the file ever made it to someone's computer.

In my opinion it was silly to go that many genrations away from the film to do this work. 5 Generations is crazy when you can be at 1. Every film generatation adds its own curves characteristics to the pie. Why do that FIVE TIMES? Because that prefer to scan neagatives? Insane.

When I was involved in the Moorman drum scan with Tink, we had many discussions on how to process the file. In the end we decided NOT to process the original scan file at all and instructed the scanner operator to NOT add any levels or curve corrections. In my oppinion thats the only way to assure that the data that goes public is unvarinished. And thats how ANY scans that might be made to deal with black patch issue must be made, if we are to apply any trust to them.

No force, surely you jest!

We don't have a clue exactly what has been done to the files and quite frankly, Mantiks assessment means nothing at this point. And WHY did they choose a film so far removed from the original? It's just plain stupid to use a film that far away when a first generation is available. They did it because they wanted to use a negsative and then scan it on a small 6k machine? WHY? These "pros" never heard of a drum scanner?

In any case its wait and see since they have realesed very little at this point. I'm not holding my breath that the 6k scan holds up compared to a version closer to the original. This wil not be the to see the alteration gang go gaga over stuff onlyto seeit dashed whne better quality materials became available.

You do remember that shabby Zippo...don't you?

Edited January 16, 2010 by Craig Lamson

[Jack White]

Josiah, in your photos there is little difference between the blackness on the back of Kennedy's head at the cowlick and EOP. In both the color print posted by Jack and the the black and white in Horne's book, however, the cowlick area is much lighter than the back of the head below. There appears to be a sharp shadow line. Now, is it possible your camera failed to pick up this shadow? Is it possible that the dark shape on the White and Horne copies is some sort of artifact? I don't know.

I do know however, that our eyes and brains are imperfect and that we read shades of colors differently than we read the shades of black and white. Believe it or not, the orange square on the side of the cube below is the same color and shade as the brown square on top of the cube. The surrounding squares influence our interpretation. (If one punches a peep hole in a piece of paper so that one can view the squares in isolation one will see that this is true.

That's a really big problem Pat, its easy to shift tonal relationships by changing film type, changing paper contrast while printing in a analog process, changing the film processing or digitally via the curves, levels or other similar processes. And in many cases when you do this data is lost and you can't get it back.

In the case of the Horne scan, we don't have a clue what was done to the image when thay made the 6k scan. We know that did a digital reversal and also color corrected to remove the base coloration of the negative film stock. Beyond that we really don't have a clue, heck the scanner they used might impart curve adjustment "under the hood" before the file ever made it to someone's computer.

In my opinion it was silly to go that many genrations away from the film to do this work. 5 Generations is crazy when you can be at 1. Every film generatation adds its own curves characteristics to the pie. Why do that FIVE TIMES? Because that prefer to scan neagatives? Insane.

When I was involved in the Moorman drum scan with Tink, we had many discussions on how to process the file. In the end we decided NOT to process the original scan file at all and instructed the scanner operator to NOT add any levels or curve corrections. In my oppinion thats the only way to assure that the data that goes public is unvarinished. And thats how ANY scans that might be made to deal with black patch issue must be made, if we are to apply any trust to them.

Josiah, I would definitely wait and look at their original to see what they've found.

Beyond what Mr. Lamson is saying, you've got a slew of variables that could have impacted it's appearance as printed.

-The way the file was saved, JPEG compression could be an issue but it might not, it all depends on how they saved the file.

-If the page the image is on was saved as a PDF you probably have pretty severe downsampling of the image there too. It's quite possible that they downsampled the 6K image to 450 or lower when saving the page.

-Then most likely the page was run through a workflow system, and although it sounds strange if the file hasn't already been converted to grayscale by this time you could have a number of changes to the file applied while it's processed before plate; even UCR or GCR could have been applied if the image hadn't already been converted.

-Plate curves will change it more

-Then of course when printing you have the line screen and stock which will degrade the image more.

What it adds up to is the printed piece isn't going to be solid proof of anything.

Given what's being alleged, you would hope that they have all of their initial settings documented to demonstrate that nothing has been modified during the scan/saving stage...

See my posting on a new thread. This thread is getting too far afield.

Jack

[Robin Unger]

Edited:

Edited January 16, 2010 by Robin Unger