Prayer Man More Than A Fuzzy Picture

[David Josephs]

1 hour ago, Karl Kinaski said:

 

@David Josephs: Would you explain to us all how you are able to make  out of a few pixels more pixles? Please .. .

 

 

 

 

Using Photoshop there are numerous ways to enhance images.

You can increase the resolution of the image itself while retaining the same size image

Changing the DPI has no impact on image quality unless you choose an option to keep the height and width (in a physical measure) the same, in which case it will have to interpolate new pixel information from the old which will actually result in a loss of quality as many of the original pixels will be lost in the approximation. Keep in mind that interpolation makes an image that looks smoother, but actually lowers the image quality so it should be used with care.

Or you can improve the image and keep it at the 72dpi web standard using the tools available and some trial and error.  . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprshxl46ac 

There is also enhancing the image itself using the Curves, Levels, Contrast, Brightness and filters.  To show the hovering black square I tried a variety of methods to show the contrast between the black square and the image behind.  At the top left of the image is the "crushed out whites" showing what happens to the deep black areas of the frame.  All of Jackie's hair which is the same black as all the others in the frame, basically disappears whereas the black square only gets stronger.

If you've been on the forum for any time you'd have seen many of the different methods I've used and the end results designed to bring out certain points.

The "more pixels" happens by iterative interpolation so the additional pixels are added based on what the algorithms find in the existing data.

PM simply does not have enough data in the area of the face.  This image looks the same whether it's the 1"x1" 1000dpi version or the 15"x15" 72dpi version posted here.  These is no info for the program to interpolate from.

Edit: I should also add that initially I thought the sleeves were rolled up but below I believe you can make out that the shirt sleeves are down to his wrist.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by David Josephs

[Roger Odisio]

12 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I have a question for you Roger, out of curiosity.

Since you now realize that the existence of the second-floor encounter -- whether it really occurred or not -- has no effect on Oswald's innocence, will you just ignore all the discrepancies indicating that the second-floor encounter didn't occur? Will you say that researchers like Bart Kamp and myself wasted our time on a distraction? And that my claim (I won't speak for Bart) that the encounter never happened is hurting the CT cause?

 

I said the second floor encounter did not happen *as described in the Warren Report*.  Oswald was not on the 6th floor, did not shoot JFK from there, and of course, did not descend the steps. That's what Bart Kamp and you are saying. It's an essential element to understanding the murder, and I agree. 

 

Greg has offered a different version of the encounter.  After the murder, Oswald went *up* the steps to the second floor on his way out the back door  when he encountered Truly and the cop.  That version supports Oswald's innocence whether or not you think he is Prayerman, as I said in his thread.  

 

I don't know about Greg's claim, but it is a secondary matter compared to the debunking of the WR version.

 

 

[Karl Kinaski]

@David Josephs: To make out of one pixel two ... that's fake and you know it ... you are adding info that isn't there ... 

[David Josephs]

3 minutes ago, Karl Kinaski said:

@David Josephs: To make out of one pixel two ... that's fake and you know it ... you are adding info that isn't there ... 

Logiclly that makes sense Karl - yet you seem to be confusing the process with the "creation" of pixels from no information to something.  That's not what's happening here.  Assume these 9 pixels:

a. b. c. 
d. e. f. 
g. h. i.

The process involves taking the information in "e" and combining it with pixels a-i to create 9 pixels around the core pixel, yet the core pixel "e" is also a piece of another 9 pixel set so the image is "enhanced" by adding/combining transitional pixels to existing image.

ae. be. ce.
de.  e.   fe.
ge.  he.  ie. 

with the process repeating for every pixel overlap within the image.  It also involves the size and shape of the pixels and whether images are mapped using 1:1 restrictions.

Pixels are "created" when Contrast, Brightness etc are changed so that process requires much more care to retain the original image.  Images like this are acknowledged for having added info, yet the addition usually only adds detail to the pixels at very high resolution - and is done to emphasize something, not to represent that which is not there.

So, What is digital image interpolation?
 

Interpolation is the process of transferring image from one resolution to another without losing image quality. In Image processing field, image interpolation is very important function for doing zooming, enhancement of image, resizing any many more.

 

Pixel interpolation algorithms range from simplistic procedures like the nearest neighbor algorithm, to sophisticated strategies founded on multiresolution analysis and fractal theory. Most used and practical algorithms, however, follow some sort of polynomial interpolation

[Jean Ceulemans]

Don't know if anyone has tried this, but a somewhat better result could be achieved by using a number of (still)frames and use those to re-create a single image.  Each frame can add a bit of information (using layers o/c). 

But the material to start working with has to be "the best available" (that would be a custom scan of the original film), otherwise... nope. 

PS I don't think you could get 1120 scan lines, 700 usefull would be more realistic in this case

Edited September 26, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Roger Odisio]

On 9/25/2023 at 3:00 AM, Greg Doudna said:

Pat I think Tom's point is stronger than realized. If Oswald had gone out early and mingled with the others, or had been there for some time, then he would be hard to miss. But the earliest evidence Prayer Man is there is the Wiegman film and the only estimate I have seen is that earliest evidence is ca. 3 seconds before the head shot of Z313, that time estimate attributed to Gary Mack. Then the Darnell film has Prayer Man there ca. 30 seconds after Z313. If Prayer Man was Oswald then he had to have left the Prayer Man position very soon, as in not many seconds after, Darnell ends, in order to meet Baker at the doorway to the SW stairwell second floor.

Suppose Oswald steps out into that northwest corner behind everyone else, no one sees him because of where he is, because he slips in after everyone else, and because everyone's attention is focused on the parade. A small number of seconds later shots are heard. Frazier is not only transfixed by the shots, but Frazier I think has actually testified somewhere that his first instant reaction (believable to me) was to suspect there could be a connection with Oswald's package that morning that had puzzled Frazier, and (as Frazier himself described somewhere) he consciously realized he must not react or run, but stay calm and not move. The reason I think Frazier was thinking that (apart from Frazier has said so) is because the mind thinks of things in a flash like that, and because Frazier may have voiced something about the package question to his sister Linnie Mae when he saw her at home before going to visit his father that afternoon, perhaps in the background to Linnie Mae volunteering that to police officers (with the result of causing brother Wesley to come under a lot of suspicion and herself also).

The point is it is very plausible that Frazier would be momentarily shell-shocked, and it is believable he could not notice if Oswald was there to his right arriving unobtrusively after he was no longer paying attention to who was around him. In the Darnell film Frazier appears to be staring from his vantage point into the distance at where the presidential limousine was last seen at Dealey Plaza before disappearing. 

Oswald himself in this scenario, hearing the shots, can't see the president's limousine from where he is at, and perhaps that could account for stepping forward and one leg down on the next step, at a height level seen in Darnell, still not noticed by Frazier. That Frazier has no idea to the present day who that figure was is consistent with he had no idea then. 

The Prayer Man Oswald possibility does not go away easily because there is no good identification that it was anyone else that has been convincing. That doesn't mean it wasn't someone else, but in all this time no satisfactory alternative identification has come forward of that person from any of the witnesses on the steps. Frazier says he has no idea who it was. (If it were Sarah Stanton, Frazier would have remembered that, since Frazier did remember Sarah Stanton, which means Prayer Man was not Sarah Stanton, who Frazier in any case directly said in one interview was to the left of him, not to his right as was Prayer Man.)

And most other persons working in the TSBD are accounted for, and its a white male with male pattern hairline in agreement with 25% of white men of Oswald's age of whom Oswald was one of those 25%; is not wearing a suit meaning a manual worker like Oswald; if he's standing down one step with one leg on that first step the height matches Oswald's, and (again) ... not otherwise identified. 

The only real arguments at this point that it was not Oswald go back to if one believes the evidence otherwise has Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the shots; the argument that no one on the front steps noticed Oswald there; and an objection that Oswald did not say so to news reporters instead of saying he was inside the building because he worked there. 

On the second of those, no one noticed him on the front steps is not decisive, since no one at the time noticed who that person was at all, and it remains a mystery to present day. Someone quietly entering at the back while everyone was fixated on looking at the parade, for ca. 40 seconds or whatever brief time Prayer Man might have been there, it seems to me could easily have been missed by people standing in front of and to the side of him. Again, if Frazier had said in recent years, "No that's not Oswald, that was ______, I remember him/her", that would be a different matter. But that isn't what Frazier says. He has no idea.

On why Oswald did not say he was in Prayer Man's position at the time of the shots if he was, he must have been asked where he was at the time of the shots in interrogation and arguably did give that as his answer to that question when asked. However, the objection is he did not say so to reporters in the hallway when asked did he kill the president. Did he realize the nature of the accusation against him prior to that point? Did he regard the question as coming from left field. If he was Prayer Man out for only ca. 40 seconds or so at the doorway threshold without knowing if he had been seen, was a shouted question in a hallway the place to start explaining his case for a possible alibi and suggesting possible names and details of people to ask if they had seen him? 

Unrecognized by the Warren Commission and researchers alike, I believe two studies of mine earlier this year established as a new fact that Oswald himself removed his rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on the morning of Nov 11, 1963, eleven days before the assassination, with no direct evidence the rifle was ever returned to or in that garage again after that date, a "black hole" of lack of knowledge of the whereabouts and custody of that rifle in terms of hard evidence or witnessed sighting, between Nov 11 and when it turns up next eleven days later on the 6th floor TSBD on Nov 22. My two studies which I regard as establishing that fact of an event (of removal of the rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on the morning of Nov 11, 1963), are: https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/JFK-Furniture-Mart-mystery-105-pdf2.pdf and https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf. 

Whether that fact (as I regard it) means anything or not, I do not know. But it has not previously been known or entered into consideration.

When asked in the hallway if he killed JFK, Oswald emphatically denied the charges, saying he was just a patsy. He was correct to not start talking about his alibi to the reporters there, as any lawyer would have advised.  The claim that he should have blurted out his alibi to the reporters, particularly by those who want to use his refusal to do so to assert he was hiding something, or was therefore lying to investigators when he did talk to them, has always been a red herring.

 

Oswald did offer his alibi to the investigators during his first interrogation.  He could be criticized for doing that without a lawyer present to advise him.  When he told them he had stepped outside to view the motorcade, that gave those who would frame him the lead to begin trying to destroy evidence of his alibi.

 

For example, a few hours later they had Frazier in a room trying to intimidate him into confessing he was Oswald's accomplice.  Did they already have some indication that Frazier was standing next to Oswald on the steps?  We know that Friday night they took a blowup of Altgens 6 to Lovelady for him to verify that was him in the picture, not Oswald. 

 

Oswald understood he needed to tell his story to a lawyer, who then, as an officer of the court, could investigate it. That was the only thing that could save him. He had been asking for a lawyer from the moment he was apprehended in the movie theater.

 

The authorities also understood their problem if he was able to talk to a lawyer.  They weren't going to allow that. 

 

When on Saturday he explained to the head of the Dallas Bar that he wanted to hire John Abt or an ACLU lawyer, but if he couldn't get them he would consider someone from the local bar, and asked him to check back in a few days, that likely accelerated his demise. Oswald was dead about 18 hours later, having been in custody only 44 hours.

 

[James DiEugenio]

I really wonder, how can people criticize a book that they have either not read or not read in whole?

I have read about 120 pages of Bart's book.

I have some problems with it, like I do not know why authors print large blocks of testimony instead of simply excerpting it or using ellipsis.  It really slows things down, makes it dull.

But to say that Bart does not make some good evidentiary points, that is either ignoring the book contents or assuming you know what is in it.

To give just one example:  Truly had a story that did not match Baker's. Bart shows how Marvin Johnson changed Baker's first day affidavit.  I don't see how there is any getting around that.  Ignoring it does not cut it.

[Michael Crane]

I don't think that I have ever commented on the Prayer Man threads,except to say how tall the height is at the top of the door.

But seeing this picture right here,suggests to me that the man is too heavy to be Oswald.

Just my .02 cents.

I will see my way out now.

[James DiEugenio]

Another point Bart brings up.

It was not just Hosty saying that LHO was out in front.

It was in the notes of Fritz also, and in that version he said he was around Shelly.

As Bart notes, how could Oswald know that if he was not there?

I will continue reading and do a review later.

But please, let us not attack a book we have not read.  THat is pretty much like the MSM praising a book they did not read e.g. Bugliosi's door stop.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

David Josephs writes:

Quote

8mm film has a max resolution of 1120 scan lines per frame

No doubt that's true, but Darnell and Wiegman, along with the other professionals, were using 16mm film. Zapruder and probably all the other home movie enthusiasts were using 8mm film.

Although this makes no difference when trying to resolve details in relatively poor-quality online copies of the Prayer Man frames, it does mean that the original Darnell and Wiegman film frames will contain around four times more detail than, say, a Zapruder frame. In fact, it'll probably be a bit less than four times, since their monochrome films would have been less fine-grained than Zapruder's Kodachrome film.

Nevertheless, there's a reasonable chance that the original Darnell and Wiegman films will contain enough detail to either confirm or deny that Prayer Man is Oswald. All we need to do now is get hold of those films!

[James DiEugenio]

 

Another point Bart brings up:  why will NBC not surrender the originals?

In fact, should the ARRB have gone after these?

Because as Bart also shows, PM was not a recent discovery. 

Garrison's correspondence with Sprague mentions a guy named Bernabie from Canada who had discovered PM way back in 1968.

And he did some good work on this.  Garrison was aware of it and Sprague was trying to inform him more about it.  The illustrious Howard Roffmann was also aware of it in 1970.

All of this is in the first 100 pages of Bart's book and its not worth mentioning?

Maybe because the people who do not like the book have not read it? Sheesh.

Edited September 27, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Pete Mellor]

34 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I will continue reading and do a review later.

But please, let us not attack a book we have not read. 

Look forward to your review.  D.P.U.K. have printed my review in their two part 60th Special Edition of the 'Dealey Plaza Echo'.  As I wrote in that review, Bart's work is covering much more than 'a fuzzy picture'.

[James DiEugenio]

 

Nice one Pete.  And I agree.

BTW, I was not aware that Bart scanned the Harry Livingstone archive.

Malcolm mentions that in his intro.

Does anyone have a link to that? Like VInce P?  I disagreed with Harry many times but I think preservation of files is the way to go.

[James DiEugenio]

Here is Bart's page for his scanned archive of Harry Livingstone's materials.

Something like this have real value.

Thanks Bart.

http://dealeyplazauk.com/research/collections/harry-livingstone/

[James DiEugenio]

If you have not perused this you should.

Harry kept voluminous files on a wide range of subjects.

Even though he was most interested in the medical evidence these files have a lot material on other topics.

Again, thanks Bart.