Can this be real?

[ETH310]

Ok, so here's the story. I was talking about fishing with a guy at my dad's wedding on Sunday. He showed me this picture. Apparantly this guy caught what maybe a world record white crappie some where in Iowa this summer. He said it was 22 1/2 inches. He said the guy was a new immigrant and didn't know any better so he ate it. I saw the picture and said there is no way that it can be real. He said the guy is too dumb to know how to photoshop a picture. What do you guys think? How can you tell if a picture is photoshopped?

[Jim Uran]

Hahah WOW!!! Couldn't tell you if it was photoshopped or not, but it's a funny story!

[MN BassFisher]

Holy....that thing is massive!!! It doesn't really look photoshopped but who knows!

[fish_eat_sleep]

i would vote photoshopped. seeing how the fish looks top heavy the way its leaning to the left. and the shadow of the guys pants on the grass on a cloudy day. no doubt the fish could be real. but when and where the actual fish was caught is different. and the length could have been measured with a fisherman's ruler. who knows. I feel like a world record would get more attention than this.

if it is real, congrats to whoever caught it.

[nofishfisherman]

I just opened it up in photoshop and zoomed way in on it. I can't tell for sure but my gut is fake. The way his hands are holding the fish look really weird. His right hand is only holding it up with two fingers and his left hand doesn't actually look like its holding the fish at all. At least based on the fingers that I can see I'm not sure how his left hand could be holding the fish. At best he's pinching the fish with two fingers on the upper lip and two on the lower lip, certainly an odd way to hold a fish like that.

The other thing is that the fish almost appears flat with no real dimension. That happens when you cut out an image and lay it over another in photoshop.

Now none of this is a smoking gun just some evidence to point me in the direction of fake. Its still possible that it is the real deal.

[fish_eat_sleep]

yeah no kidding, it looks like he's having trouble closing a ziplock bag. Not really holding a 6 pound crappie. I couldn't grip a fish that big in that awkward way and hold it 5 feet out towards the camera..

[leech~~]

Not sure how dumb this guy is, he seems to have a house with two cars parked there. Just about any teenager now knows how to use the internet on their cell phones so he may know a little more then the lets "believe the dumb guy who just showed up and caught the biggest fish a whole country full of highly well supplied educated fisherman can't find" group!

Fail!

[muskE]

He said the guy was a new immigrant and didn't know any better so he ate it.

This is a classic means of destroying any chance to validate!

Reminds me of a commercial that's popular during football games these days:

Back in the 90's, I once hit a Sasquatch while driving my Yugo in the woods at night. I thought it was a bear so I skinned it and made seat covers out of him. I later traded the Yugo for 2 tickets to see Journey in concert. Somewhere out there, there's a bad car with evidence of a missing link. Don't hit a Sasquatch while driving your Yugo at night...

[ThunderLund78]

Or maybe not Photoshop, but a fake photo?--or maybe a combo of the two? the presence of the tree seems dubious to me. Could they have hung an average crappie by some thin mono from a branch much closer to the camera? It might take a couple of pics to get the "hold" right but the crappie in the foreground creates the illusion of it being much larger than it actually is. If the mono was visible it would be much easier to photoshop that out than actually photoshop the fish in.

A good pic for the "Mythbusters" thread in "The Lodge" forum. Maybe it's already in there, I'll have to check it out.

[river rat316]

Or maybe not Photoshop, but a fake photo?--or maybe a combo of the two? the presence of the tree seems dubious to me. Could they have hung an average crappie by some thin mono from a branch much closer to the camera? It might take a couple of pics to get the "hold" right but the crappie in the foreground creates the illusion of it being much larger than it actually is. If the mono was visible it would be much easier to photoshop that out than actually photoshop the fish in.

A good pic for the "Mythbusters" thread in "The Lodge" forum. Maybe it's already in there, I'll have to check it out.

DING DING this was my immediate thought also

[DTro]

Yep, pretty sure it was hung out in front. The fish was NOT cut and pasted from another photo, the dripping slime would have been impossible to carry over from one photo to the next.

Its creative I'll give you that, but there is no way that is real

[fishuhalik]

If it real, it's bigger than 22"! Looks like about 30" Definitely a fake

[ETH310]

I didn't think of it being hung from a string. That has to be what he did. The guy in the picture is a relative of my dad's former co-worker. He swears it's real, but I don't buy it.

[fisherman-andy]

He said it was 22 1/2 inches. He said the guy was a new immigrant and didn't know any better so he ate it.

Curious how did he know it was 22 1/2 inches? By the way he's holding in and not outwards this fish be in the 30's.

[fsnrod]

Looks like the guy is. only three feet tall.

[Dylan8351]

If that is a real picture that would be nuts!

[mainbutter]

Faked picture for sure.

Next time I go fishing with someone to hold a camera, I'm going to give a fake photo a try!

Maybe we should have a HSO "fake picture contest" thread, most realistic looking pic making a small fish look bit wins!

[half-dutch]

Fake.

The guy would have been well under 4' tall. All one had to do at the wedding was to ask about the fisherman's height. That is as remarkable as the claimed size of the fish.

The crappie is also a cutout and overlay, well done but still showing the different edges along the top and bottom of the fish, which only show up when the pixels are blown up. Compare those edges to the edges of the man against the background. I could do almost as well in just Windows Paint given enough time, slime, too. And I have better tools than Paint for this kind of "creativity".

[mrklean]

Ha now thats funny

[DTro]

The crappie is also a cutout and overlay,

I would disagree, like I said above, try cutting out and pasting slime dripping. It's virtually impossible

[Lowblazah]

Looks awfully familiar...