The Turin Shroud: The Image of Edessa created in c. 300-400 AD?

[hugh farey]

There have been whispers about higher resolution pictures being available, but which have yet to be released into the public domain. Why not, one wonders?

Haltadefinizione's Shroud 2.0 has a much higher resolution than the Shroud Scope Durante image, and is readily available as an app for iPads, etc. It is rumoured that there is an even higher resolution version, but I have not been able to verify that.

 

[John Jones]

Haltadefinizione's Shroud 2.0 has a much higher resolution than the Shroud Scope Durante image, and is readily available as an app for iPads, etc. It is rumoured that there is an even higher resolution version, but I have not been able to verify that.

*Rolls eyes*

Someone wake me when we get back to the 'snarling hounds of skepticism' part.

 

[ferd burfle]

Consider your bridges well and truly burned. While I may have offered an analysis, I am certainly not the first and I would simply be yet another in the trail of rejected analyses. Your interest is not in truth, but in the propagation of your belief at all cost, even if truth is the cost.

His responses all indicate his only interest is in proving himself right. He is far too enamored of his Shake 'n Bake Jesus^TM to entertain any criticism.

 

[meccanoman]

"Right" and "not right" are not terribly helpful descriptors in that moving feast we call scientific research (which would include image analysis in the present context). I would suggest "productive" v "unproductive".

It hardly matters whether my interpretation of the before and after Zeke images is "right" or not, the important thing being the ability to generate testable predictions.

The conclusion I have reached after applying Zeke, clearly not shared by everyone here, is that the body image has a great deal in common with that of the blood. Both appear to consist of two components - a flaking-off encrustation which has underneath it a faint stain.

Prediction: in the unlikely event that one were allowed to take samples from the Turin Shroud, one would be well advised to take along a hand lens, needle or sharp scalpel or similar in order to detach manually encrusted SOLID particles from both body and blood image, AND forceps too in order to sample the underlying stained fibres.

Walter McCrone is the only investigator* to the best of my knowledge to have proposed that the most visible part of the body image is particulate. But he claimed the particles were iron ochre etc which if true would mean NO BLEACHING with diimide, a reagent that is highly specific in its action - hydrogenating -CH=CH- to -CH2-CH2- .

So which of the two of us is "right"? It hardly matters. What we have is a testable prediction that if applied already in Turin, say the STURP 78 visit, might have spared readers here of the never-ending sound and fury we see at present.

Would both components of the body image - encrustation and underlying stained fibres, prove to be bleachable with diimide? I say they will be, believing both to be products of Maillard browning reactions, retaining their organic (carbon-based) chemical nature in which colour depends on conjugated single and double bonds (as distinct from inorganic iron compounds etc).

One understands Ray Rogers' decision to sample Shroud fibres with sticky tape alone, but it was the wrong decision in my view. Better to have adopted the strategy: nothing to be added, only taken away, i.e. by simple mechanical detachment (no Mylar hydrocarbon or other chemically-based adhesive!).

* Afterthought: Ray Rogers too if one regards his allegedly starch-derived fibre-coating as "particulate", though skin-like would arguably be a more accurate description, not helped by the skin having a thickness too small to be visible under a light microscope!

 

[meccanoman]

Haltadefinizione's Shroud 2.0 has a much higher resolution than the Shroud Scope Durante image, and is readily available as an app for iPads, etc. It is rumoured that there is an even higher resolution version, but I have not been able to verify that.

Here's a Halta image of the 'reversed 3' bloodstain on the forehead, before and after applying Zeke.

Here's the same image, obtained from Shroud Scope's face-only image (the site's highest resolution), again before and after Zeke:

Maybe it's not a fair comparison, since the Halta image was obtained from Google image files, not direct from a iPad.

For now, at any rate, I'm happy to use Scope, especially as the pre-Zeke image you see was from Scope as-is, i.e. without my routine pre-addition of contrast.

 

[MikeG]

.........The conclusion I have reached after applying Zeke, clearly not shared by everyone here, is that.........

Could you please quote anyone who has queried your conclusion.

As far as I can tell from a cursory review of the last few pages, people have been universally dismissive of your technique, and haven't commented on your conclusions. Your technique is garbage. Whether or not a garbage technique applied to doctored photos somehow reveals the truth isn't something I have a view on. For all I know it might possibly*. But I do know that even if it does you'll persuade only yourself and your acolytes, and no other person on the planet, because of the appalling way you done your "work".

*In the same way that it isn't impossible that there's a girl on Mars wearing a yellow raincoat, as revealed by mis-handling a NASA photo in the exact same way as you have mis-handled this image.

 

[meccanoman]

I must take another look at that Mt. Rushmore photograph, Zeke-enhanced/de-enhanced (depending on which part one looks at - Presidents or rock faces) and see if I missed the girl in the yellow raincoat...

 

[MikeG]

I must take another look at that Mt. Rushmore photograph, Zeke-enhanced, and see if I missed the girl in the yellow raincoat...

Well you certainly missed the analogy.

Zoom in enough and slide the Zeke slider far enough, you'll find her if you want to find her.

 

[meccanoman]

Well you certainly missed the analogy.

Zoom in enough and slide the Zeke slider far enough, you'll find her if you want to find her.

A word about that slider: I tested it briefly, and made a decision to stick with the default mid-scale setting. That's just one reason for ignoring charges of using the filter irresponsibly as a plaything. There are others, but previous attempts to describe the tests I've done immediately to evaluate/validate the tool in a sceptical fashion have been totally ignored - some folk here preferring to relentlessly press home their fanciful image of the sorcerer's apprentice.

Let me know when you're ready to hear about an important 'internal control' for the Shroud body image, one that assists in legitimizing the use of image filters that serve to alter contrast, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse - both actions being apparent in that Rushmore photograph. But kindly drop the references to girls in yellow raincoats - they are needed here like the proverbial hole in the head...

 

[MikeG]

......But kindly drop the references to girls in yellow raincoats - they are needed here like the proverbial hole in the head...

No.

You just don't get it, do you.

Your cock up started BEFORE you put the image into Zeke. You created the artifacts prior to your use of the filter. You actually know ****-all about what you are doing with images, and if ever there were a case for the American expression "doubling down" you are making it here most beautifully. What you are doing would embarrass a 16 year old graphic arts student. But please, do carry on calling it science. You may as well try to trash the name of science at the same time as you trash your own.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Here's a Halta image of the 'reversed 3' bloodstain on the forehead, before and after applying Zeke.

[qimg]https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/halta-pre-post-zeke.png[/qimg]

Here's the same image, obtained from Shroud Scope's face-only image (the site's highest resolution), again before and after Zeke:


[qimg]https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/scope-reversed-3-pre-post-zeke.png[/qimg]


Maybe it's not a fair comparison, since the Halta image was obtained from Google image files, not direct from a iPad.

For now, at any rate, I'm happy to use Scope, especially as the pre-Zeke image you see was from Scope as-is, i.e. without my routine pre-addition of contrast.

Could you indicate what it is you think is revealed by applying the filter?
The picture on the right looks a lot less detailed, in favor of artificial contrast and saturation creating an illusion of depth that clearly isn't there in the picture on the left.

 

[meccanoman]

No.

You just don't get it, do you.

Your cock up started BEFORE you put the image into Zeke. You created the artifacts prior to your use of the filter. You actually know ****-all about what you are doing with images, and if ever there were a case for the American expression "doubling down" you are making it here most beautifully. What you are doing would embarrass a 16 year old graphic arts student. But please, do carry on calling it science. You may as well try to trash the name of science at the same time as you trash your own.

Just a gentle reminder: all photographic images are artefacts, i.e. products of human making. The Shroud image is also an artefact, surprisingly photograph-like, at least in a negative tone-reversed sense, if one accepts the radiocarbon dating (which some reject, freeing them from the need to view the Shroud as artefact). But it's not a photograph, in which case: what is it?

Then we have the additional layers of 'artefactuality' for those of us who have never seen the Shroud close-up with our own eyes, far less a hand lens, who are totally reliant on secondary photographic images.

There are constant references in the Shroud literature to the attempts by photographers to improve the contrast and general photogenic appeal of the Shroud image (hardly surprising when you consider the body image is near invisible viewed close up) so one has a third layer of artefactual input, due to choice of (early) photographic emulsion by Pia, Enrie etc, or modern-day digital processing/reprocessing.

So yes, of course the Shroud images in the public domain are 'doctored' in one way or another, and one takes that for granted if one's been working for years, as I have, on Shroud imagery, not feeling a constant need to state the obvious.

But there's an important thing to bear in mind. If the Shroud image we are given has been doctored by digital means, e.g. altering its pixel composition in RGB terms, then those changes are potentially reversible, using photoediting software, professional or even freebies. That's what I did some years ago - discover that the washed-out looking Shroud Scope image, essentially a pinkish monochrome with virtually no discrimination between blood and body image, had clearly been subject to contrast-reduction, judged by its RGB mix. Adding back contrast in MS Office photoediting software (NOT free!) immediately restored a differentiation between blood and body image, one that made intuitive sense (body image tan, blood image totally different, a little more blood-like).

I say it's time you dropped the attempts to portray this wary hands-on investigator as a fumbling amateur. Or at any rate, acknowledge that we're all amateurs where the Shroud is concerned, groping for solutions, unable to study the real artefact with our own eyes, reliant on photoediting software to bring up detail, especially that which may have been removed, unwittingly or otherwise, by others.

Time maybe to reboot this thread?

 

[MikeG]

......it's time you dropped the attempts to portray this wary hands-on investigator as a fumbling amateur. Or at any rate, acknowledge that we're all amateurs where the Shroud is concerned.....

I'm not interested in the shroud. Not in the least.

And you are a fumbling amateur when it comes to image handling. Please stop trying to conflate "you're utterly incompetent with images" with "I'm trying to undermine your efforts to reveal the origin of the image on the shroud". I wish you well with your efforts to more understand the shroud. I just wish you'd do the damn job properly.

 

[meccanoman]

Could you indicate what it is you think is revealed by applying the filter?
The picture on the right looks a lot less detailed, in favor of artificial contrast and saturation creating an illusion of depth that clearly isn't there in the picture on the left.

A brief reply, as I have other things to attend to.

The important thing when applying Zeke or indeed any other aid to greater image contrast is to make sure one has both body and blood image in the same field of view. Why? Because the blood, or "blood" whether real or fake, was clearly applied as a liquid which, unlike the body image, has penetrated the entire weave to stain the reverse side. So the blood serves as an internal control of known physical state and behaviour for investigating the mysterious body image (scarcely if at all visible on the reverse side).

There were indications in my early contrast-adjusted blood images that what we see is blood that has partially but not completely flaked away, and that impression is greatly reinforced by Zeke. But there were no indications of a similar 'flaky' quality to the body image in my initial contrast adjustment with MS Office. But apply Zeke, and what do you see? Essentially no difference between blood and body image in that BOTH show evidence of being a material that is flaking off the linen leaving faintly stained patches underneath.

Zeke says that body image as well as blood is primarily particulate, at least in the places where it has NOT flaked away. The next step is to elucidate the physical state of the body image, best explained I say if it was initially derived from applying an imprinting medium with properties of both solid and liquid (!). To be continued.

Must run.

 

[meccanoman]

Here's a composite image that provides a comparison of the two different contrast tools, starting with the 'as-is' Shroud Scope image (top right, unhelpfully pre-doctored by person or persons unknown!).

Top left and lower left is the first pre/post Zeke images I placed on this thread. The initial image however was not the 'as-is' Shroud Scope, as I was careful to flag up. As stated, the latter 'washed-out' starter image has been added top right. Note how well nigh useless it is for research purposes, and why I used MS Office 5 years ago to RESTORE contrast that had clearly been taken away, generating the far more interesting and informative image top left. Note the body image (nose and moustache) and the squiggle of blood in the hair on the right.

When applying Zeke to that top left image, one observes the evidence of flaking-off not only for the blood on the hair, as expected, but ALSO for the body image too - which I believe to be a new finding, and an important one!

But did it really require contrast from BOTH MS Office and Zeke to produce that result? Answer: no. Look at the images top right and lower right, where one can see that the flaking off effect is still visible in both blood and body images using Zeke alone with no input from MS Office. It's just a little harder to see.

 

[carlitos]

Here's a Halta image of the 'reversed 3' bloodstain on the forehead, before and after applying Zeke.

[qimg]https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/halta-pre-post-zeke.png[/qimg]

So Jesus was a driver for Lyft.

 

[meccanoman]

Joking aside, it's time to tell it the way it is where that oh-so-enigmatic Shroud image is concerned.

These two images are not new here - they are excised portions from my Comment 191 where I first announced to this site (and the world!) that the Zeke filter on Microsoft's Window's 10 is perfectly attuned to the needs of Shroudology, unmasking fine particulate matter from background.

That's flaking-off blood in the hair you see on the left. That's flaking-off something else you see on the right.

But it can't be anything else but body image on the right, since it's virtually the entire moustache and tip of the nose!

Sorry to repeat myself, but the Shroud body image has two distinct components - a crust- like one that has largely flaked-away, similar in behaviour to the aged blood, and an underlying faint yellow or yellowish-brown stain.

So when you read the old literature and see references to particles, e.g. McCrone's 'red ochre' etc, think about the non-detached components. And when you read others that talk about the amazingly superficial nature of the Shroud image, typically cited as 200nm thick or less, the need to use pulsed uv laser beams to reproduce, think about the underlying stain.

I knew I'd get there in the end. Who'd have thought that some "crappy" image-editing software supplied on every new Windows laptop would supply the answer...

I tried saying thank you to MS on their site that announces Zeke and the other filters, but after enrolling and attempting to add Comment 51 was told newbies have not acquired sufficient "reputation" to leave comments on old postings. What a cretinous thing to say, immediately below "Welcome new member".

 

[Porpoise of Life]

It's a relatively dark spot that was made even darker by the filter. There is no way in hell that you could prove that a certain stain is flaked off particles, soaked in pigments, burnt surfaces, whether darker spots are remnants of the original picture, or bits of dirt that stuck to the cloth later, or anything else by increasing the contrast of a photograph.

The only thing you can say is that the more elevated centers of the threads are lighter than the recesses where two threads meet, but you could also tell that by looking at the unaltered picture.

 

[meccanoman]

It's a relatively dark spot that was made even darker by the filter. There is no way in hell that you could prove that a certain stain is flaked off particles, soaked in pigments, burnt surfaces, whether darker spots are remnants of the original picture, or bits of dirt that stuck to the cloth later, or anything else by increasing the contrast of a photograph.

The only thing you can say is that the more elevated centers of the threads are lighter than the recesses where two threads meet, but you could also tell that by looking at the unaltered picture.

There's supplementary evidence that I'll be marshalling in due course that backs up my assertion, based on some 5 years research. There's the model system, based on flour-imprinting/oven-roasting which generates what I now call "biphasic' red-brown biphasic images, with a detachable encrustation with underlying stain. There's the preference and/or resistance to detachment of the encrusted body image to certain threads, or gaps between threads, alluded to in your answer, that makes an imprinting-mechanism (requiring direct physical contact) a virtual certainty. There's the chemical evidence that the body image material is organic, rather than inorganic, based on bleaching with diimide. There's the Rogers' model that while drastically different from contact-imprinting, was first to propose that the body image was an accumulation of Maillard browning products, plus his evidence for strippability of the image coating from individual linen fibres.

As you say, the particulate material is in fact visible before applying Zeke, merely from addition of a little contrast, and sometimes - with larger denser particles- with no additional contrast at all. There's the fact that Zeke etc have scarcely any effect on ordinary photos- except to bring up fine detail that again is visible beforehand anyway. Zeke is just another tool for altering and selectively improving contrast - with NO RISK WHATSOEVER OF GENERATING ENTIRELY NEW AND SPURIOUS ARTEFACTS.

Proof? I'd settle for testability on the Shroud. All I need is a hand lens and scalpel, for detaching surviving encrusted body image from a few sites mechanically - in place of Rogers' sticky tape that introduced all kinds of complications and uncertainties.

 

[abaddon]

Joking aside, it's time to tell it the way it is where that oh-so-enigmatic Shroud image is concerned.

[qimg]https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/blood-in-hair-v-body-image-moustache-after-scope-ms-and-zeke.png[/qimg]

These two images are not new here - they are excised portions from my Comment 191 where I first announced to this site (and the world!) that the Zeke filter on Microsoft's Window's 10 is perfectly attuned to the needs of Shroudology, unmasking fine particulate matter from background.

Nope. Zeke simply randomly generates a result you aesthetically like. Zeke is not "attuned" to anything.

That's flaking-off blood in the hair you see on the left. That's flaking-off something else you see on the right.

Unevidenced claim. You have no idea what you are looking at. I could be frass for all you know, or artefacts introduced by your random twiddlings. How have you ruled any other possibility out? Bare assertion simply doesn't cut the mustard.

But it can't be anything else but body image on the right, since it's virtually the entire moustache and tip of the nose!

It might have started out as body image, but after all the random undocumented transformations you have performed, nobody can say what the hell it is anymore,not even you.

Sorry to repeat myself, but the Shroud body image has two distinct components - a crust- like one that has largely flaked-away, similar in behaviour to the aged blood, and an underlying faint yellow or yellowish-brown stain.

Irrelevant to your useless image manipulation claims.

So when you read the old literature and see references to particles, e.g. McCrone's 'red ochre' etc, think about the non-detached components. And when you read others that talk about the amazingly superficial nature of the Shroud image, typically cited as 200nm thick or less, the need to use pulsed uv laser beams to reproduce, think about the underlying stain.

Why?

I knew I'd get there in the end. Who'd have thought that some "crappy" image-editing software supplied on every new Windows laptop would supply the answer...

Nobody thought that and for good reason. You have gotten precisely nowhere, you have simply imagined that you have done so.

I tried saying thank you to MS on their site that announces Zeke and the other filters, but after enrolling and attempting to add Comment 51 was told newbies have not acquired sufficient "reputation" to leave comments on old postings. What a cretinous thing to say, immediately below "Welcome new member".

Like the way you could not fathom the titles on this forum? Or the rules about posting links?

If those simple things befuddle you, what are the chances that you can correctly operate image manipulation software?