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

[Belz...]

Zeke has not enhanced the Presidents. But look what it's done to the mountain faces in the background, top left and top right, making them look less like heaps of cow dollop, more like real rock faces.

How's it done that?

Badly. All that was done is make the monument look crappy.

 

[abaddon]

Badly. All that was done is make the monument look crappy.

The Hollywood meme of "Enhance" has a lot to answer for. It has resulted in a whole slew of people who think they can "enhance" any image by simply pushing sliders around.

 

[John Jones]

How and why the image was produced is certainly intriguing, but I would venture to suggest that most peoples' interest in the object is due to the possibility of its being genuine. Having established that it isn't, the motivation to spend more than an idle hour speculating and experimenting to discover more is a bit of a puzzle to me. It's not like there's any real possibility of establishing either the how or the why with any certainty, unless someone invents a time machine. Though I suppose there are worse hobbies.

In my case, I have worked with certain products of the Maillard reaction for more than 30 years. I don't think the shroud is genuine, but the chemistry of how it was made interests me.

 

[John Jones]

If it is hydroxyproline, would you care to speculate on its origin?

 

[meccanoman]

You have one strand to your argument which may or may not be really interesting and plausible (the baked flour stuff). The other, imaging, is utter bollocks. You put at risk any interest you might generate in the former by sticking doggedly to the latter. Only the worst kind of cranks would give any credence whatever to your imaging nonsense..........do you really want to put yourself in with "life on Mars" nutters?

But there was scarcely any interest in my Model 10 (flour imprinting) subsequent to the closure of Dan Porter's shroudstory site in December 2015. Thus the decision to return to this site, after an absence of some years, if only to improve search-engine listings (Stateside especially).

The Zeke discovery occurred AFTER coming back to this ferocious idea-dismantling site, under a new username (honest, having forgotten previous ID and password!).

Given my particular forte is reporting ongoing Shroud research in real time (i.e. as soon as ideas enter my head), as I've been doing these last 5 years or so, I opted to share my newly discovered Zeke tool with folks here first within hours of realizing its potential. Nope, it's not just any old bit of free internet photoediting software. I say it's an open sesame to the real nature of the Shroud body image (and blood too), revealing the biphasic nature of both, thanks to its ability to promote texture over background.

Yup, terminal neck appendage with age-degraded cranial contents has admittedly been stuck out a bit with Zeke. But rarely have I been more convinced in a lifetime of scientific research of being RIGHT.

Gut feeling plays a part too. Not everyone knows that where scientific research is concerned - but please don't tell anyone I said so.

 

[fagin]

...Given my particular forte is reporting ongoing Shroud research in real time (i.e. as soon as ideas enter my head), as I've been doing these last 5 years or so,...

You should get a hobby. Or a puppy.

 

[meccanoman]

You should get a hobby. Or a puppy.

I have a sizeable number of other research interests in addition to the Shroud. Enter sciencebuzz into your search engine, maybe with additional keywords (e.g. heavy carbon dioxide, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, sky burial, resistant starch).

Personally, I prefer to focus on one topic at a time. Scientific research requires FOCUS.

 

[MikeG]

......But rarely have I been more convinced in a lifetime of scientific research of being RIGHT.......

You have no right to be. You clearly know nothing of the subject, and ignore those of us who have decades of experience in the area. This is confirmation bias at work, and you really should be ashamed to call this science.

At least get someone who knows what they are doing to do a neutral critique of your work before you make a fool of yourself with it, and, FFS, use some proper programmes not ridiculous freebies. (Says me after spending 2 hours on Photoshop earning my living).

 

[fagin]

I'd go with the puppy. Or a kitten. Very cute.

 

[meccanoman]

You have no right to be. You clearly know nothing of the subject, and ignore those of us who have decades of experience in the area. This is confirmation bias at work, and you really should be ashamed to call this science.

At least get someone who knows what they are doing to do a neutral critique of your work before you make a fool of yourself with it, and, FFS, use some proper programmes not ridiculous freebies. (Says me after spending 2 hours on Photoshop earning my living).

Bring on the "neutral critique" I say. The sooner the better.

 

[MikeG]

Well you've had one already. What I meant was "another neutral critique". Find someone you know who uses Photoshop professionally, and show him your stuff.

 

[meccanoman]

Well you've had one already. What I meant was "another neutral critique". Find someone you know who uses Photoshop professionally, and show him your stuff.

Apols. I hadn't realized that close acquaintance with a particular software package made one a scientist, capable of evaluating the worth of new scientific thinking, arrived at (partially) with a different software package.

Oh well, we live and we learn...

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Apols. I hadn't realized that close acquaintance with a particular software package made one a scientist, capable of evaluating the worth of new scientific thinking, arrived at (partially) with a different software package.

Oh well, we live and we learn...

If someone who professionally uses professional image editing software isn't enough of an expert for you, then why would you expect that an amateur haphazardly using a crappy free program knows what he's doing?

 

[Slowvehicle]

If someone who professionally uses professional image editing software isn't enough of an expert for you, then why would you expect that an amateur haphazardly using a crappy free program knows what he's doing?

...because "science", I guess.

 

[meccanoman]

If someone who professionally uses professional image editing software isn't enough of an expert for you, then why would you expect that an amateur haphazardly using a crappy free program knows what he's doing?

"Crappy free program" is being put through its paces as we speak - with two 'before-and-after' shots posted here already with the message that it accentuates what is already present- as distinct from invents what is not, with provisional ideas as to how it works.

Many moons ago, I was accused of playing around with things I did not understand (contrast adjustment on images as it happens). My reply? Playing around with things one doesn't understand has a name (when done critically and systematically). It's called science...

 

[abaddon]

"Crappy free program" is being put through its paces as we speak - with two 'before-and-after' shots posted here already with the message that it accentuates what is already present- as distinct from invents what is not, with provisional ideas as to how it works.

Many moons ago, I was accused of playing around with things I did not understand (contrast adjustment on images as it happens). My reply? Playing around with things one doesn't understand has a name (when done critically and systematically). It's called science...

Not when you ignore people who use such tools in a professional capacity for decades.

How about you respond to my posts on the subject?

 

[meccanoman]

Not when you ignore people who use such tools in a professional capacity for decades.

How about you respond to my posts on the subject?

I'll respond to anything relevant to the science that is being proposed, notably the key issue of what the Zeke filter does (or does not?) reveal about the Shroud.

Kindly do not ask me to respond to irrelevancies regarding entirely different software, unless or until it has been deployed in Shroud research.

It's a question of FOCUS and RELEVANCE. It's those two that separate focused science from so much of tedious, point-scoring internet discourse.

 

[abaddon]

This is not primarily about subjective aspects of colour perception, since I show before and after photos, and invite folk here to spot the obvious objective differences, arguably not so much in colour (though that may assist) so much as CONTRAST. The particles to which I refer are visible for the most part in BOTH before and after images, especially in the contrast-enhanced Shroud Scope pictures, so are NOT artefacts of the Zeke makeover.

Actually, it is very relevant. On the test provided, I get a perfect score. Why? Decades of experience. You don't know what algorithms were applied to your image, nor why, nor how much. You have jumped colour space at least three times, resolution at least twice and applied image compression algorithms at least twice and again, you have no idea which algorithms or why or under what conditions.

Firstly, each of these alone is capable of introducing artefacts and secondly, were you actually doing science, you would have meticulously documented your procedures in excruciating detail. Instead, you have a vague claim that you twiddled knobs until you got a result you found personally pleasing. That is most definitely NOT SCIENCE.

Nope, I did not use your more 'professional' PhotoShop, but Microsoft Office Picture Manager instead, reporting results almost 5 years ago under the title: "Shroud Scope 10: my very own gallery of 20 close-up views of the Shroud – all lightly photo-edited for optimised colour-differentiation".

Ask yourself. Why is Microsoft Office Picture Manager never used for professional image manipulation? There is a very good reason.

That is one of my most frequently visited postings, its main advantage over unedited Shroud Scope being that it differentiates between blood and body image, entirely by contrast and coincidental colour, blood being more purplish, body image more tan coloured.

Fourth colour space jump. You still have no idea what you did, nor what your results indicate.

Now you may consider MS Office to be less "professional" than PhotoShop, but that term "professional" can be misleading if you don't mind my saying in the context of science where one takes nothing at face value, and where in my case one supplements one's findings by trying to find precisely what the software is doing to produce its useful discrimination between one image and another, e.g. blood/body image, and now particulate/non-particulate.

You do not discover what is actually happening by twiddling sliders and guessing. All of these algorithms are public domain. You do not need to guess.

To cite just one example, I reported a later RGB analysis to find precisely how changes in contrast were able to produce useful colour changes, real or not, that made for better discrimination.

That simple statement contains at least two leaps of colour space. Identify them (and any others deployed) and justify their application in this case.

Two main conclusions emerged. First, when you alter contrast on a colour image, you (coincidentally) alter the balance between yellow and blue, analogous to white/black for a B/W only image (yellow being the additive mix of red and green).

Wrong. To illustrate, if you mix red and green paint, what colour paint do you get? Yellow? This is why colour spaces matter.

Second, I realized on analysing the washed-out looking Shroud Scope images with their unhelpful purplish-hue that someone must have taken the Shroud Scope image from Durante (2002) and purposely REDUCED contrast to make them look the way they did. I put that suggestion directly to Mario Latendresse, the Canadian IT specialist/sindonologist who created Shroud Scope. He denied having done that himself, but volunteered no further comment.

You are doing that very thing. You are applying a seemingly endless sequence of steps that you do not understand, have not documented and likely couldn't ACCURATELY repeat.

While penning this comment, I've had an idea. In the next few days, I'll go back to my June 2012 posting with the 20 contrast-enhanced images, and give each a Zeke makeover, adding the result as an appendix. Nope, I don't expect to suddenly morph into a colour "professional" and will no doubt attract further flak for my choice of software. I'm content to be seen as a Shroud researcher who chooses what he considers the simplest, appropriate tools for making a valid scientific point, preferably tools that are available to anyone and everyone online, making it possible for them to check out and hopefully reproduce my findings.

You can bet on the flak part. You have no clue what the Zeke toy is actually doing.

I have a new term to suggest for the Shroud body image. It's "biphasic". It's either particulate (read "crud"), or non-particulate (yellow background stain) or a mixture of the two, depending on which image fibres one happens to sample and detach for microscopic and chemical study. McCrone only saw the crud, and interpreted it as inorganic iron oxides etc. Di Lazzaro only sees the superficial stain and interprets it as a radiation scorch. I see the end result of imprinting and baking thousands of oil/flour microcakes on linen in situ!

Or you are seeing artefacts introduced by your image fumblings.

 

[abaddon]

I'll respond to anything relevant to the science that is being proposed, notably the key issue of what the Zeke filter does (or does not?) reveal about the Shroud.

Zeke is a primitive HSB model image filter which doesn't provide the full range nor even separate HSB sliders, just one honking great single slider.

Kindly do not ask me to respond to irrelevancies regarding entirely different software, unless or until it has been deployed in Shroud research.

I am asking you if you actually know what the hell you are doing in any way. Zeke is not some magic, in fact it is fairly useless.

It's a question of FOCUS and RELEVANCE. It's those two that separate focused science from so much of tedious, point-scoring internet discourse.

It is not a matter of internet point scoring. Your subject matter ignorance has simply trod in the landmine of one of my areas of expertise, and it makes you uncomfortable.

 

[meccanoman]

"Wrong. To illustrate, if you mix red and green paint, what colour paint do you get? Yellow? This is why colour spaces matter."

Oh dear. Our resident expert on all things related to IT and colour does not even understand the difference between additive mixing of colours (pixels, computer screens) and subtractive colour mixing (paints).

I shall retire now to add a Zeke appendix to my 2012 'contrast-enhanced' (or rather contrast-RESTORED ) Shroud gallery.

I may be gone a while (science, real science, can be very time-consuming).