Thanks to anna missed for pointing to this Media Matters report on a brutal case of photo manipulation by Fox News.

With the rise of digital pictures one finds more and more of such manipulation though usually more subtle and in advertising or glamor mag covers. For some hilarious examples take walk through the archives of the Photoshop Disaster blog.

In some reporting on the current presidential elections a much simpler but effective manipulation is used.

The banner in the screenshot below is from the Jerusalem Post coverage of the U.S. election.

The red channel value of the Obama part of the montage is about 30% too low. No professional photographer has such a badly adjusted camera. The manipulation makes Obama’s skin look blue, cold and pale. The McCain part seems to have a slightly lifted red channel value which lets him appear warm.

It is the red versus blue fight played out in rgb spaces and hue curves.

The JPost manipulation is obvious because it is overdone. A 10% red reduction in the Obama part would have been less obvious and still been quite effective. Because such color manipulation is very easy and has a unconscious effect we can be sure that it will be used in many anti-Obama campaigns.