Calling ‘Fake’ on the ‘iPhone Computational Photography Glitch in a Bridal Shop’ Viral Photo
Wesley Hillard, self-described “Rumor Expert”, writing at AppleInsider:
A U.K. comedian and actor named Tessa Coates was trying on wedding
dresses when a shocking photo of her was taken, according to her
Instagram post shared by PetaPixel. The photo shows Coates
in a dress in front of two mirrors, but each of the three versions
of her had a different pose.
One mirror showed her with her arms down, the other mirror showed
her hands joined at her waist, and her real self was standing with
her left arm at her side. To anyone who doesn’t know better, this
could prove to be quite a shocking image.
To the contrary, to anyone who “knows better”, this image clearly seems fake. But it’s a viral sensation:
Coates’s original post on Instagram has over 5,000 likes.
A reposting from Trung Phan on Twitter has 8,500 likes, 1,600 retweets, and, if Twitter/X stats are to believed, over 1.8 million views.
Coates, in her Instagram description, claims “This is a real photo, not photoshopped, not a pano, not a Live Photo”, but I’m willing to say she’s almost certainly lying. Doing so feels slightly uncomfortable, given that the post was meant to celebrate her engagement, but I just don’t buy it. These are three entirely different arm poses, not three moments in time fractions of a second apart — and all three poses in the image are perfectly sharp. iPhone photography just doesn’t work in a way that would produce this image. I’d feel less certain this was a fake if there were motion blur in the arms in the mirrors. (Perhaps you can generate an image like this using a Google Pixel 8’s Best Take feature, but this is purportedly from an iPhone, which doesn’t have a feature like that. And even with Best Take, that’s a feature you invoke manually, using multiple original images as input. I don’t think any phone camera, let alone an iPhone, produces single still images such as this.)
In a thread on Threads, where several commenters are rightfully skeptical:
Tyler Stalman (who hosts a great podcast on photography and videography):
Any iPhone photographer can confirm that this is not an image
processing error, it would never look like this.
David Imel (a writer/researcher for MKBHD):
I really, REALLY do not think this is a real image. HDR on phones
takes 5-7 frames with split-second exposure times. Whole process
like .05 sec. Even a live photo is < 2 seconds.
Even if the phone thought they were diff people it wouldn’t stitch
like this and wouldn’t have time.
This is spreading everywhere and it’s driving me insane.
I challenge anyone who thinks this is legit to produce such an image using an iPhone with even a single mirror, let alone two. If I’m wrong, let me know.
★
Wesley Hillard, self-described “Rumor Expert”, writing at AppleInsider:
A U.K. comedian and actor named Tessa Coates was trying on wedding
dresses when a shocking photo of her was taken, according to her
Instagram post shared by PetaPixel. The photo shows Coates
in a dress in front of two mirrors, but each of the three versions
of her had a different pose.
One mirror showed her with her arms down, the other mirror showed
her hands joined at her waist, and her real self was standing with
her left arm at her side. To anyone who doesn’t know better, this
could prove to be quite a shocking image.
To the contrary, to anyone who “knows better”, this image clearly seems fake. But it’s a viral sensation:
Coates’s original post on Instagram has over 5,000 likes.
A reposting from Trung Phan on Twitter has 8,500 likes, 1,600 retweets, and, if Twitter/X stats are to believed, over 1.8 million views.
Coates, in her Instagram description, claims “This is a real photo, not photoshopped, not a pano, not a Live Photo”, but I’m willing to say she’s almost certainly lying. Doing so feels slightly uncomfortable, given that the post was meant to celebrate her engagement, but I just don’t buy it. These are three entirely different arm poses, not three moments in time fractions of a second apart — and all three poses in the image are perfectly sharp. iPhone photography just doesn’t work in a way that would produce this image. I’d feel less certain this was a fake if there were motion blur in the arms in the mirrors. (Perhaps you can generate an image like this using a Google Pixel 8’s Best Take feature, but this is purportedly from an iPhone, which doesn’t have a feature like that. And even with Best Take, that’s a feature you invoke manually, using multiple original images as input. I don’t think any phone camera, let alone an iPhone, produces single still images such as this.)
In a thread on Threads, where several commenters are rightfully skeptical:
Tyler Stalman (who hosts a great podcast on photography and videography):
Any iPhone photographer can confirm that this is not an image
processing error, it would never look like this.
David Imel (a writer/researcher for MKBHD):
I really, REALLY do not think this is a real image. HDR on phones
takes 5-7 frames with split-second exposure times. Whole process
like .05 sec. Even a live photo is < 2 seconds.
Even if the phone thought they were diff people it wouldn’t stitch
like this and wouldn’t have time.
This is spreading everywhere and it’s driving me insane.
I challenge anyone who thinks this is legit to produce such an image using an iPhone with even a single mirror, let alone two. If I’m wrong, let me know.