Claiming NOT To Be Photoshopped Illusions

So, have you manage to test our latest Vista gadget? Has it pulled the newest image without problems (the one you see on your right)? Keep sending your comments, please!

Today I prepared few interesting pictures, that claim not to be photoshopped. You see bundles of stunning pictures floating around the net these days, showing incredible photoshop techniques. These ones today show creativity from a whole different angle. Although I have placed them under the title of “Not Photoshopped”, to be sincere I’m not completely sure all of them weren’t manipulated at some point. Its up to you to take a closer look, and tell if you agree with me. Please don’t forget to inform me about the gadget you tested, so I can announce the new version more widely, supposedly it is working fine now. If it for some reason failed to load the newest illusion, and leaves your gadget blank – than I suppose its back to the ol’ drawing board for me.




124 Replies to “Claiming NOT To Be Photoshopped Illusions”

  1. I don’t think they look too phtoshopped… maybe 1 or 2…
    Btw, just wanted to compliment you on the discrete ads… Hardly noticeable at all

    Oh and for tradition’s sake, woo, first comment…

  2. I like reading the comments, so could you please OK them, and post them quicker??? Mr. Monitor.. [O-O]

  3. I can almost guarantee that the tomato and the ice cream cone aren’t photoshopped, but I can’t say for the others. They’re all beautiful and interesting though.

  4. The picture of the glass looks fake to me. If you look closely to the background behind the glass. Behind the rim the stripes are not distorted. Also pay attention to the shadow cast by the glass, the bottom portion gives off a solid shadow but the rim casts a different shadow. It is hard to see the shadow casts by the rim at first, look closely at the 10th white strip from the bottom and you should see what I am talking about.

  5. wow.. the last one’s really beautiful!
    and the tomato one is really funny xD like a green man is trying to hold the tomato on it’s back ^^
    Really awesome pictures! ^^

  6. All I can see thats happened with most of them is that they have just been taken in the right place at the right time. Positioning will have played a big part as well but the glass of water illusion is definatly photoshopped no way would a glass of water bend the light to that extremity. The cornet one is pretty easy to do at the right place and time the tomato just needs to be tweaked by hand to look as it does the water droplet was taken by a high speed camra again at the right place and time. I’m not overly sure either way with the fish one. Keep up the great work vurdlak :)

  7. I’ve just thought how the glass of water would be done without photoshop all that needs to be done is have a piece of paper with the lines going sideways taped to the back of the glass. Its the old-fashioned version of photoshop. :)

  8. Hello ^^
    I liked these images, I don’t think they’re photoshopped :o
    They are to simple to be modified.
    My favorite one is the cloud ice cream one, because I think I’m going to take a photo of myself doing the same xD

    About the new gadget, its working fine for me although I’m using it on Windows Vista (x32)and Windows 7 (x64) Beta.

    Thumbs Up :D

  9. Who cares if it’s photoshopped or not. It’s funny. The others are great or not. Forget nit-picking. Enjoy the moment.

  10. First, your Vista gadget works great; I’m running 64 bit, and it came through swimmingly. Second, love the illusion(s), Photoshoped or otherwise. Haven’t checked out your other site yet, but I’m a bit of an amateur mage meself. Finally, since my last final is Monday, I felt your school pain. Still feeling my own.

  11. these images are feesable. fish – direction from photographer to move fish until in the correct position. The glass is possible, I am not sure about refraction through round objects containing water, sorry!. The 3rd one is very feesable, I have taken similar fun photos of my son with no problems. the tomato is also possibly real, the shape isn’t too obvious and it wouldn’t be that hard to find in a multipack. the droplet is what you get when you use a very short capture speed. Harold Edgerton invented this technique, using strobe lighting and very short exposure we are able to see things we couldn’t normally. He used this invention to prove horses have all their legs off the floor at one point during a canter. We have also used it to see apples being shot, cards being shot, balloons hit with pins etc.

    A very interesting set of images. ty V

  12. the last one is pretty! This is happening everytime when it rains! I saw it on discovery how the take a picture of something like this

  13. im not sure the glass with stripes picture is not photoshopped. Things, like a straw in a glass, can look “bent” when seen through water because water refracts it (or something like that)…
    but that pic isn’t what I think it would really look like…and the stripes curve.

  14. I can certainly see how these are possible without photoshop. Except for the last one, the water drop, that one seems to have at least been colorized. Either way, these are all great illusions!

  15. The one with the cup isnt photo shopped. its called refraction, when light waves travel trough a new medium it can bend the waves, and make it look like that. fill a glass with water, stick a pencil in it. doesnit it look like its bent????

  16. i really like the fish lady…its funny and origional. plus the tomato stem holding the tomato up is HECKA cool too ;D

  17. the last image might actually happen in nature, it light a mushroom affect. it goes up, then collapese back down, must have been a highspeed camera

    the others i don’t get the illusion

  18. Hi there,

    Still loveing you site, and the Google Widget works great (still).

    What I would say is that the first 3 big pictures look like Not Photoshopped, but the last one could be photoshopped, because the water circles are “fading” away, so there is some photoshopping there. Also I believe the darkgreen color in the watercircle isn’t the same as the background dark green color…

    Greetings from Holland

    Thias

  19. The gadget was working fine yesterday, now it’s blank again. Le sigh. But I really like these images – the fish-eye girl is my favorite. :)

  20. sidebar seems to be working for me! takes a few seconds for it to load when i press the arrows but other than that it works fine!

  21. these are kool!! the top one i am not sure about, the middle ones can be done easily and do not need to be photoshopped. and the last one can be done with a slow-mo camera (i saw it on time-warp its a drop of water following another drop of water’s splash they hit each other and make kool visuals!)

  22. All of them look easily done IRL, so I don’t see why any would be photoshopped.

    They are all cool too, but not really illusion-ish

  23. Cant tell if the first one is photoshoped but the other r real :) the water one is really hard to get. i basically take a picture of a droplet falling into water, and then when the column goes up, another droplet hits it. the colors are achieved with different lights with filter and etc. :)

  24. 1- not photshopped but really cool and creative.

    2- I reckon the patttern is just printed on the back of the cup.

    3- Real and quite fun.

    4- Real- quite cool to create a person in fruit.

    5- A photoshopped image if i ever saw one, no liquid looks like that, but photoshopped well.

  25. I think the first one is probly photoshopped,(dont think the water would warp the lines like that) but the others could all be real, if you get your angle right, or take heaps of photos then get lucky with the image(probly how the last one was taken) all good otherwise thou, keep up the good work.

  26. Well, for most of them, I don’t see any reason they would be photoshopped. The second one I’m not sure of. (I really like the one with the tomato!)

  27. Cool pictures. At least the last oe aint photoshopped, I once saw a tv-program how those kinda images are made. They drop drops of water in certain pace adn when drops hit water surface, they will make that sorta pillar and when next one hits the pillar it couses that sorta cool effect. Then you just add some colored ligth. Ofc all of this happens in a fraction of a second.

  28. I really enjoy your site. These photographs are a real pleasure today. If you have many more, I’d love to see them as a regular part of your Illusions page.
    Thanks, Mark

  29. First comment!i!i!iI!!i!

    I think the first one, the second one and fourth one are photoshopped but the other two are not. For the ice cream one, some random person could of found a cloud and told his kid to hold the cone so it was under the cloud then taken the picture. The last one, the had that done on some Discovery Channel show and it was really cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  30. amazing pictures, all look genuine except for the kid with the cone. the cloud looks grainy and worked, but that’s only my opinion

  31. These all look real except for the last one. I remember doing some research on the jet effect on water (the effect that makes it go up) and saw the slowest motion possible (like a few 1000 frames a second) and i don’t remember anything like that.

  32. like I said before (T) The last photo is created using a very fast shutter speed, higher than a normal camera is capable of. (again, google Harold Edgerton) the colour is easily acheived using lights, often used to help highlight the different angles (see how the green appears to be from the back-top of the scene, and the blue from the front of the image. The reason the waves appear to ‘fade’ is because this is the first drop into the water, the surface of the water being broken has created the ‘mushroom’ style shape, much like a cloud after an explosion, and the riples are gradually eminating from the centre of the liquid. Also remember that shutter speed affects aperature, which changes the focus style. If the apeartue is set one way you can see most of the picture in focus if it is taken the other way the main central foreground object will be in focus and most of the rest of the image will be slightly blurry. If this was taken as a scientific study of the reaction of a liquid when the surface tension is broken by a drop of liquid, then the image would not be photoshopped. However many images are put through a programme like photoshop just to tighten up the contrast/colour balance and so they are technically ‘photoshopped’ but have not been edited severly.

    When developing photos in the traditional ‘wet’ room it is easy to change darkness by leaving it in the developer longer, or taking it out earlier, it is also possible to add objects to an image using the enlarger to place an object directly onto the photographic paper under the film, or smaller objects/films on top of the original film. Therefore the term ‘photoshopped’ is quite narrowminded and seems to suggest that all photos are either true to the original object, or completely different and we only managed to start editing photos when we created the digital camera. These assumptions are untrue, and so the real question should be ‘are these photos significantly edited, or just enhanced?’

  33. all of them look cool xcept for the ice cream one it obviously how its done it easy peesy shampoo squeesy.

  34. I am running ur gadget in Vista,Absolutely love it, keep up the great work.. Love all the images, specially the grapes,the little green man holding up the tomato is perfect. Also love the water shroom….. Great Job Guys!!

  35. Can someone tell me how they got the water to reflect green and blue when reflecting from the same direction?

    I’d say that’s pretty close to impossible, isn’t it?

  36. I’m pretty sure the last picture is by Martin Waugh…his specialty is water sculpting…you should check out his work

  37. The ice cream one was mega awesome! Well, of course it is! I haven’t seen an illusion over here that’s not as decent! I love it!

    1. type in this on wikipedia:

      atlas holding up word (mythology)

      and there ya go!

      Glad i could help.

      :)

  38. I hate to state the obvious – but for the glass of water – perhaps the background contains extra-wavy lines which the glass has been placed in front of, and bends them more?

  39. Hey Ellen (#35), you’re right the last one is real, and they did the EXACT SAME THING on the Discovery TV show Time Warp. The color is archived by lighting and the background, and the photo was taken with a camera with a really fast shutter speed. The shape is formed by a water droplet. When it hits the water, it goes into the water, then back up (with a little more water it brought up with it). Immediately then, another droplet collides with the first one, and you get what you see in the picture.

  40. Wow I didn’t realize so many people watched time warp, that’s cool.
    If you haven’t seen time warp, you should check it out. It’s a cool show.
    Frankly, I don’t think any of them are Photoshopped, but I’m skeptical about the wavy lines one. You know, you can still fake a picture without Photoshop. Like some of the other comments, they could have easily taped a piece of paper with wavy lines to the cup, or the background.

  41. The glass with stripes is real.

    People who have worked in steam plants or boiler rooms know that this phenomenon is often used to make it easier to see water levels in sight glass tubes. There is often a card with diagonal red stripes behind the sight glass.

    You can see at a glance where the water level is because the water reverses the stripe pattern: through the top (empty) part of the tube the stripes slant normally, but when viewed through the water-filled section of the tube, the stripes appear to slant in the opposite direction.

  42. I don't think any of them are photoshopped. The first one is actually a photo by gnato which can be found here–> http://gnato.deviantart.com/art/f-f-96889572 . There is also a coloured version in the description. The second one could be some paper pasted to the back of the glass. The third one is just a cone held in a way that it looks like the cloud is in the cone. The fourth one could simply just be a tomato put on top of grapes. The fifth one was probably taken by a high speed camera with some colored plastic with light shining through put at different angles to achieve that effect. It was also shown in an episode of Time Warp how to take photos like the fifth one.

  43. the tomatoe stem looks like a star fish holding up the fruit, and water looks like a static object like a mushroom

  44. The water one is not photoshopped, what Time Warp at Discovery Channel, there is a episode were they do this trick.

  45. Lol. who would eat a cloud though? That one was depending on timing if it’s not Photoshopped. If it was, the cloud was probably moved there.

  46. very top one with the fish is 5/5
    The glass one is cool but 3/5
    The kid is 4/5
    The grape on is awsome 1000000/5
    water one is cool 4.5/5

  47. I love the kid with the cloud lol, i think the water looks like a jelly fish or a mushroom hmmmmmm i like these keep them coming

  48. I think all of them are possible without photoshopping, although I’m a tad skeptical about the cup one. Maybe it’s a pattern printed inside the cup and it’s set up to look like there’s water? Or maybe I’m just being stupid and it’s totally real.

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