Re: Another look at the Last photo

by **Hobs** 13.04.16 20:38

It looks like an elastic bobble which may have a bead on it or a metal piece to link the ends.
Personally it looks more like a simple elastic band rather than anything fancy.
I also noted sensitivity when kate spoke about gently removing it.
Why did she consider it inmportant enough to mention in the first place and then add further sensitivity with the qualifier word GENTLY.

I suspect perhaps something happened in relation to the hair which kate had to explain away in advance.
Did she lose her temper with Maddie whilst trying to remove it and everything went down hill from there resulting in Maddie's death?
Was there something in the hairband which could be indicative of something happening, such as a clump of hair?
Was there something to do with perhaps a missing clump of hair on Maddie's head had her remains been found early on?
Is this perhaps to explain away something found or not found on Maddie, should her remains be found today?

If she removed the 'bobble' would there be hairs in it from Maddie?
I know when i put my hair up in a bobble or similar, at the end of the day when i take it out, there is always at least one hair caught in it.

If she had the bobble, why did she not hand it over to police if it had hairs in it that could provide and DNA sample?
Was there a risk of the hairs revealing something they didn't want found, perhaps evidence of long term sedation?

by whodunit 13.04.16 22:35

I think it was just to link the hair bobble to that particular day.

The last photo shows a bobble in her hair, Kate mentions taking it out the alleged 'last day' Madeleine was alive.

by tinkier 13.04.16 22:41

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] a better close up, you can quite clearly see the clip…anyway, maybe we should move on.

by Guest 13.04.16 23:02

Does the type of hair adornment used by Madeleine have any significance?

by **Nina** 13.04.16 23:09

Verdi wrote:Does the type of hair adornment used by Madeleine have any significance?

Only that Kate mentioned she had removed it gently.

by Guest 14.04.16 0:11

Nina wrote:
Verdi wrote:Does the type of hair adornment used by Madeleine have any significance?
Only that Kate mentioned she had removed it gently.

Ah - I see! So it's the innocent explanation for anything and everything the police may or may not find..

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Talk your way round that one Ms Healy.

by **Tony Bennett** 14.04.16 1:35

tinkier wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
a better close up, you can quite clearly see the clip…anyway, maybe we should move on.

Very helpful @ tinkier, thank you.

Far from 'moving on', I would suggest that there is no time like now to explore the issue of the hair beads in even greater detail.

These are amongst the issues in front of us:

1. We have four photos of Madeleine looking the same age and with the same hair length:

2. These are:
A The Last Photo
B The Make-Up Photo
C The Ice Cream Photo, and
D. Madeleine with her hand in front of her face (photo produced by canada12).

3. Now, three of those photos (A, B and C above) all have Madeleine wearing a pink-coloured hair bead.

4. Further, there are very few (only one I can think of) other photos of Madeleine wearing a hair bead.

5. Then there is Kate McCann's strange preoccupation with both the Last Photo AND the hair bead.

Therefore, a legitmate question which arises from the above is this: were all these four photos - A, B, C and D above - all taken on the very same day?

One forensic issue that may assist is to explore whether the pink hair beads seen on photos A, B and C are in fact exactly the same hair beads.

I think that would increase the odds that these four photos were all taken on the same day.

Maybe @ tinkier you might be able to provide us with good enlargements of the hair bead on the other two photos?

by **Jill Havern** 14.04.16 6:59

NickE wrote:"[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]´s" findings about "the last photo" is very interesting.

Canada12 wrote (Snipped) wrote:Here they are side by side. The similarities in Madeleine's face are closer than any other photo I've seen of Madeleine.
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Once I discovered this photo, I had a look at the top Madeleine was wearing. As you can see, it's a full top with a high neckline.

I then had a close look at the neck area in the LP that is in the shadows. I noticed that there is a very faint pattern in the shadowed area. I thought at first that it was artifacts from the digital reproduction. Then I thought it might have been the reflection of the sun going through her sunhat. Then I enhanced the colours and had a closer look.
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Once I'd seen the extent of the pattern, I realized it was a regular repeating pattern, not a random one. I enhanced it further.

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I then had another look at the blouse Madeleine's wearing in the other photo, and took a swatch of that blouse and superimposed it on the closeup of the enhanced LP.

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Note that the pattern matches exactly.

Still not convinced? Here's the swatch with the colours deepened and enhanced.

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My conclusion? Madeleine's head was photoshopped onto the body in the LP. You can cover the edges with wisps of hair. You paint them in with a fine brush in Photoshop. You further conceal the edges with a hat. And you attempt to darken the joins in the neck area so that it looks like shadow.

Except that the pattern still remains and if you enhance it enough you can see the blouse from the source photo.

Very well done "Canada 12" and very interesting.

Peter has said that he's looked at canada12's post that I sent him and he said by looking at the original photo that he does "not see this as clearly as he obviously does!"

I enlarged the original photo and it doesn't look like the one posted in NickE's post - it looks much smoother.

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by **Tony Bennett** 14.04.16 7:34

Get'emGonçalo wrote:
I enlarged the original photo and it doesn't look like the one posted in NickE's post - it looks much smoother.

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I enlarged the original photo and it doesn't look like the one posted in NickE's post - it looks much smoother.

@ Get'emGoncalo

A good start to the day - thank you very much for posting this.

I am afraid that with all due respect to canada12, she has produced little more than a distraction by reviving the suggestion that the Last Photo was a photoshop exercise.

She did however assist us by producing that image of Madeleine with her hand in front of her face - because I agree with her that that Madeleine looks uncannily similar on that photo to her face on the Last Photo.

I hope we may now focus on the issue of the hair beads in the Last Photo, the Ice Cream Photo and Make-Up Photo, and examine whether it was the same hair bead used on all photos.

Not being a tecchie, I don't know how to enlarge them

by **Jill Havern** 14.04.16 8:07

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Just to add that when I enlarge the Last Photo taken from Google I get pretty much the same as canada12.

Stark comparison to the one taken from the original.

eta: I enlarged the screenshot from the original 4,000 times and the one from Google 1,000 - if I enlarged it 4,000 times it was just a complete blur.

by **Jill Havern** 14.04.16 8:46

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This is the best I can do with the beads at the moment, hopefully someone else will have a go.

They don't look the same to me.

by **Tony Bennett** 14.04.16 8:51

Get'emGonçalo wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Just to add that when I enlarge the Last Photo taken from Google I get pretty much the same as canada12.

Stark comparison to the one taken from the original.

eta: I enlarged the screenshot from the original 4,000 times and the one from Google 1,000 - if I enlarged it 4,000 times it was just a complete blur.

OK, so it seems that certain patterns emerge when you massively enlarge a photo.

That's why even Madeleine's lips, tongue and part of her face also showed an unusual pattern as well. Again with respect, canada12 drew entirely the wrong conclusions from her excessive enlargements which, in a sense, gave a false picture.

We have had the enlargement of the hair beads on the Last Photo, courtesy of 'pendragon'.

I tend to agree that with all the images you have now shown ( thumbsup

) that the middle one looks a different colour and shape, but the ones on the right and left look fairly similar.

by **Jill Havern** 14.04.16 9:14

Tony Bennett wrote:
Get'emGonçalo wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Just to add that when I enlarge the Last Photo taken from Google I get pretty much the same as canada12.

Stark comparison to the one taken from the original.

eta: I enlarged the screenshot from the original 4,000 times and the one from Google 1,000 - if I enlarged it 4,000 times it was just a complete blur.

OK, so it seems that certain patterns emerge when you massively enlarge a photo.

That's why even Madeleine's lips, tongue and part of her face also showed an unusual pattern as well. Again with respect, canada12 drew entirely the wrong conclusions from her excessive enlargements which, in a sense, gave a false picture.

No, I think the difference is that the smoother enlargement simply comes from the original photo and the other one is just from a replica on Google. Possibly saving a photo changes the image (pixels)...?

JRP would be able to explain that better.

I enlarged the original photo 1,000/2,000/3,000/4,000 and 5,000 times and it still looked smooth whereas the one from google just looked like the one in canada12's post even when only enlarged 1,000 times. When enlarged more than 1,000 times and it just becomes an unrecognisable blur.

The original photo didn't have "certain patterns emerge" the bigger the enlargement - it still stayed smooth.

If you get me drift....?

by skyrocket 14.04.16 9:22

@Get'emGoncalo - yes, I agree, not the same. Also, never noticed the small plait above the elastic band (bead?) before.

In the first 'episode' of 'Madeleine Was Here' (strangely light hearted title) at 5.50 mins onwards, Amelie has problems with either an elastic or a bead in her hair. As an aside, this clip leads on to one of the oddest sections for me - where the real Amelie is replaced by a look-a-like Maddie for a short clip when she is playing with the doll at the table. Note GM's words at the time. Very odd and you have to wonder what the motives were.

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by sar 14.04.16 9:40

skyrocket wrote:@Get'emGoncalo - yes, I agree, not the same. Also, never noticed the small plait above the elastic band (bead?) before.

...yes, I just noticed this now as well.

by **Nina** 14.04.16 9:59

Not relevant to the case, just an observation, but Madeleine had a number of hair adornments. I say adornments as they were not used to say keep her hair out of her eyes. Not having had a little girl in the family since our now 53-year-old daughter was little, is this the trend for little girls to adorn their hair?
In my time as a girl, and that of our daughter, the nearest to dressing the hair was a coloured ribbon on the end of a plait when in Sunday best.

by skyrocket 14.04.16 10:08

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - I think it's a case of some mums do, some mums don't. Also, I feel fairly confident in saying that MBM's hair shows obvious signs of colouring/streaking in some photos - if correct, very young to be having this done. 'Mini me' springs to mind. I had an old work colleague who dressed her baby daughter/toddler in identical clothes to herself (+hair style) every single day!

by JRP 14.04.16 10:16

Get'emGonçalo wrote:
Tony Bennett wrote:
Get'emGonçalo wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Just to add that when I enlarge the Last Photo taken from Google I get pretty much the same as canada12.

Stark comparison to the one taken from the original.

eta: I enlarged the screenshot from the original 4,000 times and the one from Google 1,000 - if I enlarged it 4,000 times it was just a complete blur.

OK, so it seems that certain patterns emerge when you massively enlarge a photo.

That's why even Madeleine's lips, tongue and part of her face also showed an unusual pattern as well. Again with respect, canada12 drew entirely the wrong conclusions from her excessive enlargements which, in a sense, gave a false picture.
No, I think the difference is that the smoother enlargement simply comes from the original photo and the other one is just from a replica on Google. Possibly saving a photo changes the image (pixels)...?

JRP would be able to explain that better.

I enlarged the original photo 1,000/2,000/3,000/4,000 and 5,000 times and it still looked smooth whereas the one from google just looked like the one in canada12's post even when only enlarged 1,000 times. When enlarged more than 1,000 times and it just becomes an unrecognisable blur.

The original photo didn't have "certain patterns emerge" the bigger the enlargement - it still stayed smooth.

If you get me drift....?

Most photographs which appear on the Internet have been reduced in size to speed up loading on websites.
Even the best high res photographs you see on the net will have degradation purely due to the Internet itself creating algorithms which interpret colour, light and shade etc.

The reduced quality is due to compression of pixels, those little coloured squares which make up a digital photo. They are shunted around and merge and make worm like patterns. Termed as digital artifacts, these become part of an image, embedded in the image data.

If the image is copied, and reissued on the Internet, then this image gains it's own artifacts. So artifacts on top of artifacts begin to deteriorate an image.
If an image is grabbed from the Internet and resized, and then republished, it gets worse.

So. The high res version has the least amount of artifacts, and as you go down the chain of copy, copied copy of a reduced copy and so on, more artifacts appear.

I believe that is what has happened here, they are patterns formed by digital artifacts.

by **Tony Bennett** 14.04.16 11:15

JRP wrote:
...they are patterns formed by digital artifacts.

Many thanks indeed for that and also to Get'emGoncalo for explaining how only images routed via Google produced these digital artifacts on the Last Photo.

It would be very helpful now if @ canada12 could return to the discussion ASAP and let us know if she is now prepared to agree with your expert opinion on this point

by canada12 14.04.16 11:21

Good morning.
I used the high res version of the LP, as posted by Gestalt:
You may see the entire picture by right clicking on it.

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I enlarged it by about 400% on a Mac, using Photoshop. I enhanced the colours. If you have a computer with excellent resolution, as a Mac has (which is why graphic designers love Macs), you will easily see the pattern, and if you enhance the colours, you will see it just as I did.

If you have a PC with a graphics program that doesn't have as good resolution as a Mac does, then your observation of the pattern may not be as precise as someone with a computer which has a better graphics.

I stand by my original posting.

Thank you.

PS - it would be really excellent if PeterMac were to contact me directly, since I did email him privately with this information and invited him to write back. This information has, of course, also been passed along to Operation Grange and the PJ. I'm satisfied that it will be dealt with, and if it is deemed not relevant by them, I'm happy to have made the effort.

by JRP 14.04.16 12:14

canada12 wrote:Good morning.
I used the high res version of the LP, as posted by Gestalt:
You may see the entire picture by right clicking on it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I enlarged it by about 400% on a Mac, using Photoshop. I enhanced the colours. If you have a computer with excellent resolution, as a Mac has (which is why graphic designers love Macs), you will easily see the pattern, and if you enhance the colours, you will see it just as I did.

If you have a PC with a graphics program that doesn't have as good resolution as a Mac does, then your observation of the pattern may not be as precise as someone with a computer which has a better graphics.

I stand by my original posting.

Thank you.

PS - it would be really excellent if PeterMac were to contact me directly, since I did email him privately with this information and invited him to write back. This information has, of course, also been passed along to Operation Grange and the PJ. I'm satisfied that it will be dealt with, and if it is deemed not relevant by them, I'm happy to have made the effort.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Did you save this high res image to your Mac?
If so that will cause more artifacts to appear on your version than what appear by simply just viewing the image on line.
It's possible we are looking at 2 different versions of the same photo. Ours live, yours a saved copy.
Every save and reissue adds more degradation.

I will save it to my Mac later today and have a good look, I'll post back any findings or discrepancies.

by Guest 14.04.16 12:26

This subject would appear to be a non-starter. The three items of hair adornment are clearly completely different, except perhaps for a similarity of colour. No surprise there as everything about Madeleine was pink.

The poolside picture is some kind of band thing.
The disgusting make-up picture looks like a little bow type thing
The picture with ice-cream cone and/or stick is a clip type thing.

Besides, Kate McCann seemed to have a thing about hair frippery. There can even be seen a pink hair clip on the brim of the sunhat worn by Amelie at the poolside..

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by kaz 14.04.16 12:33

Verdi wrote:Does the type of hair adornment used by Madeleine have any significance?

Well yes, actually. Anything Kate mentions in her book has significance. Some people on the forum suggest that the photos where Madeleine wears hair decoration are linked so the fact whether they are easily removed or not does have a bearing. The devil IS in the detail!

by Doug D 14.04.16 12:35

canada12:

Please can you put up a link to the short video from which you have taken the shot of MM in the patterned blouse, as I can't find it.

Thanks

by canada12 14.04.16 12:38

Doug D wrote:canada12:

Please can you put up a link to the short video from which you have taken the shot of MM in the patterned blouse, as I can't find it.

Thanks

It wasn't taken from a short video.
It's here:
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Scroll down the page until you find it. :-)

by Guest 14.04.16 12:48

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote: I used the high res version of the LP, as posted by Gestalt

Where is that please - on this forum? According to the member's profile, s/he has never posted.

I ask because I'm having difficulty understanding how so many photographs reproduced on the web, including this forum, appear perfect to the naked eye yet others do not. How does that fit in with the current theory about compression artifacts and copy degradation?

The enlarged image of Madeleine posted up-thread by Get'emGoncalo is a good example.

by Doug D 14.04.16 13:40

Thanks Canada 12.

Do you think it could be the same top as as in this one? Similar white patch behind the bottle to that in ‘your’ photo. Short sleeves with bit of ribbon. One sleeve more hitched up than the other one.

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Verdi,

The high def. last photo from mcCannfiles at:

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shows as 3072 x 2304 the same as the

VERY HIGH QUALITY PHOTO OF MADELEINE'S LAST PHOTOGRAPH SIZE(3072x2304) Originally posted on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by TheKTPHorg then reposted by gestalt from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

HIGH RES IMAGE OF
LAST PHOTOS 3072 X 2304

From canada12’s link above to:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

At one time, there was a good enough quality posting of one of the photos that could be blown right up to individual pixel size. I thought it was this one, but it may have been the playground (Raj Balu) one, or one of the others.

by **Jill Havern** 14.04.16 13:57

canada12 wrote:PS - it would be really excellent if PeterMac were to contact me directly, since I did email him privately with this information and invited him to write back. This information has, of course, also been passed along to Operation Grange and the PJ. I'm satisfied that it will be dealt with, and if it is deemed not relevant by them, I'm happy to have made the effort.

PeterMac does use a mac.

I sent him my two versions that I posted here this morning and he replied saying:

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by Guest 14.04.16 14:11

Doug D wrote:Thanks Canada 12.

Do you think it could be the same top as as in this one? Similar white patch behind the bottle to that in ‘your’ photo. Short sleeves with bit of ribbon. One sleeve more hitched up than the other one.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Verdi,

The high def. last photo from mcCannfiles at:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

shows as 3072 x 2304 the same as the

VERY HIGH QUALITY PHOTO OF MADELEINE'S LAST PHOTOGRAPH SIZE(3072x2304) Originally posted on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by TheKTPHorg then reposted by gestalt from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
HIGH RES IMAGE OF
LAST PHOTOS 3072 X 2304

From canada12’s link above to:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

At one time, there was a good enough quality posting of one of the photos that could be blown right up to individual pixel size. I thought it was this one, but it may have been the playground (Raj Balu) one, or one of the others.

thanks for taking the time but I'm really none the wiser. I now recall seeing the image posted by canada12 but the only visible aspect is an enlargement of Gerry McCann's mug and the area to his right.

Forgetting that for a moment (I only wanted to see the high resolution for comparison) - can you answer my question..

I ask because I'm having difficulty understanding how so many photographs reproduced on the web, including this forum, appear perfect to the naked eye yet others do not. How does that fit in with the current theory about compression artifacts and copy degradation?