Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Lads, don't pretend that you can definitively spot Photoshopped or AI images, and don't pretend that checkers can definitively spot them either. You and they can spot some, you and they can't spot others, and you and they will report false positives.

I've been working professionally with Photoshop since 1994 in graphic design, photo retouching and processing, and compositing, and while there are of course tell-tale signs of cloning, compositing, the liquify tool, etc. a lot of what people claim to be those tell-tale signs in an image can be compression artifacts, noise anomalies, low resolution. In my view, that image is too low quality to make any kind of determination for it's veracity - in isolation - either way.

I ran that image though the manipulation detection tool Forensically, that uses Error Level Analysis, Clone Detection, Component Analysis and a few other methods to detect photo manipulation. It shows no manipulation at all for this image. Now before anyone gets too excited, I also ran an image where I used the new AI tools in the latest Photoshop Beta to remove two birds from a picture I took myself of them fighting on a lake. It reported some cloning - but in places in the image that actually were not touched at all. The bits of the image where the birds were actually removed passed undetected. What this tells me is that these tools are completely unreliable when AI image manipulation is used.

I then ran the image though Maybe's AI Art Detector on Huggingface. It came back with it being 76% artificial. Now before anyone gets too excited, I then ran some images that I 100% know have not been AI generate or manipulate in any way though it. One of them came back as 91% AI - even though I know for a fact it is a 100% legitimate documentary photograph. AI image detection tools are unreliable.

This image is very low resolution and it looks like it was originality noisy as hell, then de-noised and over-sharpened, and there's a hell of a lot of compression artifacts in it - all of which you might expect from the low spec video camera in a surveillance device, but which could also be used after the fact to homogenise the image and disguise AI generation, cloning or compositing. It can only be taken on face value, and you'd need a higher quality image, the original video clip, or other independent images of the same scene to verify or discredit it.

I'm not saying the image is fake, I'm not saying is isn't. What I'm saying is that anyone who - when looking at that image in total isolation - makes a determination one way or the other is relying on confirmation bias more than any possible objective analysis, because the image in itself isn't high enough quality to do any objective analysis.

Fake or not, it says an awful lot about how bad the Russian defence is that they have to recycle different views of the same incident at the same location several days ago, over and over and over again to convince us that Ukraine is being "hammered". It's almost as if they have absolutely no other footage of things going badly for the Ukrainians.

It appears now there's a threat of an ammonium plant in Crimea being targeted by the Russians.

Just because...divilment.

Chatter is also children have been moved to Crimea from the occupied areas.

Hopefully nothing happens. But Putin's army could be trying the or else card again.

An explosion at the plant could have ammonia gas covering the region.

The Sherman was the worst tank ever. Did well in the far east though where it could hide in the dense growth.

Ah now, you're just falling for British propaganda, it's understood these days Napoleon was short by todays standards but in 18/19th century France he was average height, and a real Master Strategist (sorry Darth).

 because the image in itself isn't high enough quality to do any objective analysis.

Of course you can, my objective analysis is that on the balance of probability given the variables we have it is more than likely Russian Propaganda.

The above picture also fit your criteria of objective analysis.

But again using logic, common sense and variables we do know, we can on the basis of probability objectively say unfortunately there isn't a dinosaur living in a lake in Scotland.

Straight is the question (unfortunately).

I am unsure if I would trust the Republican party on this any more. A lot of them (new breed of politician coming up following template set by Trump, and some of the media "thought leaders") don't particularly seem to care about democracy now.

Hopefully, a gamed election to get the right result for the Republican party (I suppose somehow through technicalities and using control of the legal system in key places rather than honest to god corrupt ballot stuffing/riggging!?) is still a bit of a bit of "black swan", and the US is not that far gone as yet.

If accurate, that's definitely going to add spice into the mix today. So far just that source reporting on it.

Well if all the abrams/challengers/leopards get knocked out or captured, that's going to reflect poorly on the reputation of western arms manufacturers.

Do they not have self-propelled artillery now to keep up with armour, or do they still rely on towed guns?

So do you think they will strike close to Tokmak for an initial push to Melitopol, I do honestly hope the ukranian army crushes them and breaks through those defensive lines.

If Ukraine breaks through those lines its even more impressive considering Russia moved soldiers out of Kherson since the russians blew the damn.

You really gave that first post a lot of time eh!

(Honestly I'm just grateful a zombie account isn't posting pro-Kremlin propaganda for once)

completely off-topic (or somewhat) post: is there a way to search for all the posts a particular poster has made in a particular thread?

the search function seems a bit of a blunt instrument but no doubt I am using it wrong. Thanks in advance.