Photoshop master Agan Harahap photoshopped KPK Chief Abraham Samad getting a massage from P-Diddy this morning as an initial response to the scandal. Now the Photoshop master says there’s a chance the photos may in fact be real.
So if you’re reading this then you’re no doubt aware of the scandalous photos circulating online that seem to show Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chief Abraham Samad and Miss Indonesia 2014, Elvira Devinamira making out.
Most of the discussion online has been centered over the veracity of the photos, which the KPK, the Miss Indonesia Foundation and countless online commentators have denounced as edited and fake.
Now, Indonesia’s most famous Photoshopper, Agan Harahap, has weighed in on the issue. Having turned Photoshop into an art form with his incredibly realistic images of Western celebrities in Indonesian settings, he seems like the perfect expert to prove whether the scandalous photos of Abraham and Elvira are real or fake.
So what is Agan’s verdict?
“If it was edited, the editing is really good. In my opinion, this is 80 percent authentic,” Agan told Kompas on Wednesday afternoon.
Agan said the photos had to have been taken with a camera phone or a webcam because of the low resolution. He also said photos with low resolution are very difficult to edit convincingly.
“If you zoom in you will see there are a lot of pixels and I do not see any patches that look the same,” he said.
Repeated patches of pixels are usually a clear sign of Photoshopping.
On the other hand, Agan was unable to verify whether the man in the photo was, in fact, Abraham Samad.
“The problem is, we can not be sure whether the person in the photo is the Chairman of the Commission or not,” Agan said.
Meanwhile, after a vague denial in which he said the photos were “all lies,” KPK Chief Abraham clarified his statements, saying he thought the photos were ‘shopped.
“I think it was engineered and I have met a lot of people who always ask for photos with me,” Abraham told Kompas.
Furthermore, Abraham claimed the photos were released in retaliation for the KPK indicting the prospective head of the National Police, Commissioner General Budi Gunawan, as a corruption suspect.
“It’s an attempt to attack and bring me down after yesterday’s announcement of a suspect,” Abraham explained.
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