A reader asked me to look at this New York Times photograph of a crowd of Lebanese refugees: Slide Show - Photographs: Lebanon.

This is probably nothing. If it’s photo manipulation, it’s certainly an incredibly mundane example, and I can’t think of a reason why anyone would do it. I’m tossing this to the lizardoid community for comment from the other photoshop geeks out there, without rendering any judgment yet.

In other words, I am not saying this is a definite fake; I know we’ve got quite a few experts at digital manipulation among our readers, and I’m sincerely asking for their opinions.

But look at the image of the man in the lower right corner; the more I examine it, the more it resembles a man’s head crudely pasted onto the body of a woman. Note the scarf under his chin, the outlines of something else at the right of his head, and more artifacts at the top and left of his head. And note the rest of the clothing, which resembles the other women’s clothing much more than the men’s. The lighting of his face seems off, as well.

(A larger image is available by clicking the NYT link above.)

UPDATE at 8/9/06 11:23:27 am:

A zoomed-in version of that section:

UPDATE at 8/9/06 2:07:57 pm:

Allahpundit has another photo that seems to have been taken around the same time, and it may settle the issue. As mentioned above, there’s probably nothing to it—and the new photo supports that: New LGF photo controversy: Debunked?