Elections have consequences

I'm often asked about my political leanings. Given my profession, people make assumptions as to my party affiliation. They're often wrong.

Folks have been asking for my take on where the world is heading, and so forth, given the fact that the US has just had a big election. So, here's my analysis of the US's election results, and sundry associated issues:

Progressives have spent a century or more creating a demand for their products and services. Obama, for his part, handled the supply side of the equation. Folks like to see results, a bridge or library built, a program to help, etc. Robert Byrd is an excellent example of this re-election strategy. You can't go anywhere in WV without seeing his name plastered on some official sign. Republicans, for their part, have not offered an alternative set of products and services over the corresponding time period. The message of cut this, but not that, doesn't ring true for over half the country.
The conservative message of save for tomorrow rings hollow when the government drives down interest rates such that your savings are eaten away by inflation. Thus, people spend what they have and hope for a better tomorrow ($1000 in a savings account does you no good when you neighbor's flat screen is bigger than yours, after all).

The conservative message of investment and the power of compound interest is undercut by the government's insertion of itself into the market. It picks winners and losers, it deems companies too big to fail, it plays with the value of money and commodities. Given this, would you trust the stock mar

ket? Would you trust your retirement to the stock market?

The conservative message of family values continues to be undermined by politicians who say one thing in public, pass judgement on others through legislation, then do entirely different things behind their own closed doors. Pro-marriage legislators turn out to be cheating on their spouses. Anti-gay rights legislators turn out to be gay. Why can't well ordered liberty include all of God's creation? Why can't pro-freedom, pro-choice, and pro-American mean the same thing?

A few years ago, I wrote a book on what I thought were the essential qualities of a leader. Modern Freemasonry takes a good man, and illustrates the path to a well lived life. Thus, it's little mystery to me why so many of the world's heroes are/have been Freemasons.

Everyone makes mistakes - did you own them? Did you learn from them? DId you ask for forgiveness? What to be a leader - whom have you followed? Can a man lead who does not know how to obey? Do you have unhealthy attachments? Is your life out of balance? Can you make and keep commitments? Do you know how to be a friend? In whom do you put your trust?

So, lift your head up high. It's not the end of the world. Your family needs your full efforts, as does your neighborhood, town, county, state, and your country. Remember that your work recommends you, as does the company that you keep. Remember that your legacy includes not just those fixed assets that you leave behind, but also the memory of you that remains in your children and all of those of whom you've impacted over the years.

So, chin up, mates. It'll be fine. We'll make it through these tough times, together.

History log function now in Amped FIVE

Yesterday, Amped Software announced a new update to FIVE. Along with some bug fixes, FIVE now has an automatic logging feature. You'll find this by clicking on View>Open Log Folder.

Since the new default is to log every action in FIVE, I just wanted to remind you of a post I wrote a few years ago about the discovery issue related to history logs.

... Smith and Bace make clear the fact that the reports we generate will provide fodder for cross examination. This includes the History Log. If your log is not handled correctly, it will likely include a running list of every image ever processed by you on your computer. Do you want to turn this list over for discovery? Imagine the questions it would generate. If your Log only shows work on a few images, but hundreds were turned in for discovery, you should expect a long series of questions ...

As the FIVE history logs record not only the actions, including play and pause, but also the local time, file locations, and etc ... you might want to run the use of this feature past your chain of command and your risk management section. In the mean time, you can turn this feature off in the Program Options window, if you want to.

Enjoy.

A Texas Prosecutor Faces Justice

This just in from the New York Times: "In just about a month from now, Texas will witness a rare event: a former prosecutor is going to be held to account for alleged prosecutorial misconduct."

"What makes the Morton case unusual is that, thanks to the Innocence Project’s re-investigation, Ken Anderson will soon go before a Texas Court of Inquiry. If the court believes that Anderson’s alleged misconduct rises to the level of a crime, it could refer the matter to a grand jury. But the Court of Inquiry exists only in Texas, and is almost never used even there.

In truth, Anderson isn’t the only Williamson County prosecutor who faced consequences as a result of the Morton case. His successor, John Bradley, was the one who had fought for years against the DNA testing of the bandana. Seven months after Morton was set free, Bradley, who had always been a shoo-in for re-election as district attorney, was resoundingly defeated.

When I spoke to him the other day, he told me that he now believes he had been wrong to fight so hard against the DNA testing. “We shouldn’t set up barriers to the introduction of new evidence,” he said. Although it would mean more work for prosecutors, Bradley now believes that examining important new evidence is “a legitimate and acceptable cost to doing business in the criminal justice system.”

Bradley will leave office soon. He told me he was going to start a law practice specializing in appellate work. Here’s hoping he argues some appeals for the wrongly imprisoned."

Click here to read the whole story.

virtual reality crime scene training available to state and local law enforcement

This just in from Officer.com: "The nonprofit National Forensic Science Technology Center (NFSTC), in partnership with the University of Tennessee (UT) Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC), is making virtual reality crime scene training available to state and local law enforcement professionals for the first time. For active law enforcement officers who register in 2012, the Investigator-Virtual Reality (I-VR) training is free of charge and funded by the National Institute of Justice.

Brian Cochran, a detective for 11 years, is a graduate of UT’s National Forensic Academy and was among those who helped develop the training. “Overall, the training is meant to be introductory,” says Cochran, who works in the crime scene unit of the Boone County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky. “It [covers] general things: scene security, searching for evidence, and properly packaging, documenting and photographing evidence—the fundamentals of crime scene management and processing.”

Entry-level law enforcement personnel who may want to become crime scene investigators or forensic practitioners can benefit from I-VR. The training can also be used as a refresher for seasoned investigators, says Emily Miller, a specialist with LEIC at UT’s Institute for Public Service.

From January to the end of September, more than 400 participants registered for the course, Miller says. She says participants have included law enforcement officers, first responders, crime scene investigators, field training officers, rookies and veterans."

Click here to read the whole story.

Scope of warrant at issue

This just in from CyberCrime Review: "In United States v. Schlingloff, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157272 (C.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 2012), Judge Shadid held that use of Forensic Toolkit's (FTK) Known File Filter (KFF) to alert on child pornography files was outside the scope of a warrant issued to look for evidence of identity theft.

The defendant in this case lived at a location that was searched pursuant to a valid warrant; the warrant was issued to find evidence of identity theft. During the search of the residence, multiple media devices and computers were retrieved, including a computer and external storage device belonging to the defendant. When the items were sent for forensic analysis, the computer forensic analyst did a search of the devices not only for identity theft (likely image and string searches), but also for child pornography using FTK's KFF option.

A short explanation on KFF. To make forensic analysis easier, files that are known to be valid (system files, DLLs, etc.) are hashed, and those hash values are compared against a disk image to exclude known valid files from further forensic analysis. Conversely, known malicious or illegal files are also hashed, and if those files are found on the computer, the KFF alerts on those hashes, indicating to the investigator that those files should definitely be investigated further. Per FTK's own literature, the KFF can be pared to certain file lists (i.e. hashes of child porn files, virus-related files, etc.) relevant to the current investigation. Additionally, the forensic investigator does not have to use KFF - it is merely an option.

Here, the investigator chose to use the KFF, and within its alerts were hashes of child pornography. While searching the defendant's computer, child porn alerts generated by the KFF showed up. The analyst took the next step and (to confirm the files were in fact CP), opened a few to confirm the results. As the court stated:
The search here did not end with flagging the child pornography files during preprocessing, however. After the KFF alerted to the two files in question, [the agent] believed that he recognized them to be part of the "Vicky" series of child pornography based on their hash values and his experience. Rather than stopping at this point to obtain a warrant to search for images of child pornography, [the agent] briefly opened each file in order to confirm his suspicions before stopping any further processing..

Based on this evidence, the defendant was charged with possession of child pornography. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that it was outside the scope of the warrant. The initial motion was denied because the court was under the impression that KFF was an all-or-nothing option. Upon learning that the KFF can be turned on and off in a motion to reconsider, the court granted the motion to suppress.

Continue reading the article by clicking here.

Enjoy.

HFR 3D - coming soon to a theatre near you

Here's a collection of links on the emerging HFR 3D standard for video.

• Regal Cinemas
• 'The Hobbit' to play in high frame rate at 450 theaters
• High frame rates will take off
• The Hobbit shot at 48 fps
• The technology

variable frame rates

An interesting quirk in digital multimedia evidence (DME) when it meets the average first responder's workflow can cause unnecessary angst when using the Omnivore.

Here's what I mean.

Let's say that a crime happened and was captured by a CCTV system - and that the Omnivore is your tool of choice for retrieving the DME for use by your agency. The crime lasts only a minute or two, but the investigators want 15 minutes before and after the crime - thus your capture duration would be 32 minutes, give or take a few seconds. With me so far?

Enter a variable frame rate.

Some systems employ a variable frame rate for recording / playback. Thus, if nothing's happening, the frames per second (fps) might be set at 1 or 2 fps. Then action occurs in front of the camera, and the fps jumps up to 15-30 for the duration of the action.

So, in our scenario, there's little going on for about 15 minutes, then 2 minutes of action, then little going on for 15 minutes. The DVR manufacturer wants to maximize storage space, so it's 15 minutes x 2 fps + 2 minutes x 30 fps + 15 minutes x 2 fps (as opposed to 32 minutes x 30 fps. With me? Here's where this is going.

If you run the Optimization routine in Omnivore based on the initial seconds of the DME, it will give you an average playback of 2 and a capture rate of 4 fps. But what happens when 15 minutes later, the fps jumps to 30? Omnivore, if you have it selected to stop when it drops frames, will stop and ask you if you want to save your work. It thinks it's dropped a frame as it's being flooded with frames and isn't set to receive them at the new rate. It's doing what it's supposed to do.

The simple solution to this problem, if you can call it that, is to base your Optimization on the time within the video where the crime actually occurs - or there's action happening. This will be the highest rate, generally. You should also note the internal settings of the DVR. What does it say the frame rate should be for the camera that you are capturing? Is there a different fps setting for motion, alarms, panic buttons, etc.? Write this stuff down. Then compare what Omnivore says about the frame rate with your notes.

Enjoy.

Nyquist Rate

The Omnivore, from Ocean Systems, is an essential part of my field kit. I've used it with great success on many cases. An interesting question came in related to it, it's Optimization process, and the accompanying instructions. Here's my answer.

While it's not explained or referenced, it appears that the software samples the playback rate, then uses a variation on the Nyquist Rate theme (The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem establishes that "when sampling a signal (e.g., converting from an analog signal to digital), the sampling frequency must be greater than twice the Band Width of the input signal in order to be able to reconstruct the original perfectly from the sampled version") in performing it's work.

It seems that the Omnivore is sampling (or capturing) at twice the playback rate, then discarding the duplicates to best re-create the proprietary file in a usable format.

So, from a workflow standpoint, you open the player, load the file, launch Omnivore .... and capture the video into Omnivore's proprietary format. With me so far.

What do you do when you have multiple clips from a single location - same player, many camera views? The Omnivore help files says this, The “Reset” button located in the Video Setting Tab (Optimization section) should only be used when you are changing from one player to another. If you are performing multiple captures of video from different camera views within the same player, you do not need to Re-Optimize each time or “Reset” the optimization process.

So in the case that generated the question, each of the individual views was playing back at a different rate - a rate that was variable. The only way to get an accurate grab was to Reset after playing back each view. Then Re-Optimize with the new camera view.

So, in this case, RTFM wasn't the best solution. Who knew?

Enjoy.

Stabilization of video from helmet cam

If you're looking to stabilize video from a helmet cam, motorcycle mounted cam, or in-car video, here's a YouTube video to show you how easy it is to do in AmpedFIVE.

Enjoy.

Reports from experts

I've noticed an increasing number of people presenting themselves as experts in the field of audio, video, image, and multi-media forensics. As the economy contracts, and people look for work slightly outside of their skill set, it's important to know that your work with Photoshop is just a portion of what you need to do for a case.

"As an expert witness, you may be asked to produce an Expert Witness report for the court.

When developing your expert witness report, remember that they are discoverable; that is, your report will be shared with the attorneys for all sides in the dispute prior to trial.

Your expert witness’s report should include all the pertinent findings that you observed, pertinent things that you sought but did not find, your conclusions based on your findings, and, if needed, a statement explaining the reasons for your conclusions. Because your conclusions are based on science, it should be possible for another person with your training to read your report and look at your documentation, such as photographs, and reach the same conclusions.

The quality of your work reflects your care and thoroughness and will help establish your reputation.

While reviewing a case, consider what points are important and need emphasis, as well as the best way to document your observations. Strive to describe an observation so that someone else, including yourself years later, can read the description and form an accurate mental image of what is described in the report.

Copies of your notes may be requested, so it is important to keep any documentation professional in nature; you would not want to be embarrassed because of a disparaging notation." - RTI International

Photoshop enters the Presidential campaign

It's getting completely ridiculous. This image is floating around Twitter, seeming proof that the President is ... (fill in the blank as you see fit. this isn't political commentary).

But, as each side points fingers and works themselves into a froth, the real loser is Photoshop. As Photoshop has become a verb, requests to authenticate images become more frequent.

Yes, it's a cut/paste forgery. Our ELA test shows clear lines where the insertion has taken place. But you need not take my word for it. All one has to do is trace the source. The man admits it's a fake.

So, let's all take a deep breath. Vote with intelligence, not emotion. And, please, let's resist the urge to use Photoshop in such nasty ways. Let's make art, and clarify images - let's not use such a wonderful tool to confuse and anger and annoy. Help make Photoshop a noun again.

LAPD posts 'Grim Sleeper' suspect's photos on Facebook, Twitter

This from the LA Times: "Los Angeles police are again turning to the public for help in identifying dozens of women seen in photos found at the home of the alleged "Grim Sleeper" serial killer.

Forty-two photographs found at the home of suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr. will be posted on Facebook and Twitter on Thursday, Los Angeles police announced. The photos, taken between 1976 and 2010, were among about 1,000 photos seized from Franklin's home when he was arrested in July 2010.

Franklin, 60, has been charged with murder in the slayings of 10 women whose bodies were found on the streets of South Los Angeles over two decades. Authorities said he has been linked to at least six more killings.

When authorities found the photos, along with hundreds of hours of video, they feared that some of the women could be additional victims. Some of the images appeared to be innocent snapshots, but most showed women in various states of undress in sexual poses.

Detectives weeded out duplicate images and sought to identify about 160 women. They tried to contact the women on their own, but when they were unable to identify the rest, they took the rare step of making the images public. Hundreds of tips poured in, and detectives were able to identify additional victims."

Click here to read the whole story and visit the gallery.

NIK now part of Google?

Did you know that Google bought NIK Software? A lot of folks like Nik Color Efex Pro and use it in their workflow. Well, NIK's now a Google property.

I'm not sure what this means for the future of Nik's tools, but at least you know. If you don't care for Google's privacy policies, you may want to click over and let them know that you don't want your user info migrated to Google.

Government Organizations can also be Sanctioned for Spoliation of Evidence

This from exterro.com: "The threat of evidence spoliation doesn’t only affect private parties but also extends to government organizations, such as cities or municipalities. Case in point is DMAC LLC and Fourmen Construction, Inc. v. City of Peekskill (S.D.N.Y Sept. 12, 2012). The district court ruled that the defendant, City of Peekskill, spoliated evidence by deleting relevant emails. This failure was due largely in part to the defendant not maintaining a “formal e-mail retention policy,” which left “sole discretion” to the defendant’s employees to decide for themselves whether to keep or dispose of emails. Along with awarding the plaintiffs, DMAC and Fourmen Construction, with costs and fees arising from bringing this motion, the court granted an adverse inference instruction, which allowed jurors to infer “that the City (defendant) negligently destroyed e-mails similar in nature to the ones produced, and that said e-mails would have been favorable to plaintiffs’ case.”

In this case, the plaintiffs brought suit against the defendant for stopping their real estate project allegedly due to illegal political reasons. During the discovery process, the defendant informed the plaintiffs that they had no formal email retention policy in place. As a result, a majority of the defendant’s employees had deleted pre-litigation emails concerning the subject matter relevant to the case. In response, the plaintiffs made discovery requests to third parties that surfaced several relevant emails from the defendant. Based on this finding, the plaintiffs filed a motion for sanctions against the defendant for spoliation of evidence under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP)."

"The court deemed a failure to maintain a “formal e-mail retention policy” as de facto negligent. But beyond this, the court ruled that the defendant was grossly negligent because (1) the defendant ignored its obligation to preserve relevant emails when the duty to preserve was triggered, and (2) even with the defendant’s assurances that a legal hold was implemented when litigation began, testimony from one of the defendant’s employees refuted that claim. The employee stated that “at no time was she ever advised to preserve communications, including e-mails.”

Read the whole story here.

Adobe Camera Raw - no Win8 support yet

If you are an ACR user, and you want to upgrade to Windows 8 ... you'll have to wait a bit. Adobe's compatibility site shows no support for ACR for Win8 users. Additionally the ".com" stuff isn't supported yet. Neither is Flash (for those that develop demonstratives in Flash Pro).

So, stay tuned. It's always this way when a new OS hits the market.

What you should know about Windows 8 security features

If your lab is considering upgrading to Windows 8, or looking to start the validation process, here's an article that outlines the new security features of Windows 8.

Considering that many of the students in my classes are still on XP, I wonder how many will jump straight to 8 - or simply stay with XP and hope for the best.

Image Processing Fundamentals

I'm heading down to San Diego to attend the annual LEVA conference and present a lecture on Image Processing Fundamentals. My topic doesn't concern a specific piece of software, or a new piece of hardware - it's about the science that underlies forensic video analysis and how to talk about it in everyday terms.

So from convolution (it takes a village) to why night vision shots are always green, we'll have a good time talking about the science behind the work that we do. Along the way, we'll meet some of the giants of the science world like Joseph Fourier (or Joey Sine Wave - as he's called in NYC) and Anil Jain.

I hope to see you there.

Learn new Photoshop features in a click

Created with Adobe Configurator 3, the Photoshop Features panel lets you easily explore, try out and learn the new and enhanced tools and features in Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended. Arranged in a series of tabs, from the panel you can check out the new tools and features, access the timeline tools and capabilities for video and frames, go to video tutorial websites and if you have Photoshop Extended use all the major 3D tools and functions.

The panel is free and exclusively available on Adobe Exchange. To download it you will need the Adobe Exchange panel which currently works with 9 different CS6 applications.

U.S. Customs Workers to Switch to iPhones From BlackBerrys

Having a small hand in the cellphone forensics side of the DME business, I don't see the move to the iPhone as a good thing. I would hope that, rather than take the "fan boy" route, agencies fully validate the phones in terms of security, and just what the phone captures about the users' daily activities. I know what I can get from an iPhone - at the local police level using tools like Cellebrite and FinalMobile. I can imagine what the national security side looks like. Not good.

Creative Cloudy

Ok. This isn't right. I've just finished downloading all the CS6 apps via the Creative Cloud. Now, understand, I don't technically have internet up here on the ranch. Verizon's switch was fully populated for the mountain communities before I moved in, so I get internet through a cellular 3G link. So, I downloaded all the apps via cellular. Ouch.

But, it gets worse. When I finished downloading everything (about 2 gigs worth), and fired up Bridge CS6, the check for updates functionality kicked in and found another 700Mb in updates? Updates? I just downloaded the latest stuff from the Cloud. Why should there be updates? Ugh.

I'll click the update button and go to bed. In all, it'll take about 24 hours to download, install, and update the CS6 apps via 3G.

Have a great weekend.

Meet Amped Software at the LEVA Conference

This just in from Amped Software:

We are happy to announce that we’ll be present at the Law Enforcement & Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA) 2012 Annual Training Conference on October 22-26, 2012 at the BAHIA Hotel in San Diego, California.

We will be demonstrating and showcasing the new 2012 version of our popular Amped Five Professional forensic video enhancement software. VideoScanner, our new product for forensic video e-discovery, will be shown in action at our booth. This is a new tool that can save countless hours for investigators looking for video evidence on a suspect’s computer.

Training conferences like LEVA are very important for us: with respect to other kind of events, here we have the possibility to be in touch with our actual end users and meet with world class forensic video analysts. Here we can present our technology to experts who can fully understand its potential and give concrete feedback for its further improvement. For this reason we are presenting here not only our popular software for forensic video analysis, Amped Five, but also our latest projects.

In particular with VideoScanner we created a very simple tool which can save hours looking and inspecting video files in digital forensic cases. VideoScanner allows the investigator to quickly extract few representative frames to all the videos found on a device for a efficient inspection. As a bonus it add several forensic facilities, such as the possibility to calculate the hash code on all the analyzed files and the automatic creation of the analysis report.

We are using this conference to show a preview of Authenticate, our new project which for digital photo authentication. Authenticate will incorporate an innovative workflow concept into a ground-breaking software for image authentication within a feature-packed, but easy to use, user experience. We see this as a critical tool for prosecutors and investigators in states such as California in light of the recent Beckley court ruling on requirements for digital evidence authentication. Evidence is being challenged in courts on the basis of authenticity and Authenticate will provide several tools for evaluating the originality of an image. We are offering several types of tools in Authenticate and have combined several different techniques, from simple metadata and quantization table analysis to actual pixel value inspection and cutting edge techniques used to specifically match an image to a camera or device.

At LEVA, Amped Software will be in booth 122 in the main exhibit hall. We have donated a VideoScanner tool for the LEVA Door Prize Drawing. You have to be present to win, so we'll see you there!

I'm now an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber

OK. I did it. I finally did it. I signed up for Adobe's Creative Cloud services. I'd like to say that I did it for work, but that's not entirely true. I did it for school. For all the things that I'm doing in my school work towards my PhD, it just made sense. Plus, the special offer that they made through the school was too hard to pass on. So, I did it. I'm in the cloud.

Wish me luck.

Art vs. Science

I'll be in court today as a spectator, watching two "experts" testify as to their work on the authenticity of a particular piece of evidence. These two people both "examined" a VHS tape. Each came to a separate conclusion as to the authenticity of the evidence. One has a process, a system, a set of tools that is recognized by his peers as valid, and institutional backing. The other, seemingly worked by feel - trusting his gut that things just didn't look right. One has a stack of notes that can be used to re-create his work. The other has several pages that only make sense to him. The scene is set ...

I'll have my smart phone at the ready, Tweeting live as interesting things come up. Follow me @jimhoerricks.

FourMatch in an Image Authentication Workflow

Four and Six recently posted the latest in a series of blog posts placing their new FourMatch authentication tool in context within the larger image authentication workflow.

" ... The biggest strength of FourMatch is its ability to provide compelling evidence that an image file has not been modified since it was first captured. However, FourMatch is not designed to tell you whether an image is untruthful. It merely tells you whether the photo remains in the pristine state it would be in coming direct from the camera. That means that many files that fail the FourMatch test may still be truthful images. Perhaps someone just cropped the image without altering the remaining photo content. Or perhaps someone just re-saved the photo using a higher degree of JPEG compression in order to make the file smaller to upload to the Internet. Both of these changes would cause the resulting file to fail the FourMatch test, even though the actual content of the file is still reliable ..."

" ... Let’s start with considering FourMatch as a standalone authentication measure. Particularly within a legal setting, there are many times when people may need assurance that an image can be trusted, particularly given the ease with which images can be manipulated with modern software ..." Two things come to mind, is it possible that an image is authentic, completely untouched by software, yet fail the test? Meet the black swan. Even though their database is quite robust, it still needs updating regularly. Thus, the software - given the tremendous head start - will play catch up as new phones and cameras come out. Not finding that black swan depends on keeping your subscription up to date, keeping your local database up to date, and Four and Six keeping their end up to date. Also, as it's software and it's database driven, can it be spoofed? Hmmm.

At this point, I think it's abundantly clear what FourMatch is and isn't. The question now is ... is it worth the initial price + on-going subscription (+ off-line surcharge for those folks who have an un-internet-connected lab) for what it provides? Given that a lot of folks haven't upgraded from Photoshop CS3, this cost also includes upgrading Photoshop as well.

Problems with CCTV evidence in court

This from Walesonline.com illustrates the problems in dealing with CCTV evidence: "... Jason Richards, 38, and Ben Hope, 39, are on trial accused of his murder and the attempted murder of his parents who had tried to stop their son from being attacked.

They both deny all the charges against them.

The jury had previously heard that that eight and a half years worth of CCTV material had been recovered during the investigation into the 17-year-old student’s death.

Earlier in the week DC James told the court he had viewed CCTV images from all over the city as part of the investigation.

The jury had also heard that around 100 to 120 cameras had been involved in the investigation and included images from public houses, private houses and commercial premises.

As part of the cross-examination of DC James which began today, Mr Rees pointed out that two clips taken from a camera at Talybont student accomodation couldn’t follow each other as the one later in sequence happened earlier in adjusted real time.

During the hearing DC James explained to the court how some differences in timings could occur.

He said it could be the case that an officer has rounded it down to the minute or up to the minute.

DC James added: “We try to be as accurate as we possibly can.”

The court heard that council cameras were treated as being accurate as they run to the atomic clock.

Mr Rees also read out in court a number of premises which had been asked to download their CCTV as part of the investigation.

He said Talybont student accommodation had been asked to do so on April 19 - eight days after Aamir had been killed.

Mr Rees said when the person responsible for doing this downloaded the images and checked it against the speaking clock they found CCTV was running 15 seconds faster than the speaking clock.

The court heard that when the North Star public house downloaded their CCTV and checked the timings they found the CCTV was running one hour and five minutes slower than the speaking clock.

DC James told the court that he would assume an officer would have been writing these timings down at the time.

He had also told the court that the CCTV team “can only work with the timings given [when the CCTV] was recovered”

The trial continues ...

Understanding ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture

Check out this awesome exposure triangle graphic found in this Exposure Guide tutorial on the fundamentals of exposure.

"When these three elements are combined, they represent a given exposure value (EV) for a given setting. Any change in any one of the three elements will have a measurable and specific impact on how the remaining two elements react to expose the film frame or image sensor and how the image ultimately looks. For example, if you increase the f-stop, you decrease the size of the lens’ diaphragm thus reducing the amount of light hitting the image sensor, but also increasing the DOF (depth of field) in the final image. Reducing the shutter speed affects how motion is captured, in that this can cause the background or subject to become blurry. However, reducing shutter speed (keeping the shutter open longer) also increases the amount of light hitting the image sensor, so everything is brighter. Increasing the ISO, allows for shooting in lower light situations, but you increase the amount of digital noise inherent in the photo. It is impossible to make an independent change in one of the elements and not obtain an opposite effect in how the other elements affect the image, and ultimately change the EV."

If you’re just starting out in photography, do yourself a favor and work through the Photography Basics page over on Exposure Guide. It’s a fantastic resource.

Find more cool stuff at PetaPixel.

How do we store/manage all this digital media/data?

On October 23rd, LEVA is opening the doors of our exhibit hall and presentation rooms for our Digital Asset Management Expo at the Bahia Resort Hotel in San Diego. From 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, all law enforcement officials are encouraged to join us absolutely free of charge. Visit with our twenty-six exhibitors and attend presentations on the latest digital asset management technologies for law enforcement. The goal of this event is to help agencies everywhere answer the question, “How do we store/manage all this digital media/data?”

Topics presented will include;

· Digital audio enhancement & clarification
· 3D laser scanning for crime scene mapping & documentation
· Network based surveillance video systems
· Cost effective digital asset management platforms
· High definition in-car video recording
· High definition body-worn video recording
· Forensic video analysis solutions
· File based media movement & storage

Rooms at the Bahia hotel are still guaranteed available at the government rate ($133 per night) for a limited time. A lunch buffet will be served in the exhibit hall for $10 for those law enforcement professionals joining us for the day. If your agency has questions about handling, managing or storing digital evidence or data in its many forms, this is the place to be!

Please feel free to contact LEVA President Blaine Davison at president@leva.org or Training Vice President Jan Garvin at training@leva.org with any other questions regarding the event.

Free J2K plugins

j2k is a free Photoshop and After Effects plug-in set for reading and writing the JPEG 2000 file format, the successor to JPEG.

Also known as JP2, JPEG 2000 uses wavelet compression as opposed to the DCT compression used in standard JPEG. The end result is "better image quality" in a smaller file. JP2 also includes mandatory metadata such as information about an image's color space.

The After Effects and Premiere Pro versions have the ability to Auto Proxy, meaning that when working at half or quarter resolution j2k will only need to read in a fraction of the file, resulting in dramatic speedups.

Find out more by clicking here.

Enjoy.

Why don't cameras capture dynamic range as our eyes do?

Here's an interesting discussion on human vision, perception, and equipment.

Enjoy.

Get a look at the new Acrobat XI

Click here to register for the webinar and get introduced to Adobe's newest version of Acrobat (XI). From what I've heard, it's gonna rock your presentations.

NYPD to boost gang unit over social media violence

Interesting timing, but this just in from WRAL (New York), " ... The New York Police Department is planning to double the size of its gang unit to 300 detectives to combat teen violence fueled by dares and insults traded on social media. ... Under the new plan, the NYPD gang unit will work more closely with other divisions that monitor social media for signs of trouble. ... Kelly cited a recent case in which investigators used Facebook to track a turf war between two Brooklyn crews named the Very Crispy Gangsters and the Rockstars. The case resulted in dozens of arrests for shootings and other mayhem ..."

Eventually, these cases will make it to court ... Images will need to be authenticated, processed, etc. Something to consider.

Enjoy.

Interesting development - authentication of images

Here's an interesting development in the on-going struggle to scientifically authenticate images for use in court.

Last week, I took a look at the Four and Six product. Over the weekend, Amped Software announced a product specifically aimed at the context/content issues raised in authenticating digital images for use in court. Amped's Authenticate product looks to be what we've all been waiting for - a multi-pronged approach to examine the range of authentication questions in an scientifically supported way. If their other products are any indication of how this one will eventually shake out, you'll get a comprehensive report that features academic references/sources - an essential part of Frye and Daubert.

If you're wondering who's behind all the science and technology, check out this list. It continues to grow as they reach out further into the academic circles of the countries in which they sell their products. Nevertheless, it's quite impressive.

So, since this is a restricted product, if you're interested in learning more, you'll have to reach out to Amped directly through your LE e-mail account and face a little screening.

No word yet on pricing, so stay tuned ...

Enjoy.

Free Video Previewer

This came in via the Yahoo forensic audio group (Thanks to Douglas Lacey): "URI DFC's Video Previewer is a free application that quickly processes a video and shows its key frames in a PDF file. It is particularly useful in investigations where watching a video is time consuming. It allows specification to select frames at equally spaced intervals, or to perform intelligent selection of frames based on scene changes. The Video Previewer is a free, unsupported, tool."

Click here to find out more and download the free application.

Enjoy.

FourMatch - the marketing review

I realize that I'll probably upset some people with the comments that I'm about to make. But, I saw the marketing graphics for the new FourMatch Photoshop plug-in from Four and Six ... and I was a little shocked. Read the graphic; Assess reliability of social media images. In the same picture, Authenticate images instantly.

Now, what does that mean to you? The picture of the person with the mobile phone, the text ... with FourMatch, I should be able to authenticate pictures that I find on social media ... right?

WRONG.

From their own blog, "It currently can only analyze images from digital cameras, mobile devices, and tablets ..."

Remember Beckley? Beckley involved the police's use of images from Facebook. The police downloaded pictures from the suspect's Facebook account to use during sentencing - showing gang affiliation - for a sentence enhancement. Big problem. The defendent claimed that the image had been manipulated.

In California, authentication requires either the person in the scene to say ... yes, that's me and that's the scene as I remember it. Or, the photographer says ... yes, that's my picture and it shows the scene accurately, etc. Or, some independent person applies some scientific method to authenticate the image - like you and I.

Authenticate:
1. to establish as genuine.
2. to establish the authorship or origin of conclusively or unquestionably, chiefly by the techniques of scholarship: to authenticate a painting.
3. to make authoritative or valid.

With that in mind, I became interested in the FourMatch project/product. I need something to authenticate images from social media sites. Something that the court will recognize as accurate - and something that will work within the scientific method. Does FourMatch fit the bill for me? Unfortunately, no.

Of the five factors within the scientific method, FourMatch fails two rather significant ones.

First, I can refute the results presented in the window - in a manor of speaking. Here's my test. Let's say that I take a picture with my own phone. I upload the picture to my Facebook account. I download the picture to my computer. I load the downloaded image into Photoshop and use FourMatch - it flags it with the yellow ... probably not authenic, been processed flag. What?! It's my photo.

I'm the photographer, it's my phone, and it's my Facebook account. Who is right? Me, or the FourMatch determination that it's been manipulated and might not be authentic? I worry that, given the people involved in the project, that more weight would be given to the results of the plug-in's tests than my own testimony that it's my picture. But nevertheless, the content and context wasn't changed in any way. The only thing that happened was the upload - where Facebook recompresses the image. Facebook does that to every image. With this in mind, how can the marketing statement in the graphic (above, from their web site) be true?

In a blog post, the creators say, "It provides objective evidence that a file was not touched by any software application since the time it was first captured." If this is the case, that the plug-in works only on images that are direct from the camera and untouched by any application (as noted above, from their blog) - then you can't use the plug-in to authenticate or even assess images from social media. Social media sites recompress images on upload.

Then, there's the error rate issue. What's the instance of false negatives or false positives? FourMatch is a database driven product. It looks at the image vs. a database of camera info. For my assessment, using a popular US purchased mobile phone to take an image, the signature from the phone's imager will likely be found in the FourMatch database and it should give the image the green light. Yet, what about images from other phones, more obscure phones (not contained within the database) that are flagged yellow - further review. This is the same problem that I had with JPEG Snoop. Does the yellow, needs additional inquiry flag qualify as a false negative? Sure, for the Facebook tests FourMatch is right - it's been touched. But, it's possible to authenticate the image by other means. Again, does this qualify as a false negative? Would you be comfortable arguing this point in court?

If you hadn't read this, and you owned FourMatch ... it yellow-flagged your image, would you use the image in your case? Would you confidently proceed? Or, would you move on? In triage - it says the image has been processed, touched by software. What would you do?

So, does FourMatch provide objective evidence that a file wasn't touched by any software since capture? For the most part, yes - as long as the capture device's information is in the FourMatch database. In my tests, the database's problems were centered around mobile phones. Precisely the types of photos that we're concerned with. More people are ditching their point-and-shoot cameras in favour of the camera in their mobile. After all, who wants to carry around two pieces of gear when the cell phone pics can be directly uploaded to social media. People tend to flow to the easiest option. Remember, social media images largely come from we the people, not photojournalists with professional cameras.

Does FourMatch live up to it's own marketing slogan, assess the reliablility of social media images? No - it can't. Social media images are recompressed - touched by software.

If FourMatch really did work to authenicate social media images, it would be worth the price. I'd even pay a little more. But, most of my authenication requests come from folks who do not have the camera - or the allegations involve content/context issues (the other 2 of the 3 F's). As such, I'd have trouble justifying the expense for a database oriented triage tool.

For media outlets looking to verify the integrity of photos received from their field photographers and other sources ... I'm sure that this is a great tool and the editors will appreciate its ease of use. Generally, the cameras used by photojournalists will be present in the FourMatch database. But for law enforcement and criminal justice employees looking to authenticate social media images ... sorry. Wrong product.

Kinesense Player Manager special offer

Last month, I've reviewed the Kinesense Player Manager. Well, this month, the company is sweetening the deal ... offering a discount for folks who download and try the product.

Introductory offer: Download a Free 30 day Trial and get a 50% discount on your first order! The Player Manager is available as a single CPU licence (Normal price $500/ €389/ £298). Enterprise wide licences are available (discount pricing applies).

How cool is that?!

Authentication of images

Four and Six announced the release of their product recently. According to the company, "... Last month, I wrote a blog post about using the “3 F’s” to determine the authenticity of a photo. FourMatch is a tool for examining the first of these F’s, the File. Unlike many of the techniques we’ve detailed in this blog over the past year, FourMatch does not examine the photo itself, so it doesn’t look for inconsistencies in the image. Tools to handle these other F’s—Footprints and Flaws—will come later."

Ok. I'm not ready to publish my opinion on the product yet. However, I'll invite you to poke around their web site and ask these simple questions, given tight budgets and cutbacks, is FourMatch worth the $890 price tag? Does it add enough value to your workflow to justify the initial purchase price, plus the annual maintenance fees? Again, I'm not even hinting at my own opion in this matter - just asking you to formulate yours.

Enjoy.

Fixing Field Shift

Often times, compression schemes conspire to ruin your ability to discern license plate number or other important details. Sometime, tearing - or field shifting - can get in the way of producing a clear image for court or for a BOLO flyer. Thankfully, there's an easy fix.

Here we have a typical traffic camera view. The camera is positioned so license/number plate details can be captured. But, the speed of the car, with the recording technology, makes it such that quickly viewing and recognizing the plate info is not possible (or accurate).

In AmpedFIVE, the fix is easy.

From the Filter Panel, select Field Shift.

The Filter Settings allow you to nudge the fields (both Upper and Lower) both Horizontally and Vertically. The results are updated in real time. In this case, the solution is just a few clicks away.

For presentation purposes, I used the Compare Original filter, then wrote out the file to post here. I think that you'll agree, fixing field shift problems in less than a minute - in a reliable and repeatable way, one that's supported by science and academic references - is a really cool thing given our growing workloads.

Enjoy.

Image processing is a subclass of signal processing

"... we may acquire a natural image, process it to enhance the picture, compress it for transmission, and then encode and transmit it in some fashion over a digital network. On the other end, the image is decoded, decompressed, and displayed to create another signal (the visible light of the display). But that isn’t the end of the story: the signal is then received by the eyes, processed further, and interpreted in some fashion by our brain. From acquisition to interpretation, the initial signal may be transformed, modified, and retransmitted numerous times. In this example, the signal underwent more than 10 transformations ..."

When a signal has continuous domain and range, we usually call it analog. When a signal has discrete domain and range, we call it digital.

"... The spacing of discrete values in the domain of a signal is called the sampling of that signal. This is usually described in terms of some sampling rate–how many samples are taken per unit of each dimension. Examples include “samples per second”, “frames per second”, etc.

The spacing of discrete values in the range of a signal is called the quantization of that signal. Quantization is usually thought of as the number of bits per sample of the signal. Examples include “black and white images” (1 bit per pixel), “16-bit audio”, “24-bit color images”, etc ..." - B. Morse, BYU, On Signals and Images

Update to AmpedFIVE

There a new update to AmpedFIVE that addresses the issue of the potential for the addition of colour information when performing unsharp mask or laplacian sharpening. Build 4156 adds the choice between Intensity and Color mode in Unsharp Masking and Laplacian Sharpening.

We've done this exercise in my Photoshop classes. How do you perform USM without adding colour to your image? How do you answer the answer, "Did you add anything to this image?" if you use USM in your workflow - and don't control the processes in some way so as to limit the adjustments to only the lightness/intensity information.

There's a number of ways to accomplish this task in Photoshop, as long as you know what's happening. You can work in LAB, and only sharpen the L channel. You can work on an adjustment layer and control the effect with the appropriate blending mode. In AmpedFIVE, it's now much easier - just select Intensity when performing your sharpening. How cool is that?!

Enjoy.

The nature of perception

From David Kelley's classic, The Evidence of the Senses: " ... The normal adult human is not a tabula rasa. We bring to perception an enormous fund of background knowledge, and the act of perceiving is usually guided by the conscious purposes of expanding or applying that knowledge. Consider, for example, the role of attention. At any moment, the way in which one directs his attention affects what is perceived from among all the things that could be perceived, given present stimulation. It is doubtful that an act of attention is necessary for perceiving every object. Stimuli such as sudden chills, loud explosions, or noxious odors intrude themselves upon us quite apart from any conscious choice. But attention certainly can make the difference between perceiving or not perceiving an object-the classic examples being one's awareness of his clothes or of a low hum in the background. And the degree of attention to an object has a marked effect on the character of one's perceptual awareness of it. Thus there are major differences in the scope, clarity, and specificity of awareness-that is, in how much of the object is perceived-along a continuum of attention from objects at the edge of the visual field, to pocket change fingered absentmindedly, to the road ahead while one is driving, to a pen one has found at last among the litter on the desk, to the face of another person in conversation, to the riveting sound of a scratching at one's door late at night. ..."

The history of what a person attends to affects what it is possible for him to perceive in a given situation. Attention is the major factor in perceptual learning.

As you can see now, after a few posts on David Kelley's book, that the science of perception - and the philosophy of perception - are quite different.

Enjoy.

Perceptual Judgments

From David Kelley's classic, The Evidence of the Senses: " ... The perceptual judgment is the conceptual identification of what is perceived. Transforming our perceptual awareness of the world into conceptual form, it gives us a way to retain and communicate what we perceive and to express the evidence of the senses in a way that can bring it to bear on abstract conclusions. My approach to the perceptual judgment is centered on this fact; my goal is to understand the link it creates between the perceptual and the conceptual awareness of objects ..."

A perceptual judgment is a belief about a particular object present to the senses.

He goes on: "... A perceptual judgment is justified by the way an object appears to a perceiver. Because the thing before him looks a certain way, he can identify it as a tree, as green, and so on. The appearance will not justify predicating these attributes of any object at random, however, but only of the particular item that appears, and only if it is picked out as a particular item. Thus I might "see" a camouflaged soldier in the sense that his facing surfaces are parts of my field of view, but I am not in a position to form a judgment about him. Nor would the appearance of the field justify such a judgment, unless I can isolate the soldier as a figure against the ground. If I cannot isolate him, but only the various patches of color that in fact are parts of his clothing, then I can form justified judgments only about those patches. This is one reason why it is important that what we discriminate in vision is ,the entity itself, not merely its facing surface ..."

This is great stuff. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Best of all, it's now free.

Enjoy.

The Evidence of the Senses

Wonderful news just hit my inbox. David Kelley's classic, The Evidence of the Senses, is now available on Scribd.com, the world's largest online library.

In this highly original defense of realism, David Kelley argues that perception is the discrimination of objects as entities, that the awareness of these objects is direct, and that perception is a reliable foundation for empirical knowledge. His argument relies on the basic principle of the "primacy of existence," in opposition to Cartesian representationalism and Kantian idealism.

This is a wonderful book for building up your vocabulary on perception as well as understanding the philosophy of perception from multiple points of view - given that we deal with how people perceive events, objects, sounds, etc. in our line of work.

Enjoy.

Open proprietary or corrupted video files

Amped Software just announced two new features contained in their latest update to AmpedFive.

File>DVR Change Container to Avi - " ... we discovered that we are able to change the container of a proprietary video file to avi and without any transcoding (meaning loss of quality) and then able to open it in Five with our standard video engines. It works only with some proprietary formats, I dare say in roughly 20-30% of cases, but in those situations this can really saves a lot of time and headaches ..." I was able to change a native Bosch file using this method. It's a cool addition to the program. In my tests, it was able to correctly process .264 files from Clover, Q-See, and Swann DVRs (really popular out here in SoCal) and work with them in FIVE.

File>DVR Convert to Uncompressed Avi - " ... We’ve worked hard to create a video decoding engine able to precisely seek frame by frame; which can be another problem with proprietary codec files. This can help with the amount of different and often non-standard compliant video formats where the frame rate is unstable. In these type of files, where the codec has bugs or is mildly corrupted (like many el cheapo DVR brands seem to produce) the seek may have major issues or won’t work at all. This tool works in a similar way to the previous one, but converts any supported format to a raw uncompressed avi. This means that the output video file will be decoded very easily by any software with no need for any codec, and the frame-by-frame seek will be always perfect ..."

Can I just say that it's refreshing to see a vendor working on the needs of image and video analysts in real time - not on an 18 month sales cycle. Users submit ideas and issues, like George asking about the Channel Mixer, and Amped responds.

Enjoy.

Point Spread Function

What is point spread function? What does it have to do with image restoration, clarification, or enhancement?

For the purposes of those arriving here from a Bing search looking for spread functions, PSF is not a type of gambling where the point spread is essentially a handicap towards the underdog. Thus the wager becomes "Will the favorite win by more than the point spread?" The point spread can be moved to any level to create an equal number of participants on each side of the wager. PSF is not a way to make money gambling.

Remember that image restoration refers to the removal or minimization of known degradations in an image. This includes deblurring of images degraded by the limitations of the sensor or its environment, noise filtering, and correction of geometric distortions or non-linearities due to sensors. The point spread function describes the imaging system's response to a point input. A point input, represented as a single pixel in the “ideal” image, will be reproduced as something other than a single pixel in the “real” image.

So, in essence, a PSF deals with a point that spreads. A point that spreads is essentially what happens when you think of blur (motion blur, camera shake, etc). The effect of motion blur transforms points into lines. Therefore, we have to find in the image a line that originally should had been a point and in the photo came up as a line.

I'll illustrate how to fix the problem of motion blur soon. But for now, I just wanted to introduce the idea of PSF.

Enjoy.

Careful inspection of DME output

Here's the scenario:

• I navigate through the DVR's menu and select two camera views for export, date, time, etc.
• I export the selected views to my USB stick.
• I open the USB stick on my laptop to check the contents. I've got 3 files, a player and two files of video (I hope).
• I launch the player and verify that I've got the requested video. Date/time/view checks out - I've got what I want.

Back in the lab ...

• I want to generate still images. The player has no image save functionality. It does, however, have an AVI save option.
• I export the file to AVI. No options are available (codec, uncompressed, etc.)
• I launch the resulting file in GOM.
• I notice something rather interesting - in the DVR player software, the requested/saved view is displayed. There is no option to go to multi-cam view or to view other camera feeds. It simply shows the requested exported file. But ... the AVI has all the camera views (16 in this case) for the requested time/date. Hmm...

So, I opened the file in AmpedFIVE. Sure enough, I can demux all the views, see each camera, and work with the file to generate still images.

I've tried to look into the DVR manufacturer, but this is all I have to go on. I'm sure that you've seen similarly limited About screens.

So the lesson here is that there might be more to your DME than meets the eye.

Enjoy.

Is the scientific method necessary in legal work?

Think you needn't be concerned with science and the scientific method if you're engaged in FVA, or work with DME or other electronic forensic science discipline? Think again.

Here's a section from an explanation of the Daubert decision:

Scientific knowledge = scientific method/methodology: A conclusion will qualify as scientific knowledge if the proponent can demonstrate that it is the product of sound "scientific methodology" derived from the scientific method.

Factors relevant: The Court defined "scientific methodology" as the process of formulating hypotheses and then conducting experiments to prove or falsify the hypothesis, and provided a nondispositive, nonexclusive, "flexible" set of "general observations" (i.e. not a "test") that it considered relevant for establishing the "validity" of scientific testimony:

1. Empirical testing: whether the theory or technique is falsifiable, refutable, and/or testable.
2. Whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication.
3. The known or potential error rate.
4. The existence and maintenance of standards and controls concerning its operation.
5. The degree to which the theory and technique is generally accepted by a relevant scientific community.

So here's a philosophical question: does the fact that you don't work for the US federal government, or that you don't work in a state that adopted the Daubert standard mean that you should not be bound by sound scientific methodology in your forensic science work?

Why Are Theories Important?

Not surprising, then, scientific research is based on theory -- all scientific research. Put another way, you can conduct research that is not theory-based -- but it is not science. Even the most rigorous, detailed research that fails to build on or contribute to a theoretical framework does not meet the true test of scientific discovery. It creates knowledge -- but not science. I personally have a very hard position on this. There’s lots of research, but a lot of it is not science.

So, why are theories important?

• They explain the relationships between two or more different phenomena.
• They unify observable phenomena.
• They permit us to formulate hypotheses or propositions.
• They raise research from the descriptive to the explanatory.

If you think that you are engaged in forensic science, check your assumptions, your hypothesis, and your theoretical framework. 

What's a theory?

Theory: The Layman’s Usage
The popular definition of a theory is that it is a guess, a speculation or a suggestion. “My theory is that he is German, but he could be Swiss.” This is not at all what is meant by a scientific theory

Theory: Scientific Usage
A scientific theory is a unifying and self-consistent explanation of fundamental processes or phenomena that is totally constructed of corroborated hypotheses. It is as far as you can get from a guess. It is built on reliable knowledge acquired through rigorous research.

The Centrality of Theory
Theory is central to science because theory unifies knowledge. Scientific theories explain by unifying many once-unrelated facts or corroborated hypotheses. Theories are the strongest and most powerful explanations of how the universe works. Theories can only be disproved. By definition, if we still consider it a theory, it hasn’t been disproved yet.

Source: M.E. Swisher, University of Florida IFAS

Training schedule

I'm hitting the road this fall. When the City's broke and can't pay overtime, they give time on the books. What better way to spend the time off than going out and training folks.

First on the list is HTCIA. I'll be there helping FinalData spread the good news about their superior analysis tools (I was at HTCIA last year talking about using FinalMobile to get everything off Samsung handsets). Living and working in a largely CDMA area, FinalMobile my tool of choice in assuring that I get a proper analysis - and get everything - off a mobile device. Yes, I know, I'm the video guy. But, video and images come from all sorts of places - including mobile devices like phones, iPads, iPods, and such. You'll want the best toolset to get the evidence, which is why FinalMobile is part of mine. (Yes, I know, Cellebrite UFED is easier to use ... but it doesn't always get everything off the device. FinalMobile will even work with a Cellebrite physical dump - cool.)

Next, it's off to Vegas (baby) to conduct a week-long session for Amped on AmpedFive. Although they're a bit quiet about it, you can bundle training into your software purchase in 2 day (Basic), three day (Basic - Intermediate), or 5 day (Basic - Advanced) sessions. They're really flexible about how they handle their training, either at their North American HQ in Las Vegas, in my training centre in Pasadena, Ca, or at your location. All it takes is a call or e-mail to set it up.

Then, after a brief rest, it's off to the LEVA conference in San Diego to present a session on Image Processing Fundamentals. Like I'm doing here on the blog, at the conference I'll be discussing the science behind the tools that we use every day and how it can be incorporated into your FVA testimony.

Finally, I'll be at the NaTIA Pacific Chapter conference talking about image authentication and some new tools that are coming on the market. The date/location is still TBA.

It's been a busy year, and this fall is no different. Regardless of who I'm working with, or the topic that I'm presenting, I'll always bring the viewpoint of helping us help the trier of fact correctly present, view, and interpret digital multimedia evidence. As such, I won't let blind loyalties to a single vendor's product get in the way of informing you as to what's out there and how to use it appropriately.

Enjoy.

PixInsight first look

Wow. If you want total control over every function involved in image clarification, PixInsight will blow your mind.

First of all - every clarification function that you want to do to an image is in PixInsight. You'll need to know about image processing fundamentals to know what it's called within the software, but it's in there.

So, I loaded an image - the famous SUV example - and popped open the CurvesTransformation process.

Very simply, this one panel allows me to control everything. Each of the RGB channels, the RGB/K, the LAB mode channels, hue, and saturation - without converting modes or switching to a new panel. All of that control in a single panel. Cool! In less than 30 seconds, I corrected the image.

So far ... I'm liking what I'm seeing. All this and FFT too ... !

Enjoy.

PixInsight vs. Photoshop

A reader sent me a tip about a specialty application called PixInsight, asking what I thought about it for image analysis. So, I sent them a request to review their software. Never heard of them? Here's where they place themselves on the image processing spectrum:

"PixInsight and Photoshop are two very different applications. They are in fact so different in their goals, in the way they have been conceived, and in how they are being developed, that we actually think that PixInsight and Photoshop represent, in many aspects, two opposite ways of understanding image processing. So if you are using Photoshop, or a similar application, then PixInsight cannot be a replacement: it can only be a change.

PixInsight pursues a scientific, highly technical approach to image processing. Most of our tools have been designed to solve the problems specific to astrophotography and other technical imaging fields through rigorous and flexible implementations, where the user has full control on every relevant parameter of each applied process. While we try to design and implement our tools to facilitate the user's work as much as possible, ease of use is not one of our main goals. In general, we make no concessions to simplification: there are no fast-food solutions in PixInsight. Versatility, efficiency, powerful tools, rigorous implementations and the development of astrophotography through image processing culture are the main elements of our vision and our mission as the developers of PixInsight.

Photoshop has not been conceived or designed to solve the kind of problems that arise in highly technical imaging fields, of which astrophotography is one of the most demanding ones. Photoshop is a general-purpose image edition application. It is excellent for image edition and retouching but it doesn't qualify for astrophotography because it lacks the necessary algorithms and tools; it is simply not based on the correct principles to provide the required solutions. Photoshop pursues a simplified approach to image manipulation, where the user has little or no control over the applied processes. Due to its lack of resources and to the inadequacy of its implementations, Photoshop is being applied to astrophotography through tricky procedures, including arbitrary manual manipulations and retouching practices without documentary and algorithmic basis that we consider unacceptable in astrophotography.

Hand-painted masks, arbitrary manual selections, retouching, unrigorous layering techniques and other 'magical recipes' are just the opposite of what we understand by astrophotography. Contrarily to what it may seem at first sight, these procedures tend to block your creativity: they teach you nothing about your data and don't require you to understand your images and the actual problems you have to face and solve to build them.

PixInsight provides you with a completely different platform where you can develop your astrophotography with solid foundations. With PixInsight we want to grow your image processing knowledge, as the best way to materialize your creativity and your pursuit of excellence.

The PixInsight project originates from the inside of astrophotography. It is a software platform made by astrophotographers for astrophotographers. PixInsight is not a general-purpose product made by a large multinational company with mass-market interests. It is a highly specialized platform in constant evolution, for which astrophotography is its natural ecosystem. PixInsight is available as native 32-bit and 64-bit applications on FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, and a single commercial license allows you to install and run PixInsight on any machine you own, on all supported platforms, with unlimited free updates and support. The development of PixInsight is open to the community through an integrated scripting environment (PJSR, the PixInsight JavaScript Runtime) and a comprehensive, cross-platform C++ module development framework (PCL, the PixInsight Class Library). PixInsight is our personal project and we back it with hard work every day. We are close to you and easy to reach. We are different."

Here's me smiling - I love it when geeks talk smack.

Enjoy.

Thresholding

Thresholding is the special case of clipping where the output becomes binary (black/white) - a useful process for latent print analysts.

Clipping transformations

The special case of contrast stretching where a =g =0 is called clipping. This is useful for noise reduction when the input signal is known to lie in the range [a,b]. Remember, of course, that excessive noise reduction leads to a loss of detail, and its application is hence subject to a trade-off between the undesirability of the noise itself and that of the reduction of artifacts.