Did China's state news agency forge a photo?

A Chinese blogger has exposed the official news agency Xinhua for what appears to be a forged image. He noticed that two of the people present in the photo look remarkably similar.

The photo was taken during a visit from President Hu Jintao to the official Olympics site in Qingdao, where the watersports contests will take place. The site has been under the spotlight since it was overrun by a dangerous and polluting algae not long before the opening of the games. Hu Jintao came to the site to show the local press that the situation was under control, and to encourage athletes and organisers to double their efforts in the remaining weeks before the competition starts.

The blogger (also picked up by EastSouthWestNorth) says that the photo was altered, with one of the people in the crowd having been copy and pasted. We showed the image to Photoshop specialists, who confirmed that it had probably been altered. The duplicate's face is almost identical, except for being slightly wider, and he wears the same blue cord around his neck. But why would Xinhua make the same person appear twice in a photo?

Webusers leaving comments (in Chinese) on the blogger's post have thought up various scenarios. One says that the journalist might have wanted to fill a gap, another says that an important person might have been moved to the front and so had to be replaced.

The photo has been used by numerous Chinese news sites (China Daily, CCTV etc.), but until now there doesn't seem to be any video footage of the event.

We'll update this story if we get any further information about it. If you find something new, please post it in the comments section.

How to duplicate a face on Photoshop

The original photo: © Xinhua.

Our graphics team created this montage for us to show how the person could have been duplicated.