i think that Daniel posted his MDRS pictures on the net somewhere. Sounds like something that should be on the Mars Society web site.

Anyway, thanks for the article

Wow. I’ll have to track down my original work on this before giving you an answer. I never use any of the Photoshop “Auto” functions myself. I use combinations of adjustment layers to alter image contrast and color.

This is an especially hectic time for me so it may be a while before I get back to you with an answer.

I used your example of the Arizona sunset and applied Auto Color and didn’t get the ridiculous false shade of blue. Instead, I got a result similar to the original with a darker tint (still looked natural).
Then I used Auto Color on the original Viking Lander image and got the same blue sky and brown soil similar to Arizona.

I know Auto Levels stretches the histogram from shades of 0 to 255, so Auto Levels shouldn’t be the argument. Auto Color some how works differently.

Can someone further explain Auto Color to further put Hoagland’s claims at bay?

The point is that Auto Levels is not a color correction tool - it’s a contrast enhancement tool. As you can see in my image, if you shoot a picture in an environment where red is the predominant color, auto-levels over-compensates in the other channels with the result being that any thing that tends towards white becomes white.

From your second paragraph, I take it that you believe Hoagland’s claims. I’m sorry to hear that. Having had a life long interest in Mars, and regularly lecturing on the subject, I truly wish that Mars was a more Earth-like planet with a blue sky.

For anyone to claim that NASA and company are hiding evidence of an Earthlike Mars is truly ridiculous. It is in NASA’s, and the planetary scientist community, self-interest to have an Earth-like Mars. The dollars would really role in if that were the case. The fact that NASA and the planetary scientist community are taking a position that is not in either their financial or bureaucratic self-interest speaks volumes, as opposed to Hoagland’s position where it is in his financial and promotional self-interest to claim a big NASA cover up.

Thanks for your comments Steve.

Jim

Do you know if if Daniel posted his MDRS pictures on the net somewhere? Sounds like something that should be on the Mars Society web site. Haven’t checked myself.

Best of luck to you, Jim

Interestingly, at Mars Desert Research Station the professional photographer (Daniel Bayer) brought a flash with a blue gell filter on it for his outside photos. He then color “corrected” the images on the camera to the red side, so that he Utah area looked that much more mars-like in his pictures. The results were remarkable and very, very well done. Our shots looked a bit like Mars, his were perfectly Martian (except for the sky).

Caling it an evil conspiracy is silly, but the results are how we’d see things if we are on Mars, how the cameras actually see things, and fits the colors of the surface of Mars that we see from the Hubble, as well.

On theory is NASA is hyper-sensitive to a “Capricorn One” type conspiracy theory, and Mars looks way too much like Arizona for some people.