Janesville man spotted doctoring of photo from war in Middle East

Looking closely at the photography, he saw an odd pattern in the thick, black clouds of smoke rising from the bombed area. He recognized the effect, a bit of Adobe Photoshop magic called cloning.

To clone, you simply click on part of a picture, then paste an exact copy of that part somewhere else on the photo. Thorson recognized the effect because he'd used it. Sometimes he'd worked on catalog photographs of the tools his company distributes. Sometimes, on close inspection, he would find on the photograph a speck of dust, a piece of dirt, a hair or some other imperfection. By cloning, he could replace the imperfection with a clean image.

The photo on the Yahoo site was different, though. It was supposed to be journalism.

"I was shocked," Thorson said later. "This is supposed to be serious. Reuters is a very well-known and respected wire service."

Within minutes Thorson went to the political blog Little Green Footballs and sent a comment about his suspicions that the photo had been doctored. He thought of the blog because it had been among those questioning the authenticity of the documents "60 Minutes II" used in a report on President George W. Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard.

The very next morning, Aug. 6, Thorson saw his suspicions posted on Little Green Footballs, and the story soon caught fire.

"I was really surprised that the story got to be as big as it did," Thorson said. "I certainly didn't mean for anybody to lose their job or anything like that. I am glad that it was exposed.

"I think people do need to have some sort of skepticism about the news: What's being presented? Who's presenting it? Do they have an agenda? What's being left out?"