Photoshop Disaster, Automotive Division

Pretty fancy driving, to have three cars doing burnouts so close together. Even fancier that the one in front appears to be doing it without a driver....

Mike
(Thanks to Jalopnik via Kevin Schoenmakers)

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Hey, maybe he only dropped his Blackberry while texting a note to his girlfriend and is leaning over to find it....

[Randall Teasley]

Nah, they hired the invisible man as a stunt driver

[James Liu]

It might not be photochop. It could be smoke grenades.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Bagnole, Car,Macchina et tutti quanti.

Oh ! là là ! Machismo, quant tu nous tiens!

[grubernd]

this is an actual image of three cars, someone straightened the horizon out (now cropped from the image). in the original you can see how these three slide down a steep sledge after some pranksters pushed them over the edge of a parking lot....

..not. :)

[Davd]

Hey, if Lexus can make a car that parallel parks itself, why couldn't they make three that can do driverless burnouts?! :)

[Andrew Yang]

There's a driver in this shot, which looks largely the same.

http://ebrochures.lexus.com/publication/38432123#/38432123/2

[JonA]

The accelerator pedal is stuck and the driver bailed out long ago. It is a Toyota after all.

[John]

Lexus is manufactured by Toyota ...
... more evidence of sticky gas pedals?
;-))

[Mike]

It's a hint of what's to come. Cameras that take photos in the styles of the greats automagically are right around the corner.

[Paddy C]

Probably the result of a lurching Lexus transmission that catapulted the driver out of the cabin. Lawsuit pending.

[Mark S]

I also noticed that the photo in the link posted above has motion blur on the wheels and the version posted by Mike does not.
 
Are these cars rear wheel drive??

[R. Edelman]

Mike, I am a car enthusiast. I've owned a Saab Turbo (the original, not the GM things), a couple of Ford SHOs, and I restored a 1948 Chrysler convertible. But these Lexus ads are not only stupid, they're irresponsible. In Oakland, California, so-called "side shows" where people illegally meet in the early morning hours to perform "donuts" and other automotive stunts have become a source of drug deals and capital crimes. People have been killed, and police resources, already scarce, have been further taxed. The still photos don't show it, but the TV ads in northern California show men in their 20's happily doing donuts in Lexus IS cars. There are also the ecologic and national security implications of wastefully burning up fuel and tires in this era of global warming and wars being fought over the supply of oil. It's amazing that Lexus thinks that the potential customers with the financial means to actually buy one of these cars would have as their priority doing donuts. Then again, it was the same marketing geniuses who produced an ad with a driver-less car. Maybe the empty driver's seat is a metaphor for the state of their brains.

[charlie]

I know, let's talk about bicycles now!

[Mike Johnston]

"I know, let's talk about bicycles now!"

Careful what you wish for....

Mike

[Alessandro]

There's a driver in this shot, which looks largely the same.
Great find, Andrew. Now, that's simply a touch of content-aware fill, if the version with the driver is the real one and he's not a warp puppet...

[Mike Johnston]

I think the driver in the second shot was Photoshopped in as well. He's not in the right position; he's too close to the door. Doesn't look right to me, although you wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking critically.

Mike

[Alessandro]

Mike, exactly what I meant, but the joke works perhaps only with my Italian pidgin English...
:-)
I can't figure out which one is more fake...

[Mike Spivey]

Boy, those cars sure corner flat without any body lean.

[Leland Davis]

The other obvious flaw in the photo is that all the cars have their front wheels turned the wrong way for the direction of their slide.

[Maggie Osterberg]

Next story on TOP: "Content-Aware-Fill Bug in CS5 Topples Toyota"

[amcananey]

I didn't know (and shall endeavor to forget) that the smoke was intended to imply that the cars were doing something that shares a name with a popular sweet confection.

But this reminds me of a question that has always puzzled me (in case you couldn't tell, I'm not a car person and have never owned a car): why do car ads always show cars skidding sideways over water/snow/asphalt? Isn't that the kind of thing you WOULDN'T want your car to do? Are car buyers really so impressed by those kinds of stunts that they don't mind the implication that the subject car has a tendency to lose traction at the drop of a hat? Do prospective purchasers think to themselves, "Well, the car might lose control if I drive through a puddle, but at least I'll look cool right up to the moment the car wraps itself around a telephone pole!"?

This is actually a semi-serious question. I truly don't understand why car makers would tolerate the risk to their reputation...

Best regards,
Adam

[robert e]

That driver's seat is empty because it's waiting for YOU...

I'm impressed with how they painted the letters "IS" on the asphalt so as to counter all perspective distortion.

[toto]

The tires are rotating, but the cars are not moving, the ground is not moving, and there's no camera panning. Photoshop? Nah, must be a David Copperfield illusion!

[charlie]

!!!

I was wishing for. ;-)

[James Liu]

We should talk about bicycles. When are you going to do a followup post on Gruesome?

[Julian]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the poor cloning in the smoke trail coming off the lead car. Look closely and you will see the tell-tale repeats.

I soooo need a life. :-)

[Ken Tanaka]

Robert E hit the proverbial nail on it's noggin.

How many here are old enough to remember the extremely popular ad slogan, "Let Hertz Put YOU in the Driver's Seat Today!"

Everything old is new again.

Well, I'm off to get fresh batteries for my 8-track.

[Roger Bradbury]

I suspect that many of these disasters come from the boss saying, "just do this before you go home, it shouldn't take you long in Photoshop" at twenty to going home time on a Friday.

The disasters are everywhere. Just this morning a postcard dropped through my door, from my Sister in law. 'Expose yourself to London' it said on the front, above a photo of a young women in Parliament Square 'observing' a badly Photoshopped in man with his back to us, his raincoat spread wide to 'show' her how little else he was wearing.

Well, okay....

But what bothers me is that my Sister in law wrote, "To Roger. I saw this and thought of you. Now I am confused about exposure"

Thanks Jane.

[Luke]

Mr. Davis, the front wheels are turned precisely where they belong for a long, fun, oversteering slide. The IS series is enjoyable to drive because the rear wheels are driven.

This is basic car control, which should be part of driver training. Dependence on electronic nannies as a substitute for driver training is deplorable. Car control should be required for driver licensing. No, Adam, the ability to control your car is not a "stunt", it is your responsibility.

Even high-school drivers-ed 40 years ago taught "turn your wheels in the direction of the slide".

Hang up and drive!

[David Bennett]

You just have to imagine yourself in the driver's seat..

[CMS]

This is the result of a little discussed feature that found its way into CS5: the combination of face recognition and content-aware fill. You can assign up to twelve faces of people you do not like (unloved relatives, hated colleagues) and Photoshop will automatically erase them from all your pictures using content-aware fill.

[David Vatovec]

Hey I didn't check it out but when did Toyota start manufacturing cars with rear wheel drive?
Is that a logic fault or what?
Mike - I am in the phase of buying a bike ...

[Rory]

um, are Lexus not front wheel drive?

[Alex Vesey]

Simple sign of the times: humans are superfluous

[David]

Let's hope the cars are actually rear wheel drive.

[John Camp]

Adam asked,
"But this reminds me of a question that has always puzzled me (in case you couldn't tell, I'm not a car person and have never owned a car): why do car ads always show cars skidding sideways over water/snow/asphalt? Isn't that the kind of thing you WOULDN'T want your car to do?"

Suppose you lived in an isolated town of 4,121 people out on the northern prairie somewhere, the temps are 0F (-17C), you've just had a big snowstorm, and the choices are cable TV, the internet, and doing donuts in the WalMart parking lot, and you're 17.

Doing donuts under the right condition is actually fun. Get a little speed, crank the wheel and hit the brake, and there you go. Like a carnival ride.

JC

[Chris]

Must be those autobots from cybertron!!!

[Ric]

Also looks as if the glints on the windscreens of the front most two cars in particular don't correspond to the same light source direction.

[hugo solo]

The message is clear: the car can have fun without the driver.

[Mike Johnston]

"Let's hope the cars are actually rear wheel drive."

They are. The artist got that part right. I'm sure that's the intended takeaway from all the fake smoke.

Mike

[Henk Coetzee]

Isn't this round about where the traction control was supposed to have clicked in and made it all boring.

[jchristian]

Adam, IMHO there are two reasons for the common advertising image of a sideways, sliding car.

One is that while loss of control is not desirable as a matter of course, it indicates that the car is powerful, fast, and sporty. (That last is something that Lexus, for all its emphasis on quiet, plush luxury, needs a bit of in order to compete with, say, BMW, Audi, et al.) Paradoxically, what slides like that are meant to convery is that the car CAN be controlled even when beyond the limits of grip. That ability is what separates the run-of-the-mill car from a sports car.

So the inference that "the subject car has a tendency to lose traction at the drop of a hat" is yours, and is not what they're attempting to suggest. (Not that I'm a particular fan of Lexus, or this contrived ad!)

Two, yes - they hope it catches the eye, and that it simply looks cool, and dynamic... at least until it gets wrapped around a telephone pole. :-)

[BriansDome]

yeah somebody dropped the ball on that one. what was the artist thinkin when they started on this, they would've or should have noticed the car was empty.

[Douglas Urner]

The ad suggests that the cars are pre-owned (1984-speak for "used"), maybe they are just burning oil…

[RobG]

Leland, you obviously *didn't* have a youth mis-spent doing illegal but strangely fun things in cars... believe me, when you're doing a serious burnout, the front wheels point in all directions depending on the traction available at the rear end.

I love my new Subaru, but dang, that traction control takes all the fun outta 265 hp. I shoulda bought that old 351ci Cleveland V8 powered Ford Falcon that I was looking at...

David Vatovec - Toyota have always made performance cars with rear wheel drive, all the way from the 2000GT (how sexy is that one?)through the various (mostly Japanese market only) Celicas and Supras. Then they found 4WD and things just haven't been any fun since. :)

[ault]

Damn, I read all the way down to here, only to discover Douglas Urner got to my joke first.

[John Taylor]

Actually the wheels are pointing the right direction for a controlled skid, as opposed to a full donut… just sayin' ;)