Look carefully at the photo used by KGW TV – here is a larger version:

Notice something odd about this photo? The smoke is blowing both left and right! Two stacks blow left and two stack blow to the right.

Let’s zoom in on the top of the smoke stacks.

The two circled in red are mirrored images, with one resized. One blows to the left and the other blows to the right.

The two circled in blue are also mirrored images of the same stack – and surprise, one blows to the right and the other, after being reversed and resized, blows to the left. Chances are that 4 separate photographs were taken, 2 were reversed and resized and composited with the other two.

The color cast was set to a tan or orange’ish color to enhance the effect.

The original image comes from CanStockPhoto – the photograph description gives no details on what this photograph is, when it was “taken” or if it was “created”. In other words, their is no provenance for the source of this photograph, making it immediately suspect. These are likely steam plumes that are back lit by a late day sun, for dramatic effect. But we have no way of knowing other than the odd two plumes to the left and two plumes to the right, from identical, reversed smoke stacks.

The “news report” gives no indication to the viewer that this is almost certainly a faked photograph created as an illustration. The photo does not represent reality.

KGW TV 8 Portland Oregon appears to have published a PhotoShop’d image to increase the dramatic effect of their “news report”. How much more of the news report is also fake? The rest of the story might be legitimate but as a viewer, I’ve lost confidence when their lead photo appears to be fake. What do they think they are accomplishing by doing this?