We have a Grand Prize Winner

Reworked decay # 19 • click to embiggenAnd the winner is Nick S. His exact answer is;

It is not a "bucket" placed on the kitchen counter. it is a large galvanized wash tub Photoshoped onto to it. I think the contents give it away. (Dried up sunflowers, a fireplace grate and pick axe would be considerably larger than shown here.)

I am quite surprised that it took so long for someone to "see" it for what it was - a bigass galvanized wash tub that could not have fit on the kitchen counter. It's testament to the medium's "reality effect" that, because of its apparent size, everyone "saw" the object as a bucket despite the nearly overwhelming visual evidence to the contrary provided by the contents of the tub.

Early on in the "test", Martin Doonan asked; "And what's with those chopsticks?" I didn't answer (what I assumed was a rhetorical question) because one of the answers would have been "scale" - something that the sponge and knife also provide. I find it interesting, once a viewer discovers the scale mismatch, that the picture becomes somewhat disorienting and even visually "annoying".

I previously mentioned that there were "some very good notions about what identifies the "fake" - one of which caused me to fine tune the image" (the version I have posted here). In that comment, by Markus Janoush, it was observed that;

It seems the bucket was photographed under an open sky. The objects inside the bucket do not cast shadows like the chop sticks do. Also the light from the kitchen window leads to a light fall-off across the counter which should be visible for the bucket.

The tub was photographed under an open sky - no direct sunlight because that would mimic the light from my kitchen window. In this case though, the objects inside the bucket do not cast shadows like the chop sticks do because the contents of the tub would have received very little directional light (as the chopsticks do). The contents inside of the tub, if it had been on the counter, would have been lighted primarily with soft reflected overhead light (just like that from an open sky) from my white ceiling which would have created a near shadow-less quality.

For that same reason, there is little light fall-off in the tub. What little fall-off there is, is the opposite of that on the counter because the contents to the right side of the tub fall into a soft shadow created by the tub rim. Consequently, the contents to the left side actually receive a little more light than those on the right side - the exact opposite of the light falling on the counter. The left inside wall of the tub itself is lighter than that on the right for the same reason.

In any event, Markus' comments caused me to fine tune the "light' on the tub contents to more "realistically" give the appearance of how it should / would have looked if it had been on the counter - a little darker on the contents on the right, a little light-shaped contouring on the tub contents, and overall a little less bright on the tub contents. I also "shaped" (with shadows and highlights) the only objects that are above the tub rim - the dirt clump, the sunflowers and the sunflower stalk. These are the only elements that would have received direct, albeit very soft, window light.

If you take the time to embiggen both pictures and compare them, there really is quite a difference in the appearance and effect of the light on the tub contents.

FYI, the picture of the tub on the lawn (with soccer ball for scale) is not the picture I used for the composite image.

Attention Award Winners (that's anyone who guessed that the "bucket" was PSed into the image) - I need mailing addresses and your choice of decay picture. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.

Thanks for all the feedback and comments.