Original at 100%. Notice something odd on the left side of the roof in the sky?

On the left down slope of the roof I noticed a tiny artifact of odd color and a patch in the sky that didn't look quite right. Here is the exact spot zoomed in at almost 500%

Original image zoomed to ~500%. Notice the odd patch in the sky?

This is a tell-tale sign the image had been altered. Which, for some reason, I was very surprised at. I was curious. What used to be there and why was it removed?

To do a little forensics on the image, all I had to use was Nik Software's Viveza. I loaded the photo into Viveza 2, put a control point on that spot and pushed the structure all the way up. This should instantly accentuate any minor differences in hue and brightness, and it certainly did. Here are the results:

Viveza 2 maximum structure, cropped to 100%

You can instantly see there used to be something in the sky that has since been wiped out. Maybe something attached to the roof. My first guess was a pole with a flag. Either way, the editing job was rather sloppy I'd say because the editing artifacts weren't that difficult to see in the first place. An average job at best.

Next step was to look at other images of the same lighthouse to see what might have been in that smudgy spot in the sky. It only took one Flickr search. A moment later the answer was had.

Photo by Madeleine_H

You can see those poles and instruments reaching above the top of the lighthouse. I found photo after photo of this lighthouse and all of them had the same poles. Here are the search results if you want to see for yourself. The only photo without the poles is the one included in Windows 7.

Why does this matter? It doesn't really. Microsoft made no promise that the included sample photos weren't altered in some way. I only went through this process because I was curious to see what the truth was behind the photo. Sometimes curiosity kills the cat, but luckily I didn't have to leave the comfort of my own recliner to get to the bottom of this.

Oh, and if you want to check out the lighthouse in person, here's the location on Google Maps. The surrounding shoreline looks incredible, and it is only a measly 3,117 miles/49 hour drive from my house. Maybe I'll drop by next weekend.....