Painters in Crime

Last week has been really busy. I was in Hannover to meet some specialists from the LKA (which reads Landeskriminalamt and is the state criminal investigation department of Niedersachsen, one of Germany’s federal states).
From our usual crime thriller we know how police work is done: some DCI questions a witness and then a very huge and clever computer compares a few hundred pictures on its own and of course composes a phantom sketch of the suspect – all in about 20 seconds. Well, that’s the movies …

 

 

 

In reality the police forces employs skilled experts do do sketches of suspects or draw details of a crime scene. Of course today they don’t just use a pencil and paper but rely heavily on Photoshop, Wacom tablets and other professional tools in their daily routine. They also scan and manipulate images, age  people, reconstruct missing details, deliver mug shots and do a number of other things involving digital composing and retouching.

By the way: The LKA has an impressive colour lab and deals with more than 1,6 million photographs per year. I would imagine they have a pretty impressive workflow to.

Arriving at the LKA, I entered a huge beehive of a building housing around 700 people to find my way to the phantom sketch unit where I was to deliver a photoshop workshop. We did a bit of shop talk and I showed some of my speed tips to help them to improve their photoshop skills. It was a great experience and we definitely spent some productive hours.

After the days success it has been decided I shall be visiting other LKA sites in the near future.

Posted by on Nov 15, 2009 | 0 comments

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