this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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That is a suspiciously high resolution photo of a man who died in 1947. The odd camera focus, general glisteningness, (and odd framing?) and the lack of any matching results in reverse image searching makes me think that somebody may have used AI to produce an image of that which could easily be found with a moment’s search online. Is anybody able to find a source on this image?
Not just the resolution, the way it's lit and posed is very contemporary. You could rescan a good negative and get resolution like this, but that wouldn't account for the fact that it doesn't look anything like a posed photo from the 19th century.
I'm pretty certain the this image is an AI retouch of this origional (click on the source for a much higher res version). It looks like it changed his nose, the texture of his skin, his outfit and a bunch of misc small stuff. Completely unnecessary slop.
Nah, it's gotta be something from this photoshoot:
The clothing matches closer.
Edit:
Google is alleging the first known version is 7 years old, which would predate AI - but I cannot open the link it only takes me to the community homepage.
Edit2: Reddit search is so shit, couldn't even go back more than 3 years. But I cannot locate this or a variation of it anywhere, and I've probably now seen more of Max Planck than most people alive so I'm a bit of an expert. It's most likely AI.
Re: your edit
Google will sometimes show results from Reddit but ultimately link to a different post. AFAIK, the content that Google says is on the page may actually be content that is either from related posts shown on the Reddit mobile site or from another post somewhere on the subreddit (or maybe just somewhere else on Reddit entirely?). The timestamp that Google gives seems to be from when the linked post was made (with some discrepancies as to when Google and Reddit decide to round up or down in terms of unit time)
Edit: I just searched for “Planck” on Reddit and immediately found this post, posted a couple hours before the Fediverse post
Edit 2: a commenter had almost the same exact line of thinking that I had lol
To me, a new image rather than a touch up seems more likely. It just feels like there’s too much Gandhi mixed in the original post.
You're most likely right. What an odd thing for people to do, it's almost more effort. The OP who posted it though doesn't seem to have any other AI things, so it's weird.
Fediverse OP probably nicked the image from Reddit or somewhere else, given that you saw Reddit links alongside this image in your web search
The current state of digital makes it a lot quicker, cheaper, and more convenient to take high quality photos and videos, but I think the best widely available film still has the best widely available digital beat in terms of quality. If you get someone who really knows what they're doing to capture, store, and transfer a photo of a famous person from the first half of the 1900s it could be very high resolution.
That said, this picture looks pretty weird. His skin looks like modeling clay or plastic and the focal length isn't consistent.
I’ll try having a look, but keep in mind good quality film is generally much higher resolution than even digital today.