ESPN To Revisit Practice That Improved Tiger's Mugshot

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You might have seen my Tweet and many others expressing surprise at the haircut and sudden glow Tiger took on when ESPN posted his DUI mugshot in their lefthand sidebar.

Cork Gaines at BusinessInsider.com explains why the tidying up occurred and chalks it up to unintentional and "sloppy" work.

When selecting part of an image in Photoshop to move it to a different background, the most popular methods are the "lasso" tool, which allows the user to select the portion he or she wants by simply drawing a freehand line, or the "magnetic freeform pen," which is similar to the lasso but assists the user by having the line "stick" to edges.

One problem with the magnetic pen is that it struggles with areas in which there is not a distinct line. In this GIF, I attempt to select Woods' head with the magnetic pen. If not being careful, the pen will easily skip over the thin areas of hair.

Now, that doesn't quite explain the glow Tiger took on, including some nice face smoothing.  Either way, ESPN issued this statement to make clear it's probably not happening again.

“We have utilized a standard template for on-air headshots, which led to the background being dropped for consistency. We will revisit this process to improve it going forward.”

The episode was brought up by Liz Claman of Fox Business News when talking to Brad Faxon about Tiger. Claman seemed to be almost gleeful to have found prime "fake news" but made a fool of herself by interview's end. Seems Claman is covering the U.S. Open in two weeks on site, but still asked Faxon if Tiger would be playing. Faxon's surprise is priceless but because he's a pro's pro, Faxon calmly points out that Tiger's recent back surgery will preclude such an appearance.