Authenticity of "best photos of 2008" in email?

Factual Questions
1

I got a much-circulated email with an attachment that is a PowerPoint show (PPS file) that includes several photos. They don’t live up to the title but they are interesting. I have not seen any of them before and am wondering about their sources, and particularly if they are true images or Photoshopped.

Any takers?

The file can be found here. I do not think you need PowerPoint to view the file.

The photos include:
[ul]
[li]Boat motoring through a canyon lake, reminds me of Lake Powell[/li][li]Cave interior with light coming through opening in top[/li][li]Highly built-up city jutting into a harbor[/li][li]Pregnant woman’s belly with outline of the sole of a foot (this is my #1 suspect for Photoshop :))[/li][li]Main in museum on cell phone, next to a statue of a woman who appears to be cupping her hand to her ear to eavesdrop[/li][li]Group of children sitting in a circle with their bare feet forming a circle[/li][li]Lion covering face with paw[/li][li]Puppy asleep in basket (nothing special, you’ve seen 1M of these)[/li][li]Kitten licking paw (nothing special, you’ve seen 1G of these)[/li][li]Anamorphic sidewalk painting with child standing on it for comic effect[/li][li]Man and woman’s faces in close proximity painted with fish so as to appear that their mouths are the fish’s mouths, this one is my favorite[/li][li]Woman stepping of a platform over a sheer drop, maybe she’s about to bungie jump[/li][li]Train along a very high bridge (I think I’ve seen this one Shopped in Worth1000 under “last photo I ever took” contest)[/li][li]Topiary woman[/li][li]Panda mother and baby[/li][li]Soldier of indeterminate nationality poised with rifle, with young boy a step above peeing on him[/li][li]Group of hands forming a face[/li][li]Pair of surfers watching an incoming wave with over a dozen dolphins riding it in[/li][/ul]

2

“Highly built up city jutting into a harbor” is New York.

They all look real enough to me, except for the baby foot.

3

The “bungee jump” one looks to me like the canyon below Victoria Falls.

4

It’s the gorge swing, run by abseil Zambia, close to Victoria Falls: http://www.thezambeziswing.com/gorgeswing.htm

I did this when I went to Zambia in 2004 - pretty fun!

The one for me that looks photoshopped, in addition to the baby foot, is the hands at the end - the hand coming out to be a tongue looks like it’s composited in. In fact, the whole image might have been put together like that. Also the boy peeing on the soldier doesn’t look right to me.

5

I know that picture, although I [del] can’t [/del] won’t open your file. And yes, it’s photoshopped. The layers of muscle and connective tissue in the uterus and abdomen are just far too thick to see that sort of detail. (Not to mention that the foot is either too large or not large enough for that streamlined, well-defined shape; preemies and toddlers have feet like that; near term babies have round fat pads on the bottoms of their feet and almost round toes.) There’s at least two inches of flesh between that foot at the outside world - could you see a foot through a two inch steak?

Plus, no one has come forth to claim the image as theirs or give corroborating details as to when it was taken, as I’d suspect if it was legit. Whoever made it is happier to have it as a mystery, and that’s a good sign of a hoax. It’s been out for over 4 years now, according to Snopes. They list it as “undetermined”, which I guess is the best answer absent better evidence. But knowing what I know of anatomy and having been pregnant twice, I can’t see a way for it to be real.

It’s a great image, though!