I thought I would do a photo comparison of these three Joseph Smith images. I believe all three came from the original source (Joseph Smith Dag). Why? Minus the photo editing and artistic retouching that occurred on both the Carter photo and the Library of Congress photo, they have the same exact photo imperfections which are a standard characteristic of the very sensitive daguerreotype photo surface. Even the horizontal damage lines appear in all three pictures (look at the faint impression lines on the bottom of all three photos). Could they have came from the same damaged negative? Ron Romig, former archivist for the Community Church of Christ told me that the photo masking which occurred on the Library of Congress image and Carter image was done directly onto the surface of the glass negative with Indian ink. My photo was printed after this time period with apparently a third unedited negative. My conclusion, the original daguerreotype photo must have had damage even in 1879. I might also add that not one of the photographic prints of the RLDS (Community Church of Christ) painting show this exact horizontal imperfection. Why? Because the painting was never damaged in this way.
