The Clinton Rezko Photo is a FAKE!!!!!!!

I'll explain the best I can in layman terms. When you layer something onto a photo, you have basically one option to remove the excess of the top layer. If you lay something onto a photo, to avoid having it conspicious, you need to 'erase' the excess. In the Rezko/Clinton photo, the person who did it, did not do a very good job of erasing escess. I looked for the cleanest example of the photo I could find on the internet, because some of the copies are very dirty, pixel wise.

Exhibit 1.


Here is the full photo I used, untouched by me;




Ehxibit 2.

If I take that same photo into PSP, and lighten it, color and gamma, so as to enhance the background, you see this;



Exhibit 3.

Blowing it up and examining the background, we see this;



Exhibit 4.
Now, if you look at the shoulder area of BC, you will see that the curtain has been laid on TOP of his shoulder;



And the same area, even larger;




So, in my opinion, and I do graphics all day, every day, it's been doctored. I think what they did was, took the entire top part of the photo, imposed Rezko's head onto that part, merged it, in a single image, then tried to match it up on the original photo. The reason they would do this is, because once those layers are merged,(say the head area)it becomes harder to see where said piece was joined. But, in this case, they didn't bother to clean up the rough edges around the part of the top half, they laid on top of the original. They would know peope would be looking at the face/head areas, so they went wider/deeper.

You can also see the hard-line of color on Rezko's collar;



There's absolutely no reason for there to be a color change on a hard line, under Rezko's chin. Not even a shadow falls in a dead straight line.



Nope, someone doctored it. Now if I could just find the original Rezko photo.....

The qualities of the faces indicate that this was doctored.

:rofl:

hands are not white?

It just struck me as more humorous to leave them that way.

I would imagine that Michelle's hands are not so white either - and her head probably isn't quite so out of proportion with her body as well...

I was just trying to be ridiculous in the same context of the original post...

Strangely enough, the OP has not commented on the image I posted.

I wonder why. (Actually, I'm not wondering. The OP doesn't appear to know the difference from a pixel and a pick up truck.)

I would have to say it is because your posting was just another "expected response from an Obama supporter".

nooo, it couldn't be...

By your reasoning, this should be proof of... what...that someone altered Bill Clinton's suit?

way too big...I would have thought you, being in graphics and all, would have cosnsidered that...

That's it? You have nothing else to say?

Why am I not surprised.

You're showing something that is pixelated. He's showing an area of a photo that's been cloned (with smear residue).

Perhaps acceptable to the untrained eye...

to draw the kind of conclusions the OP is doing. That's just reckless.

And as other posters have noted, Clinton admits to taking the picture. That makes this whole thing moot.

Chelsea? Or did they use a timer?

If they took the time to alter Rezko's shoulder, why wouldn't they clean up the HUGE jag on Clinton's shoulder?

Cloning does NOT smear. The smudge tool does.

Pixelating and artifacts are two different things. The defects in the OP are artifacts.

Low quality JPEGs lose detail. It's pretty common. Why do you not know these things?

You think the POTUS would just head down to Mervyns and pick up a suit that kinda fit? I'd bet good money that his suit had at least one alteration before he put it on for this photo.

'who owns this tie'...LOL..that would be hysterical.

It's obvious that a clone-job was done on this photograph. He does need to show the original, though. For example, someone could've reconstructed an authentic photo to make it look photoshopped.

you should be able to point to exactly where the image repeats.

Because massively blowing up a massively compressed .jpg tells you NOTHING. As one who does graphics all day every day you should know better than this. You're drawing conclusions about shadow falls from shadows that are two fucking pixels wide in the image you've selected.

your analysis of the digital low res copy leaves a lot to be desired. Why not seek out the negative, or at least a print from the original negative?

just files..on computers...or servers...

Which yield far more information, and without compression artifacts to muddy up the waters.

There, saved you the trouble.

And digital cameras were rare then.

The bump in the shoulder can simply be explained by his raising both arms to pat both people on the back, and with all the JPEG edge compression artifacts, the entire OP is simply an analysis of smoke and mirrors.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Since you had no kind words for Clinton prior to the Iowa Caucuses. Since Obama's win you've been on a rampage and are frankly out of control. This thread is a keeper solely because it shows you've absolutely lost it. Thanks for hanging around DU and making me laugh. I'll miss you when you leave...I mean when you leave again....:rofl:

I'll never forget you either.

But the media would not care. I have seen this picture on every media outlet. Yet the one of Obama practically hugging Rezko I have only seen on DU and a few other web sites. Puzzling.

Although he seems to adore Obama so he might not care.

and after spending an hour studying this photo, I have no doubt it was faked. None. I know there are a lot of sites looking for the source of the photo. If you search Google for "clinton rezko photo fake' a lot of people are asking about it.

:rofl:

but I wanted to make really sure before I said anything, so I looked it over many, many times.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees, sheesh.

Haven't you figured it out yet? Judging from this thread, Obama supporters are stupid and can't be trusted for shit.

:kick:

And anyone that dares not agree with you right away that your analysis, which you spent a whole HOUR looking at a JPEG :sarcasm:, even to just suggest that further investigation might be warranted, get the same dismissive response.

"Expected response from an Obama supporter."

Off to the ignore list with you.

Sorry, but people trying to get their candidate off the hook don't have a lot of credibility. I don't mean that in a snarky way, either. It's just reality.

And I supported Kucinich before Obama, and have defended Hillary on many, many threads, so don't try to blame your lack of credibility here on some illusionary sense of partisanship you attribute to me.

If you want credibility, go find someone who works in digital forensics and pay him or her to analyze the photo and issue a statement on it. Raise funds. Or don't, but don't expect people to believe you. If the situation was reversed, you sure as well wouldn't believe me, and I wouldn't expect you to.

one for each side.

I think you're reaching.

affect JPEG compression?

and in this case, color compression had nothing to do with the layer on top of BC's shoulder.

:eyes:

For the record, I am almost definitely voting for Obama now that Edwards is out, but I am no partisan, and I have no illusions about what he is: a politician. As much as I enjoy hearing him speak, I also have reservations about him. It just happens that my reservations about HRC are much bigger.

Re the photo: I just don't see the tampering. If it was tampered, that means Rezko was inserted between HRC and BC where someone else was originally standing. Considering that he is physically pressing against both Clintons, I would expect to see oddities around where they are touching, around his legs, and all over the background where the other person's image was erased. The shadows are all consistent, on their faces and clothes.

Does this mean the photo is real? Who knows. I'm sure there are highly-paid professionals who make their living altering photos so that they are not detectable. The fact is that the image you are using is a very low quality .jpg. Look at all the weird splotches all over the curtains -- These are artifacts of the jpg compression, and that is what I think your line is also. If you can find a better (i.e. much larger, ideally uncompressed) picture, maybe there will be something to talk about.

Finally, don't you think the Clinton campaign has had this picture analyzed? They are no dummies, and if they could show that this was fake, they would have capitalized on that. The fact that they are not pursuing that angle tells me that they think it's real.

Personally, I never thought this picture was a big deal. Presidents pose for pictures with thousands and thousands of people, get thousands of contributions, and a few of those people are guaranteed to do embarrassing things in the future. Meh.

Lying is the correct word.

Disclosure: I have no horse in this race. I have been rendering digital images for ten years. What the OP is trying to sell is crap.

I have seen hundreds of pics of them (mostly Bill) but it looks like I've seen that one before a long time ago, not sure if this guy was in it.

Good job.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/01/28/politics/horserace/entry3759921.shtml

The news out of Chicago may not steal all of Obama's thunder today, but it could give Hillary Clinton a valuable talking point -- though the fact that a picture of Clinton and Rezko has emerged could blunt its impact somewhat. (Clinton says that, unlike Obama, she has no relationship with Rezko, and says the photo is just one of "hundreds of thousands of pictures" she has taken.)

:kick:

. . .:shrug:

An expected response from an Obama supporter.

:popcorn:

so much for that.

it's not like she was having dinner with Osama bin Laden or something, it's just a old pic from some dem event.

or Rezko. She never verified the photo.

Your CBS Story is based on and links to:

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/01/photos_surfaces_of_hillary_cli.html

its a photo photoshopped or other
how many people do you think have had pictures with President and Mrs Clinton over the years?

Because if it is, Obama's people are going to have a LOT of explaining to do.

and it doesn't really matter what format the original photo was, when it was converted to a digital image, that's when the editing took place. It was edited digitally.

My guess is an Obama supporter/donor. But it still doesn't absolve Obama of any guilt. I see this all the time with Obamites. He gets caught doing something, they hurry out to find something, ANYTHING, on Hillary. Pretty sad that they can't just accept reality the way it is.

digital cameras... which means a print or negative exists.

Get the negative or the print, scan it at extreme resolutions, then you will be able to clearly see if it was "dodged" or something.

Since this photo made the rounds of various news organizations, send you analysis to them and ask if they know where the non-digital original is.

After that... you should be able to publish something.

As it is, notwithstanding your experience, you don't have proof one way or another.

you think some major news outlet, especially one that ran with the photo, and in one instance, used it's existence to "trap" Hillary, wouldn't want to know that it's a fake and you can prove it?

I'm not saying it is or isn't. Why not seek out the original and get some expert opinions on it?

At the very least you should hear back on the origins of the photo.

and the computer it was edited on, and identify the owner of that computer.

Take a look at post 100.

it looks more like Bill Cliton's head is photoshopped rather than Rezko's.

:eyes:

You're reeeeeeeeeeaching....

you know better.

Wow...nice jump to conclusion there too...

with low quality jpegs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact

I didn't realize this was satire. Carry on.

6400 post in 3 months. You keep repeating the same fucking thing, over and over.

Someone is playing dirty if this is true. Hmm... I wonder who it could possibly be... not Satan...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I just made the time...

...from an Obama supporter.

Malkovitchmalkovitch?

An expected response from an Obama supporter.

Shit, I'm an Obama supporter and could care less if she took a photo with the guy. How many people do the first couple take photos with while they're in office? This seems like a stretch to me.

and I agree, I could care less who they had a photo taken with. But, in this case, the Obama supporters are trying to difuse the Obama/Rezko connection, by injecting the Clintons' into the sitution. Takes the heat off of Obama. Or so they think.

Man, my objectivity is on fire today!

LOL.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

You have nothing here.

Did you become a 1000+ poster just by doing that?

the original poster. That seems to be about the only thing that the OP can say.

:rofl:

You can't detect a retouched photo when the web version is already at a very low resolution. Also, if you were even a half-assed junior league Photoshop pixel monkey, you'd have gotten a photo of someone in that suit and then just swapped out the head.

If you can find a Rezko head with the same stare and in another situation, that might be more credible.

Nice try...just like trying to find Obama guilty of anything in the case...

:rofl:

it's minor league.

:rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

All signs point to...doctoring!!

:rofl:

There is nothing in that jumble of pixels to support your conclusions.

I have a lot of experience with digital graphics, BTW.

And.....I'm still a Kucinich supporter, so bite me.

As well as photography... Its my professional opinion that you have no fucking clue what youre talking about. Carry on.

Speaking as another graphics professional.

supporter just won't believe her.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4298707

They get off on pretending they know what theyre talking about. :eyes:

I have degrees from MassArt and Hallmark Institute. No graphics hack like you is going to challenge my credentials.

that 1corona4u is getting tired of posting at DU, and has decided to go out with a bang.

Whatever credibility he/she had is gone.

:sarcasm:

to deny the obvious.


If the Clintons never posed with him- they would make damn sure that fact was proven.


You need to find a better way to spend your free time- :shrug:

and I said I would look at it...I did, and reported what I found. Simple as that really.

Obviously you haven't.

and photos which have been edited have a lot of artifacts, r dirt, as I like to call it, where as something that had less 'manipulation' has a miniscule amount, if any; Here's an example;

We all know this photo was edited, and poorly, I might add;



Here's a blow up;



And, here is the original photo, from the internet;




And the blow up;



Lot of fucking 'artifact' difference in a photo that has been doctored, than in one that has not....I even kicked this one up a notch...

JPEGs can be saved at a wide range of quality settings. One photo at one setting has no relation and IS NOT COMPARABLE to another at a different setting.

I would say "nice try"...but it isn't.

Where is the original photo of Bill Clinton used in the photoshopped image? Its clearly Bill's face placed in the PLACE of Hillarys and you're not even smart enough to recognize it. Thats NOT Hillarys edited face... its BILLS ACTUAL FACE! Yet you blow up the photo of Hillary to prove your point?

YOURE A HACK.

I think they would laugh at you...

...their change and this week's circular at the register, of course.

Meanwhile, I work for one of the premier photo retouching firms on the planet. I laugh at your mere 3000 customers. SUCKERS!

Yeah, sure pal!:rofl:

Funny, that's who I took the original photo from...

If you look closely at the photo, you'll notice that the left half of Bill Clinton's collar is the same darker shade of blue as Rezko's collar, but not the right side of Clinton's collar.

So unless half of Bill's head is also pasted in, there's nothing weird about this photo. Just some shadows causing collars to appear darker than the rest of the shirts.

This is greatest page material

:rofl:

:thumbsup: 1corona4u

Oh wait.....:hi:

Can I still hop this bandwagon?

:evilgrin:

it's a real photo. No question in my mind.


The question that SHOULD be asked is how Drudge got it.

I wouldn't have put myself up for ridicule if I wasn't sure.

Dude, you're whacked! LOL!

The photo is real; the background is fake. It's not unusual for big-shot fundraisers like Rezco to be in a position to get a photo w/the President. It's sort of a status symbol among the "elite" - photos w/the President, the Senator, etc. etc. What's weird is the background. Usually these photos are randomly taken at a fundraiser, w/people tables etc. in the background. But, here there's just that blue curtain & a flag. That's the blue curtain & flag that appears at the podium for government press conferences. So, unless Bill & Hillary were both giving a press conference at the same time, and decided to pose with Rezco, IMO the background is a fake. It gives that extra little umph of authority & Presidential approval.

As a Photoshop user since Version 1, I can show you a PS'd picture of your grandma doin' the 49'ers and make it convincing. Seriously...I've been working with PS since some of you were in diapers.

THIS PICTURE IS PHOTOSHOPPED.

I'm not a Clinton Supporter. I have nothing to gain by debunking this, but I'm telling you, those ard pixels on the shoulder are a dead give-away. The PSer did a piss-poor job of blending the background to match the foreground. Period.

Remember, I'm not a Hillary supporter. I'd love to say "AH-HA!" if this would prove something that would knock Hillary out of the race. But it doesn't. It's bullshit.

.

It's low-quality JPEG artifacting, nothing more.

here's another photo from the internet, one we also know has not been doctored;

Nice pixels;

Just wasting bandwidth? Or does this have any relation to the OP?

All due respect, I don't know what your expertise in this field is. Optimizing photos for online display is a skill, and I'm pretty damned good at it. Balancing the proper amount of compression with the smallest possible file size requires more than just clicking the slider or choosing a number from 1 to 10. Different colors abutting each other create different levels of artifacts. Different shapes of different colors create an even different set. Change the compression level and you'll get a whole other bunch of artifacts for those same colors and shapes.

Point being, I'm no newb to this. I've been doing it for many years. Even a layman should be able to discern the difference in the clumped pixels in Post 100, a very clear indication of jpeg compression, and the image in the OP, which shows definable pixels which no such "clumping." The picture in the OP is irrefutably Photoshopped, and poorly Photoshopped at that. The retoucher did a piss-poor job of blending the background with the foreground. If it were the result of jpeg compression, you'd see linear clumping of the pixels all along the shoulder where the blue background meets the color of the jacket. You don't, though. The only pixelation is at the curve of the shoulder where the Photoshopper neglected to blend the hard edges.

I have no doubt about it. None whatsoever. The picture in the OP is Photoshopped.

.

I've been doing this for 20 years, so I know my stuff. Did you notice that the line below Rezko's shoulder lines up with the artifact on Bill's shoulder? And that Rezko's jacket has a lump just like it would if he had his hand around Bill? The fuzziness you see there is consistent with what you normally see on a scan at medium resolution and low quality. You will note that the fuzziness is similar to the fuzziness next to the obvious linear artifacts on his and Bill's coats.

BTW, the Clinton campaign has admitted the photo was taken, so there is no reason for anyone to fake this photo.

I don't know what the Clinton campaign has or has not admitted. I'm really totally impartial on this, I just haven't been following this bullshit. But I see several problems with the photo, and I completely disagree with your interpretation of the shoulder area. Jpeg artifacts are clumped into rectangular groups, not rounded and varied. That's the way the algorithm works. There is a definite hint of jpeg compression over Bill's shoulder in the form of rectangular "box" of pixels...but it stops over "Rezko's" shoulder where the pixels become random again, completely uncharacteristic of jpeg artifacts. The jpeg artifacts aside, I know the Clintons don't get much time to lay on the beach, but can you explain the very definite difference in skin tones? I don't mean like "One guy is white the other isn't," I'm talking about the LIGHTING. Even given the different ethnic backgrounds of the subject, the color in Rezko's face is considerably more saturated than the Clintons'. It has nothing to do with tans or ethnicity. It's the color saturation. It's wrong.

So anyway, why does the shoulder go from a group of hard-edged pixels, not in any sort of normal jpeg artifact grouping, fade into a soft shoulder edge that looks very much like the "smudge" tool was taken to it? I just disagree with you on this one. There is no good explanation for the difference in pixel grouping over the shoulder as opposed to the very-obvious and typical clumps of jpeg artifacts everywhere else in the photo.

.

just like when you put your arm around somebody.

There's not enough detail to say it has been "cloned" as other posters are. But when I ask them to point out the source of the cloning, I get crickets.

The problem is the low quality setting, resulting in clumping and artifacts. That is all that can be said definitively of this.

As for the lighting, the source is consistent among all three subjects. Look at the shadows.

You are dead wrong on the saturation issue. Flash can make skin tones go very light, but having more melanin and carotene diminish this. So yes, ethnic background comes into play. You can see a similar difference in skin tone in other photos of Rezko with people.

you keep trying to come up with something to debunk it. Eventually it will come out that it IS a fake, and then you, not me, will look like a fool.

If you, or anyone doesn't believe it, fine, don't. I said I think it's a fake.

And, depspite what some of the posters in this thread had to say about my 'expertise', I do know what I am talking about.

Sheesh....move the fuck on.

The burden of proof is on you, and you have provided none.

Saying it looks fishy or blurry or badly done is not good enough. You need to show which pixels were duplicated, and you can't.

When I bring up the other artifacts that look remarkably similar to the ones you talk about, you change the subject. Or when you do respond, you post a different image and say it has "pixels". Wow.

If you had gotten independent verification originally, you might have more credibility. But you went straight for the hyperbole.

You are a liar and you do not know what you're talking about. Give up.

I debunked your theory in post 100, and you had no substantive response.

Enjoy your stay.

Your #100 post proved nothing.

You know nothing of graphics. You work in fucking Paint Shop Pro, for god's sake (among others, yeah right) and think Photoshop is low-rent (even though it's the industry standard). You think blowing up one JPEG and comparing it to a different one proves something, but it doesn't. You think a low-quality JPEG when enlarged can show evidence of tampering, but yours doesn't.

I am calling you a LIAR. Deal with it.

:P

I haven't been following this too closely. But I do know my Photoshop! Believe me, if I could have made a convincing argument that would have knocked Hillary down a peg I would have been more than happy to do it. But my response isn't about Hillary, Obama, or the person I really support, John Edwards. I'm just offering my "expert" opinion as a long-time retoucher...it's Photoshopped. That shoulder is a dead giveaway.

.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. "

You have removed all doubt!

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/

From someone who teaches Photoshop, I'll back up your proofs here. The curtain has clearly been cloned.

There are JPEG artifacts throughout the image.

That being said, this particular image was clone stamped; it doesn't mean the photo is a fake. The OP (or someone else) could have smeared it himself. But it is a smear; it's not pixelated.

To me the lump on his shoulder looks too blurry to say it has been smeared. Almost any low-quality JPEG will lose detail in this manner.

and went on to say that that would not be unusual (being a public figure).

Makes sense to me.

Sen. Hillary Clinton said she had no memory of posing for this undated photo with Antoin (Tony) Rezko, an Illinois businessman under federal indictment on corruption charges. She was confronted with the photograph Jan. 25 on NBC's "Today Show."

A few days earlier, during a Democratic presidential debate, she had condemned her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, saying he had links to Rezko. She called Rezko a "slumlord" from whom Obama has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

Faced with the photograph, Clinton said, "I don't know the man, I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door. I don't have a 17-year relationship with him." She added, "There is a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know, haven't seen since, and having a relationship." (MSNBC / January 25, 2008)

:boring:

I'm sure they'd love to hear about it. Of course, every major news organization has photo and graphics departments, and probably analyze photos for authenticity all the time.

Gads.

:popcorn:

Doctoring photos is just another weapon in the Swiftboat arsenal.