30
Apr
2011
Calling All Adobe Experts
I love conspiracy theories. What do you think, kids? I can’t even get my MacBook to print (yet), so I’m clearly not the guy to evaluate this.
I love conspiracy theories. What do you think, kids? I can’t even get my MacBook to print (yet), so I’m clearly not the guy to evaluate this.
it’s just a function of the optical character recognition done by the scanner. if you scanned in a bill and opened it up you’d find the same thing.
I’m not doubting you, but I have to ask: Is the guy who created this YouTube then simply lying? I mean, I was wondering why he didn’t scan a piece of paper for his “test,” since it looked like used something that was computer-generated.
I don’t think the result would change either way. Not all scanners do this, so his ‘test’ isn’t very meaningful. He’s probably not lying, but he could have done better research.
“I was wondering why he didn’t scan a piece of paper for his “test,” since it looked like [he] used something that was computer-generated.”
That is what the guy in this video did, and he showed how adobe also generated different ‘layers’…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZHZQ_SrEiOc#at=198
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/29/expert-says-obamas-birth-certificate-legit/
The same all-powerful government that can fake a terrorist attack on its own citizens (rolls eyes) doesn’t take the time (1 second) to flatten a layered forgery? Sorry, I’m not buying it. Simple glitches in scanning and whatever printing technology they used at the time of Obama’s birth (typewriter?) are responsible for these inconsistencies.
The layering is a red herring from everything I have seen since the release last week. Adobe Illustrator apparently does this automatically. Much was also made about how the page that was photocopied onto the safety paper shows a distinct outline on the edges, but I consider this also a red herring, though I am less sure of it. The left edge clearly shows the photocopier captured the shadow of the binded section of the book, and I can certainly imagine that the non-text portions of the page might also register slight shadowing compared to the bottom surface of the photocopier lid.
Of all the issues with this birth certificate, the only one I find somewhat suspicious is the name of the local registrar- seriously, there was someone who went by the name UK L LEE? That almost looks like an inserted joke.
Here are a few links that may be helpful:
– http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185094 (explains the basic problems with the “certificate”)
– http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185202 (goes into more detail)
I hope this help.
Matt, apparently you are one of those people who will not believe that Obama is an American by birth unless somehow you can be transported back in time and watch him squeeze out of his mother’s vagina yourself.
You don’t know that’s how it happened.
“The PDF is composed of multiple images. That’s correct. Using a photo editor or PDF viewer of your choice, you can extract this image data, view it, hide it, etc. But these layers, as they’re being called, aren’t layers in the traditional photo-editing sense of the word. They are, quite literally, pieces of image data that have been positioned in a PDF container. They appear as text but also contain glyphs, dots, lines, boxes, squiggles, and random garbage. They’re not combined or merged in any way. Quite simply, they look like they were created programmatically, not by a human. ” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2711500/posts
Optical character recognition can be done by the scanner and by the PDF software.
I’ve worked quite a bit in photoshop. If it really has multiple layers then its fake. I don’t have doubt about it. There’s no reason why a birth certificate should have filled in layers on it.
My supposition though is that the guy who made the video created the layers in the first place, and then acted as though he pulled them straight off the .gov website. Its just hard for me to believe that Obama got so far without it being an American citizen.
I think a bunch of top Democrats and Republicans in Hawaii like already said there was a real birth certificate on file a long time ago? If they faked this one, like wouldn’t some of those guys have said something about it?
I’m not saying this is a hoax, but I think your argument is weak. I don’t trust “top Democrats and Republicans” in Hawaii or any other geographical region to explode into truth telling because they can’t stand to see the American people hoodwinked.
Come on, people. How can this be Obama’s real birth certificate when be is actually a GIANT LIZARD ALIEN SHAPESHIFTER?!?!?! I mean, think about it.
My job is in graphics. I have used Illustrator and Photoshop every day for the past 7 years. And I think this is bullshit.
Obviously the original certificate was scanned for electronic storage, pretty much every organization (government or private) does this now. I don’t know specifically which software was used for the certificate, but the data the software generates can be different due to the program itself trying algorithmically to create an electronic document. Usually, when scanning something, especially something that is old (papers, photographs, etc) optimization filters are run so that the finished product is something that is clean and easy to view. That’s what happened here. The layers and artifacts are there because that’s what the software spit out in trying to make that thing. The guy in the video is just. . . He’s making connections that don’t exist.
This birther shit is just that. Shit. I’m tired of it.
If this was similar to the Rather situation back in ’04 (I love how a number of leftist commentators completely blacked out on that one, it was hilarious) I’m pretty sure they would have found something more tangible by now. Those forged National Guard memos were torn apart by various people literally within hours. It was probably the biggest humiliation new media dealt to old media since the great Stephen Glass dust-up of ’98.
A couple good posts on this subject that come to mind when I see this stuff:
Lester H. Hunt – Who is Barack Obama?
Tamara Keel – QotD: There Is No Fairy Godmother Edition
Blackadder, that theory is absolute rubbish from the word ‘Giant’. Everyone knows he’s actually a SNAKE-HEADED RETICULAN FROM ANDROMEDA! The difference is *very* important.
PS, if the HTML in my comment is mangled, I’m sorry.