Atman wants to know if it's for real

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021333931

Oh my.

Atman.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 08:20 AM

Has anyone seen the Libyan "apology" photos?

Can't link from my phone, but they're going around on Facebook...crowds of Libyans demonstrating, one is holding up a sign saying "Sorry People of America this not the Pehavior of our Eslam and Profit".

Here is my question: anyone know if it's real? I ask because I've seen at least three different photos with different people holding the exact same sign. In one, a kid is holding it. Another person holds it in another. Hand-scrawled, with the exact same misspellings. Identical.

I got in a back-and-forth on Facebook over the pics. I questioned their authenticity, seeing that the same sign was showing up in different pics. I was called a hater, of course. It's Facebook..."why couldn't people have been sharing the same sign, huh? Why do hate Libya?"

Anyway, is anyone familiar with photos, and have any info on them? Post a link if you can!

It's a campfire about five miles long, so only a few primitive comments, selected at random:

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 08:34 AM

7. I didn't/don't question the message.

Merely the authenticity of the pictures. When I suggested the appeared Photoshopped (they do), a few people got quite irate and insisted I must hate Libya. I don't...I just dislike a Photoshop con job.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 09:13 AM

11. You seem to be inferring something I didn't say at all.

I directly stated that I don't doubt the sentiment is real. The only reason I asked the question in the first place is because I saw the photos in different places, not as a group like the Buzzfeed link upthread. So I said, "Hey, I've seen that exact same sign in three other photos." And at least a couple of them appeared to be easily Photoshop-able. So I asked. But even on the Facebook thread, I didn't question these Libyan's support for America, I merely asked if anyone knew whether or not the photos were real.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 05:09 PM

73. But Will [franksolich: referring to the Bostonian Drunkard], The Atlantic only re-posted the original post.

They didn't make any effort to discern the veracity of the photos. They just re-posted the photos. So what?

nadinbrzezinski (108,868 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 12:26 PM

33. I think they're real

But, here is the caveat, important caveat, notice the number of them that have their media logo or national flagged? It would not surprise me if it has a tinge of staging.

But the photos are real, and the sentiment probably is as well. The staging...it's the nature of the society. Here the media manipulates opinion, in places just emerging from dictartorship this goes tripple so.

nadinbrzezinski (108,868 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 02:00 PM

70. You know what is sad

I recently took a photo of a bad crash on I-125. We really did not feel like stoping.

Guess what? The photo, (the good one, sort off) that the paper ran, had a tinge of post processing, to fix some issues with light.

By your definition, you know how many photos the media runs in the US, regularly mimd you, that are post processed?

Jaysus, there are days.

There is another photo we took at a fire, that was not post processed, and it probably should have been.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 05:18 PM

74. I just want to know the truth. Please help me.

Where in this video is the man or the child holding the sign in question? I watched it three times. Maybe I just missed it. I saw the man, but he was just taunting the crowd, not holding a sign. I saw the child, but he was never even holding a sign. WTF did I miss????

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 05:49 PM

76. It's just shockingly obvious.

"The wording you refer to in the OP appears in the 1st photo of this OP:"

I'm sorry...I have worked with Photoshop since Version 1. I can make a convincing photo of you riding a unicorn with W while smoking a crack pile. Really...just try me. And when you do something like this every day, and make your living off of it, you get pretty good at spotting other people's shoddy work. These photos are freakin' obvious. The hands on the signs, the shadows...just so much about them is fake. Good Photoshopping makes it hard to spot...bad Photoshopping makes it stand out the moment you lay eyes on it. The moment I looked at these pics I said "bullshit."

Further, several posters assert they were just passing the same sign around...but the text doesn't match the wrinkles of the paper. Not only the "apology" sign, but even moreso in the sign held by the woman behind him. AGAIN...in the video, there are NO English signs. None, except for the poorly-worded banner. Every other sign is hand-drawn...except for these pics of the man and the boy both holding the same sign, in English. Yet there are NO English signs in the video of the same event.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 06:42 PM

81. You pointed out the same ones I pointed out.

There are a couple of "Budweiser Beer" distributor-style banners, with the same bad wording. You point to those in your response. Except for those slick banners, no one is holding an English language sign. No one. Except in these close-ups of the man and the kid, holding the exact same sign.

The "Thugs and killers" sign is even more suspect. The type doesn't match the wrinkling of the paper. Once again, I Photoshop for a living...the Photoshopper here should have set transparency to "multiply" before he posted the image. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't know what you're talking about.

Hmmm.

It looks like franksolich's evil twin needs to re-read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 07:05 PM

86. I guess I'm not sure where you're vested in this.

I simply questioned some pictures. I know Photoshop, I used it daily to do the very stuff I've noticed "unusual" in these pictures. I've seen the videos which are purported to be from the same protest. I just raised a question. I am sure the government would be happy if we just accepted everything presented to us as the truth. I was just asking a question.

Atman (24,634 posts)  Thu Sep 13, 2012, 06:44 PM

82. AGAIN...I am NOT questioning Libya's favorable view of the USA.

Not once...not in my OP, not in subsequent posts. This thread is about whether or not the IMAGES are real or Photoshopped.

Poor Atman.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

So I see that atman was lurking over here.

[franksolich]

So I see that atman was lurking over here.

All the time.

But not quite as much as the pie-and-jam primitive, who "personal messages" some primitives with a link from here, where we're talking about the primitives. 

It's a public service Judy provides, and it's copacetic.

[GOBUCKS]

I saw a bunch of photos of that same crowd on another site, CNN maybe.

It was the same location, same people, lots of them holding signs.

Every single sign was in Arabic.

[Airwolf]

So Gnads says she noticed that some of her pics were fixed because they were not done right. Here's a hit how about she learns to take pictures instead of using and etch a sketch to provide pictorial evidence of the news and here is something else,you didn't have to stop for any reason you chose to because your that damn stupid and want the attention from your fellow cell mates