Was Obama's Certificate of Birth Photoshopped?

How about the "halo" effect around the letters? Is that from re-sizing too or was that caused by something else???

Did you do any resizing on the "O" with the halo effect showing for posting purposes? If so, it probably came from that. That's what it looks like anyway. When I just zoom in on the document, I don't see it. But, if I resize a portion with an "O" on it to 400-600%, I do.

I'm not saying that this document wasn't photoshopped, because it very well could have been. I just wanted to show that there are other ways to get the exact results that we've debated here. And pretty much all of those come from resizing the document one way or another.

***EDIT - No...not Obama on the bottom in my avatar...hehe Then again, maybe I photoshopped his name off the back of that jersey? ***

[edit on 16-6-2008 by BRQuick]

[edit on 16-6-2008 by BRQuick]

Also I'd like to add that in my mind, arguing if this is a fake based on digital modification, is a moot point.

I say that because I am quite aware of how easy it is to get a faked birth certificate, it is very easy to do with not so much cash. The clincher is if that birth certificate isn't registered in the county / city where the person was born. That type of "favor" cost alot more and is more difficult to pull off now.

If I were wanting to verify if this was a fake or not, I'd call the registrars office where the birth certificate was filed and ask if they have it on record. Probably not an easy task if you're asking for someone like Obama's BC.

I'd say though, if he were going to have a fake brewed up for him, he wouldn't be so cheap as to ask someone to just modify a digital document instead of having a fake created that can be touched and felt.

Just my final .02 on the topic.

Originally posted by BRQuick


Did you do any resizing on the "O" with the halo effect showing for posting purposes? If so, it probably came from that. That's what it looks like anyway. When I just zoom in on the document, I don't see it. But, if I resize a portion with an "O" on it to 400-600%, I do.

Yeah, I see it without enlarging. There is a white "halo" around most of the letters. I'm guessing the halo might be an artifact from the scan.

Either way I think that the compression involved in any step of the sequence is going to produce artifacts of some sort. It would probably be hard to nail down which step produced the distortions.

You did a great job of showing how sizing a similar doc produces a similar effect. That's mainly what I was looking for! Thanks!!!

Take the other scans that were introduced.

Find, on those scans, the White halo-like effect around any of the letters, anywhere on those scans. I bet you don't.

What you will find is the washed-out granulated effect the same color as the background. This is because you're looking at color bleeding from the letters at high magnification.

Obama's pixilization is succinct and a different color from the background. It is because this is a different image layer (over-top the original). There is no color-bleeding or granulation as in the other scans.

The granulation effect that you'll see on all images scanned or not, is the graphics editor calculating a new pixel size, and making an estimation as to where the color should extend to etc.

This is why .png is now becoming so popular, because you can blend color across pixels projecting a gradient transparent like effect. For example, you can change the color-depth within the same Pixel and so on.



[edit on 17-6-2008 by jetxnet]

Originally posted by jetxnet
Take the other scans that were introduced.

Find, on those scans, the White halo-like effect around any of the letters, anywhere on those scans. I bet you don't.

I decided I'm going to run through the entire process myself and see what the results are. I may even ask somebody else to do a scan and check their results.

I STILL think something about the letters looks different than the rest of the image like you said.

Yeah, that would be interesting.

I'm betting you get the washed-out color-bleeding into the backround of the same image layer.

Try it that way first. Then, save as a .JPEG. After that, bring into the editor as the JPEG (not the native editing extension).

Now, remove some letters and then add new ones. Photoshop will automatically create a new image layer. Why? Because it is not the native-image format. It is JPEG. It is unable to use the existing image layer because it is in .JPEG, which is not an editable format, only for display.

With Obama's CoB, I believe it was scanned in as a JPEG, and then a new layer was added. You cannot scan an image into the native editor format, it is not an option. It is because the scanned image originates from another source, not created initially with the image editor.

From reading these posts (and many others on this website) it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that many people posting here have no idea about image compression or image editing software.

These artifacts, as have been mentioned many times before, are simply the effect of saving an image as a jpg which compresses the data into a smaller file size.
Higher contrast areas of an image (such as the OBAMA II text) are much more prone to this artifacting than lower contrast areas.
Examples of a low contrast area are the background green and white stripes and the date stamp.

Here are a couple of example images I've just created in the GIMP image editor using an image posted earlier in this thread as a starting point.
I cloned the background to remove the original OBAMA text and replaced it with my own text in a similar looking font (Ariel, which wasn't created until the late 1980s - early 1990s)

Uncompressed png file...


The exact same image saved as JPG at the exact same resolution, no resizing at all...


I hope this and the previous examples can put this theory to bed

Well... any digital image, regardless of source, that has been compressed... such as a .jpg is subject to all manner of artifacting and other such digital nonsense. The compression process used is what matters... and since there are many ways an image could become a .jpg, I say there are many ways those artifacts could have been created.

Regardless, I would never trust a document I found on the internet to be official. Ever.

Obama: The Man Behind the Mask,

I challenge Senator Obama to sue me for defamation if he truly wants to perpetuate the myth that he had no ties to the Muslim religion. I will waive all of the traditional First Amendment defenses ("Public figure," "actual malice," etc.) and will interpose only one defense in support of my claims: truth," Martin will state at his news conference.

Well maybe he does have something to hide.

The question is WHY?

Who are YOU Obama?
contrariancommentary.blogspot.com...

"Obama's entire 'Fight the Smears' web site is itself a smear of Islam, and a smear of the truth. Obama uses his 'defense' of smears to propagate smears, and to produce relentless lies and disinformation. It is on that basis that I challenge him and his fitness to sit in the Oval Office.

Well it is not boring

What is this?

www.usafricaonline.com...

www.orangestatepress.com...

www.politicalgateway.com...

www.israelenews.com...

[edit on 123030p://bTuesday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Alrighty then... here we go.
I'm a Graphic Designer, among others one of my major subjects was print production (in which I did very well thank you).

Plain and simple. What the OP has brought forward means nothing.

You can take my word for and call it a night... or you can read on. My suggeston lies with the latter.

The phenomenon you're seeing here is the result of somethiing called INTERPOLATION. There are various kinds off interpolation but here are the basics:

Many digital scanners, cameras and photo editing programs automatically use interpolation to resize images.

I don't have enough points to post pictures, but I've found some examples.

This sample was enlarged without using any interpolation. Notice the jagged pixel edges.


This sample was interpolated.


Interpolation is used to create higher quality enlarged digital images.

All digital images are made up of pixels, the more pixels the higher the quality of the image. (I won't go into DPI, LPI etc. etc. This simple explanation covers it)

If you resize and image from 800 x 600 pixels to 1078 x 768 pixels without interpolation the now giant pixels will be obvious resulting in a poor quality image. So the computer uses interpolation. It measures the colour of each of the 8 pixels that touch it's centre pixel and calculates the correct colour to fill the newly created pizels that result from enlarging the image. The rsult is a better quality large image, however... it is not ideal and leaves many articles as seen on the images the OP supplied.

PS. All the above aside, anyone with a good understanding of photoshop could create a birth certificate in digital format very eadily without leaving any articles.

So if you're suggesting the image was altered, I'd imagine the Obama lot would have an expert do it... AKA no articles anyway.

Hope this clears everything up.

Any questions plaease don't hesistate to ask.

hey, now thats at least 2 people in this thread with a lick of sense ^^^^ and knowledge about actual photoshop usage and image manipulation.

if this image was posted on the web anywhere, you can bet yourself dimes to donuts that its in 72dpi, which is standard. a lot of scans are 300dpi or better.. that's going to artifact like crazy right there. going from the amount of contrast difference between teh ink and background, it'll artifact even more because of the compression

oh and to clear up another myth, if someone wanted to cover up a name, they most likely WOULD copy a swatch of background and cover up the name before putting a new name over it. why? Photo shop uses LAYERS which you can turn on and off layer by layer. if you actually knew THING ONE about digital image manipulation especially photoshop, you would know this, so heres an idea, how about most of you reactionaries and so called experts who can't even conceive of this notion in your head stop talking out of your anal sphincters for once, ok? good thanks.

Oi...

I have decided to handle this in a rational manner.



DEBATE CHALLENGE

To Jamie83 or JetxNet...

Debate Challenge Page

I will be posting this in all threads related to this particular topic.



Coven

reply to post by CaptGizmo


Thank You! You've said what I've been wondering about all along. Why is a CoB significant? The number was maybe blacked out because it's the number of the document, not the person. We make records of everything. Even receipts have serial numbers on them.
Also, I always believed a president had to be born in the US, not a naturalized citizen.
The problem is, we don't know anything much about Obama and that makes me nervous. What I've learned about McCain is unpleasant even tho' he's a VN vet which I do appreciate.
As a result of all the confusion, I won't be voting, I'm not informed enough.

Here's a link to the scan of the entire certificate.

Obama Birth Certificate

NOTICE THIS: All of the letters -- except for the date which is clearly backwards and ink bleed-through from being stamped on the other side -- LOOK EXCATLY THE SAME. SAME HALO. SAME PIXELIZATION.

Why are we staring at his name letters and not seeing all of the letters? This image shows you everything. So are you saying the entire certificate was faked from scratch?

And the person who keeps talking about a Birth Certificate vs a Certificate of Birth doesn't know what he is talking about. Hospital-issued raised-seal birth certificates were discontinued quite some time ago. I have one, but I was born more than 40 years ago and I have my original (with a raised seal). If I get one from my birth County today, they give me EXACTLY what Obama has. You can't get the old style micro-fiched copies anymore.

Here in the US, this is a legal valid Birth Certificate. On the bottom it says: "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding. [HRS 338-13(b), 338-19]

Sheesh.

reply to post by jamie83


Looks like it is as fake as our currency!

Tell you what, scan in your birth cirtificate. After doing so, let's see if you get the "halo-like" pixilization of the letters on your CoB.

If you do, then case closed. If you don't, then ... "things that make you go
Hmmm .."

You can say this and that about pixilization until the Cows come home, fact is, the other scans introduced in this thread do not have it.

Also, i'm a leaving you with this link as to why Obama is not eligible to POTUS:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by jetxnet






This is so absurd..... How can you expect any one to even remotely trust a single analysis up make... when so many of them are so pathetically incorrect.

Why don't you prove that you can read, and read the bits where graphic artists explain exactly why you have been chasing fairies all week.

post by Spec01

Are we still arguing the point?

Perhaps my explanation is a little shaky.
There's this great website I know though! It can help!

try www.google.com and in the search bar you'll see type in interpolation and hit enter. Wait a short while (depends on your connection speed) and viola! A whole bunch of websites explaining it's meaning will apppear on screnn.
Give it a go and lets end this.

I consider myself an expert on the matter. More so than you :p

Even IF the Birth Certificate was forged, you wouldn't know it, simply because a real photoshop pro wouldn't leave evidence.

Remember this?
Previous thread on photo evidence



[edit on 19-6-2008 by Spec01]

Ok Mr. Expert show us a scan off the Internet with those same artifacts.

If you can show the exact same effect (as you claim is so common), then use Scroogle to find it.

It must be the "halo-like" pixilization of using another image layer over the original, not the washed out granulated color bleeding that is common at lower resolutions.



[edit on 19-6-2008 by jetxnet]