Like me you’ve probably seen on the internet pictures of people carrying signs with objectionable comments on them. Typical would be anti-American signs carried by Muslim jihadists, or Tea-Party demonstrators carrying signs with swastikas on them. Such pictures could be legitimate, but they easily could be manipulated to convey contrary messages. Below is a sample of how simply such a transformation can be accomplished. I changed the picture below in about 30 minutes. It shows an Occupy Wall Street demonstrator with “before” and “after” signs. The original picture is on the left. My manipulation is on the right. I am not a Photoshop maven. This change (admittedly amateurish) was done using an old version of Appleworks Paint. A practiced computer artist could eliminate virtually all signs of manipulation. (This, by the way, is basically what experts have said was done to create President Obama’s putative long-form birth certificate.) Like everything on the internet, especially when it is related to politics, pictures must be carefully scrutinized.
Manipulated Demonstration Poster
TheMiddleofSomewhere 