If you are going to call someone an idiot, then learn proper grammar

[LynneSin]

[Deep13]

1. "its"

:banghead:

These people are really lowering the bar for idiots.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. I'm of the opinion that 70% of these signs everyone posts are 'shopped.

Most signs, held by any protesters, would be easy to modify. I've modified a few myself!
Plus, each one of theese I've seen is grainy or low res hiding any refuting evidence that it was modified.

For example, I could fix that picture in about 45seconds using MSpaint. It's not difficult to change signs.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. You give wayyyyy too much credit to these nit wits.

If you have actual PROOF these are shopped I would love to see it.

Let's start with the OP.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

7. Which of these pictures are real/fake?

Remember, there is certainly motive and means to 'shopping a pic of the opposition. It's really no different than taking quotes out of context or misquoting someone altogether. I think you are giving wayyyyy too much credit to the altruistic intentions of your teammates.

Also, I simply stated it was my OPINION that most are edited. "It's" and "its" is commonly misused so I find such a sign like the OP posted to be entirely within the realm of likelihood. I was speaking of most of these images in general; I don't really think it's a matter of "prove this"... I'm absolutely sure some of them are. I think the real question is how often is this done.

For funsies, without googling or outside assistance, which photo(s) below are edited?

[Qutzupalotl]

9. The one in the upper right looks real.

(on edit: "Real" meaning least altered, in this case.)

The one in the upper left is very similar, but some pixels below the final letter have been repeated from under the E.

In the lower left image, the N in Amnesty looks like it was copied from the first letter, then smudged down and up to disguise the shape, but the lower left pixels on both Ns look nearly identical to me.

I think the L in Extremey was removed in the lower right image, since some of the surrounding pixels are repeated.

But your point stands that it is not always possible to tell what has been done to an image. For one thing, all this sleuthing I just did can only point to likelihoods: for instance, it's possible that two photographed N's could get represented identically in pixels, it's just "extremey" unlikely. When a JPEG gets opened in an editor and re-saved, degradation occurs, and this can get compounded when an image is widely distributed (i.e., saved over and over), and that seems to have happened here. Usually we only have one image to look at, which makes spotting alterations that much harder. And of course, an expert *could* accurately take into account perspective distortion, lighting, blurring, etc., but fortunately not many fakers are experts. Some are, though; so sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can't.

Fellow could've used another N in his top line, bless his heart.

[slampoet]

11. Anything without the "N" you pasted in from the first line.

Photoshop is not hard to detect. I saw yours with just the zoom feature on the Mac OS.

The reason these signs are to be believed is due to the source photographers and also due to the fact that there are other photos in the reel that show the same sign from different angles and/or at a different time of day.

[Fumesucker]

4. Go take a look at some of their web posts..

Screwed up grammar and spelling is not all that uncommon here on DU, it's totally out of control on places like Free Republic.

Edited to add: Not to mention you have a spelling error in your own post.

[uncle ray]

5. those are just trolls.

there really are no freepers, just thousands of liberal trolls all trying to out stupid each other posing as ignorant freeps.

and sarah palin is just a figment of our collective imaginations.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. there's a difference between a typo and a spelling mistake...

Typing a double letter or hitting an adjacent key is a product of a slip up in dexterity, or typing too quickly. The outright misspelling of a handwritten sign is what I was addressing. There is a higher degree of carelessness when taking time to make something by hand and overlooking some of the mistakes we se in these prized viral pics of freeper signs. I think it's much more logical that a fair number of these gems are conjured up using photo editing programs.

[Fumesucker]

8. These signs exhibit a lot of the same mistakes I see here in posts on DU..

The one on the sign in the OP is quite common here, I see it practically every day, "it's" where "its" is the correct spelling.

I've seen large commercial billboards with the signs on them misspelled, Americans by and large are atrocious spellers.

I even saw a permanent NY state DOT sign misspelled once, it was supposed to be "Throg's Neck Thruway" and it was spelled "Throg's Neck Thurway".

[slampoet]

10. "And this mustache PROVES I'm not Gay, very not gay....

....really."