Did the Clinton Campaign Doctor Obama Footage to Make Him 'BLACKER'?

[populistdriven]

Tensions are running high in Democratic circles between the supporters of senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- and nowhere is that more evident than on the internet.

Some of the more explosive blog posts making the rounds today concern a charge from a couple of diarists on the Daily Kos that the Clinton campaign deliberately darkened Obama's skin color in a recent television ad.

~snip~

Yet the video below, and the screen grab above, is taken from the Clinton campaign's own footage of their ad posted on YouTube.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/did-the-clinton.html

UPDATE:

I did an experiment since my wife is a black person with yellowish hues that get distorted to appear orange in photography (common)
You can see its not simply makeup. It is an actual skin color that is well documented but gets exaggerated under artificial lighting. It is most common among blacks with some American Indian heritage.

here is a recent unedited of both of us (resized only)



here is one where I attempted to recreate the effect on the Hillary version of the Obama video



The Hillary campaign had to have adjusted the hue, saturation there is no other way for this to happen

[IndianaJones]

1. is this the oompa loompa conspiracy? nt.

[populistdriven]

2. No, only Republicans resort to such tactics, oh wait.... nt.

[IndianaJones]

4. smearing oompa loompas? nt.

[populistdriven]

10. This is a serious investigation, why do you have to resort to name calling? nt.

[IndianaJones]

15. Hillary removed his yellowish hue...what more is there to investigate? nt.

[populistdriven]

23. She denies making any changes. nt.

[IndianaJones]

its a conspiracy against oompa loompas. nt.

[populistdriven]

37. They also clearly widened it to make him appear more negroid nt.

[IndianaJones]

39. they gave him an afro too. nt.

[IndianaJones]

41. by the way...negroid - racist term...but you knew that. nt.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

44. "Blacker" Obama on Hillary Website, compare to normal Obama photo

Clinton campaign making Obama "blacker" by kos Wed Mar 05, 2008

Or maybe more Muslim? The sordid details are in this diary by Troutnut, but it can be distilled down to this



... the ad is right here at Clinton's campaign website, so the Clinton campaign is clearly lying.



More at the link

[populistdriven]

45. The use is not an insult, just discouraged, and certainly not racist when used in this context. nt

I think it is more descriptive than the term black when discussing ethnic features.

[IndianaJones]

46. I guess if negro is a term you still use...of or related to negros. yeah...nt.

[populistdriven]

53. I do not. nt.

[CJCRANE]

51. Not necessarily racist

but potentially offensive. However it's used in anthropology same as caucasoid and mongoloid (this is another which is potentially offensive due to its use in slang).

[Horse with no Name]

3. Why do you hate Black people?

You do realize how this can be perceived?
You do know the prejudices of the darker and lighter skinned black people?
I don't think it was doctored.
If anything...the first one looks ORANGE.
As far as I know...Obama isn't orange, is he?
And...floating around here somewhere is the truth that BOTH candidates looked dark in the video, not just Obama.
We used to care about the truth here.

[populistdriven]

11. He has a yellowish hue and Hillary removed it.

[MonkeyFunk]

5. That darker picture isn't the one

shown here yesterday.

What's going on?

[Saturday]

6. That is not the same picture. Look at his eyes. nt

[populistdriven]

27. It is the same, they widened his head to make him appear more Negroid

the background matches up exactly with the outline of his head

[Renew Deal]

7. This appears to be spreading.

We'll see where it goes.

[Catherine Vincent]

8. You Obama supporters are such idiots to believe HRC would do something like that.

[MercutioATC]

9. Right. Because she NEVER uses underhanded tactics...

:eyes:

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

76. Exactly! I wouldn't put ANYTHING past Hillary, Democratic Party be damned.

[populistdriven]

17. Why do you have to make insults. This is a serious accustion. nt.

[NMMatt]

21. Give me a break

After surrogates alluding to his supposed "crack dealing" days several times
After Hillary dissing MLK
After Bill calling him the "Black Candidate" and saying his candidacy is a "Fairy tail"
After releasing images of him in traditional African outfits
After their campaign being tied to the Obama is a Muslim emails
After Hillary herself winking and nodding to the Obama is Muslim charges but refusing to unequivocally say he wasn't
After their campaign denying that they originated the picture (without actually denying the fact that it was doctored) but dailykos showing that it came directly from their website
And after several people have demonstrated that her winning margin in Ohio came from the racist vote

You'd have to be an idiot to believe that her campaign wasn't based on just below the surface racism. When most Democrats saw Rovian tactics we were disgusted, the Clintons took notes.

[populistdriven]

26. And yet DU'rs have the gall to threaten us with TombStoning if we insist we will not vote for her nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

79. That would be fine by me. Nothing could compel me to even consider voting for Hillary, EVER! . . .

Hillary is treating Obama like he's her Rethuglian opponent. So what if he gets roughed up to the point he loses to McPain. No doubt, Hillary sees it as another opportunity to run again in 2012. It's a no lose situation as far as Hillary is concerned.

Wouldn't it be nice if our candidates looked out for the good of the party and not themselves. There were several condidates with considerably more experience than Hillary who could have justified staying in the race and beaten up on her the way she's doing to Obama. They dropped out for the good of the party, something Hillary couldn't care less about.

[DuaneBidoux]

59. To me this is only several notches down from where she has already played.

The fear based commercial with the little girl and the red phone reminds me of the little girl and the exploding atom bomb of Johnson.

And if you want to find a democrat that played dirty look up Johnson.

Sorry, I already see things that I know she did that were dirty enough.

[parasim]

12. Well, it's obvious that somebody doctored it.

Not only darkened, but it looks like they upped the contrast and stretched it a bit horizontally as well. Anybody thinking otherwise just doesn't want to believe it.

I'm not suggesting that they did it to make him "scarier" or anything, I'm just saying that it has been doctored for whatever reason.

I'm also not saying that the campaign did it on purpose or had malicious intent, but they did lie about it when they said that the video that was on Kos was not their video, when the exact same video is on Hillary's website.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

13. -

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. Opposing candidates are always desaturated in political ads. Always. Like 100%

Sometimes the "bad" guy is B&W

Sometimes merely desaturated somewhat.

Usually with the luminosity turned down and the contrast turned up.

The "other guy" is usually grainier too.

And sometimes the "other guy" is in slow motion.

I have never seen a negative political ad that didn't follow those rules.

If your suggestion is that we need new rules for Obama in speciffic... good luck.

[populistdriven]

18. As you see from my experiment, desaturating is not enough, you have to drop the yellow.

I can send you a high resolution original of my photo if you would like to do your own experiment.

[Usrename]

48. So you think there is nothing sinister going on here.

I just want to know if you see the same thing as me. Instead of looking mixed-race like he really looks, the doctored pictures look to me like they altered them to remove any hint of caucasian features. The widening is enough to slightly widen the nose and other facial features. That together with the color change... do you see what the rest of us see?

Just wondering about if what you see is what we see. Forget about questioning how it occured, for the moment. Is that what you see, or do you see something entirely different?

[populistdriven]

56. yes but I think you have a different frame for each nt.

[Usrename]

82. They are all from different posts that I read, by different people.

But you do see what we are talking about, right.

[Texas Hill Country]

16. Occams Razor... prolly just a crappy quality jpeg.

[populistdriven]

22. Try it yourself with my high quality original

It is impossible to do this just by adjusting saturation

I can send you a high resolution original of my photo if you would like to do your own experiment.

And if you think its the camera I can show you amazing quality photos taken with same camera. You can even extract the exif info to prove its the same if you like.

[jsmirman]

24. Yes, "prolly" (ugh) a whole bunch of black voters got lost

on their way to the polls in Florida in 2000 because they're stupid. Yeah, right. But hey, Occam's Razor it!!!

We clearly don't know what the true story is behind this, but are you listening to what you are saying in your attempt to dismiss this out of hand?

Do you realize what the logical extension is of what you're promoting?

[Abacus]

29. um, no. Crappy quality jpeg exhibit artifacts, not saturation changes. /nt

[Texas Hill Country]

33. screen cap from crappy tv then... why always shoot straight to the conspiracy?

[populistdriven]

35. this is a reasonable course of inquiry and graphics professionals see this every day nt.

[Abacus]

49. Have a look yourself

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/145.aspx

[gravity]

19. I wouldn't say that Hillary is personally responsible but

Don't you think the person editing the commercial, who had easy control over sizing and color of the image, would use that to their advantage.

[New Dawn]

20. The Clinton campaign was trying to appeal to racist voters

There is really no other explanation why they would intentionally do this.

[populistdriven]

25. This is the only conclusion we can make until they admit to the change and offer an explaination nt

[DuaneBidoux]

62. Well we know Republicans have been voting for Obama. Hard to miss the motive.

[TexasLady]

28. you guys are a good looking couple!

:hi:

[populistdriven]

31. Thanks! We have some cute kids too!

'img521.imageshack.us/img521/9189/img3821lr1.jpg'

[eleny]

30. I just tried it and came fairly close

To see if the darker image is wider I did the following:
First I copied and pasted the pictures on top of one another.
Then I changed the Transparency of the top image so I could see through it to the bottom photo
I lined them up along the left side of his face as you look at the picture
The faces would not line up on the right. The darker image is wider than the other.

Then I took the lighter image and tried to arrive at the darker complexion
First I lowered the color Saturation level
Then I tweaked the Brightness & Contrast
My quick 5 minute experiment is close to the darker image - or at least shows how to get there.

[populistdriven]

34. close, theirs is slightly wider with less yellow nt.

[eleny]

42. Yes, I showed how it's wider

The picture on the far left is where I put one picture on top of the other and made the top one transparent. You can see the blur on the right side of the face. The darker image is wider. They definitely tweaked the width.

The middle image is my result going from the lighter original to a darker image. It only took the right combination of tweaks. If I had tweaked the brightness/contrast setting a bit more I think I could have gotten them exactly alike.

Our monitors are different so you and I probably don't see the images exactly the same colors. But there's no doubt in my mind that the original photo was widened and darkened.

[sandnsea]

32. I do graphics work too

the excuses made by the Clinton supporters were laughable. Professionals do not make these kinds of mistakes and that's all there is to it. If the skin tone is significantly wrong, it's on purpose.

[Avalux]

36. It's not just skin tone - his face looks wider and his features have been darkened.

Look at the eybrows.

[populistdriven]

40. Excellent point - It looks almost as if Obama applied some of that Spray on Hair to his forehead.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

38. great looking couple!

congrats you look great together.

[goodgd_yall]

43. I don't know why some Obama supporters want to make this an issue

Don't you realize it opens you up to being called racists yourselves?

[populistdriven]

47. Only to Republicans who use Straussian tactics nt.

[DrFunkenstein]

50. Its Not Like Anyone in Ohio Said That Race Was a Factor in Voting

n/t.

[zanne]

65. Exactly. Let's not kid ourselves. Some racists will vote for Hillary. nt

As I read on an earlier post today, 20% of white people said that Obama's race was a factor in their vote for Hillary. I don't know what gives Ohio the right to be racist, but I guess some people don't need a reason.

[populistdriven]

74. Clinton and her campaign clearly think that upping Obama's black appearance helps them. nt.

[zanne]

81. In some parts of the country, it probably does. nt

[populistdriven]

85. then she should admit it instead of lying about it nt.

if she wants to take advantage of racist voters then she should be called on it.

[RememberWellstone]

52. OMG! Obama is black?

Thank you for pointing that out,,,I had no idea.

[populistdriven]

57. No he is White. See here is a pic of his mom

[CJCRANE]

What if it was the other way round?

What if Obama had tampered with footage of Hillary?

[RememberWellstone]

63. And made her black?

Then she would'nt be losing 85% of the black vote in this primary...brilliant idea! Do it!

[populistdriven]

67. Clinton is clearly using Racism to her advantage

If anything Obama was accused of not 'being black enough' before the primaries.

[TK421]

54. Has anyone else noticed that there are other things darker in the second

picture, such as the background, his suit, and also that tie? Or have I completely lost it?

[populistdriven]

60. Yes, the entire field was edited in several ways. nt.

[CJCRANE]

61. Obviously it was easier just to darken the whole image nt

[eleny]

64. That's true and also why it's so obvious that someone tweaked it

They could have selected his head and just tweaked it. But they wanted to make it wider and they were probably too lazy to work on it. Whoever tweaked it considered us viewers to be idiots who wouldn't notice such things as you pointed out.

[zulchzulu]

55. I make my living doing video production and there is no way that...

...the video was NOT tampered with using a darkening filter. I've seen Hillbot apologists saying that it's like print or whatever...no, my friends...that is a very intentional production move to darken his face as well as widen it.

Why would anyone want to darken Obama's face in a phony swiftboating attack ad? Gee, I wonder why....

:shrug:

[DuaneBidoux]

58. She'll be able to make McCain look decrepit instead of merely ancient.

I admit that I have very mixed feelings about this. Here and there there are little things emerging that suggest Clinton will do anything to win regardless. But then I say to myself "isn't our refusal to ever nominate a dirty fighter why we keep getting our asses creamed?"

I'm not sure Obama would hit back at McCain for using tactics that would surely make this look mild--but Hillary? I think she may well be able to play with the dirtiest of them.

At this point I hate to say it, but I want to win, and if we need to nominate someone as nasty as a Republican then we should do it.

[Laelth]

86. That is one of the best arguments I've heard ...

... in favor of nominating Hillary in a loooong time.

I continue to favor Obama because I believe his coattails will be substantially longer if he's elected, but you have advanced a reasonable, and rational argument.

I too want a Democrat to win, first and foremost.

:toast:

-Laelth

[Bread and Circus]

66. I watched both videos at the link and I'm 100% positive Clinton's team doctored the video

[Mike03]

68. The processor simply adjusted the contrast to improve the image, IMO.

It makes the image richer looking. I do this all the time before printing out photos.

[populistdriven]

69. Then take my hi res photo and try to do the same, The Yellow was lowered and it was widened.

The Yellow was lowered. Saturation was lowered. The Contrast was upped but that will not selectively remove yellow or make his eyebrows thicker or his entire face wider.

[anigbrowl]

71. FOR THE LAST TIME!!!

Sorry Bushmeat, nothing personal...but I've gotten tired of debunking this. And please note that I'm an Obama supporter.

Pro video cameras do not use square pixels, and neither does professional editing software. Usually it's irrelevant because the pixels will get squeezed from square back to rectangular when you output to tape after editing your tv program or film. However, if you're importing from photoshop or something then images can wind up looking too narrow.

So you can put a filter on them in Photoshop before exporting to widen the image by a particular ratio to overcome this. However, newer versions of FCP (and most other video editing packages) take account of this problem and automatically widen the image when importing it. It's easy to end up applying the same process twice: once before export from Photoshop, once on import to FCP. The same thing happens with other parameters like IRE and so on, which is why amateur video productions often look all wrong on TV.

I've done it by mistake a bunch of times and had to redigitise the footage in some cases. I'm a professional. I know all three of the most popular professional video packages - Avid, Final Cut, PRemiere Pro. This is an easy mistake to make.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_ps_stills_to_fcp.html

In short: it's 99% likely that this is an accident, something that was overlooked in a hurry. No conspiracy.

[populistdriven]

72. funny, none of the other footage in that commercial suffered the same 'accident' and the hue, yellow

saturation, eyebrows all accidents?

[anigbrowl]

75. No, it's not funny

That's the only piece of footage recorded off the debate and captured as a still of Obama. Having 20 different pieces of media, bringing them all in with the same settings and screwing one of them up which should have been processed differently is not that uncommon. Pretty much every project I've ever worked on has had some tiny post-production fuckup that needs to be corrected. The shorter the deadline, the liklier it is that it slips past.

Meantime the whole thing has been color-corrected and desaturated to look blue and have higher contrast, except for the warm tones in the shot picture of Hillary (which I pointed out last week in a discussion of the semantics). It's kind of ham fisted, but I don't think it makes Obama stand out because the treatment of his image is about the same as the rest. In the time you waste trying to explain to people why the image could possibly send a subliminal signal about Obama they've already started associating Obama with conspiracy theorists and basement obsessives.

Give it a rest already...unless it starts to become a consistent feature of her campaign commercials, the pragmatic conclusion is that it's an accident. I'm on Obama's side, and I think this is the biggest waste of bandwidth in the last 10 days. There are more important things to worry about.

You want to get annoyed? Get annoyed about this, shot in at Hillary's victory party last night in Columbus, OH: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4389768

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

70. I will say this only ONCE, so please be alert. The screen cap is taken from a source that is

I will say this only ONCE, so please be alert. The screen cap is taken from a source that is stretched to widescreen.

It is a 1:1.33 normal TV format ad that was posted on the web in widescreen format to look classier.

The screen-capture of "wide Obama" was taken from this link:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/145.aspx


Ecerything is wider. Even the periods in the text are stretched into tiny ovals.

That is not the original ad. The ad was made at 1:1.33.


I am amazed that someone was dishonest enough to take a screen-cap of an entire image stretched to wide screen and cut out Obama's face to complain that it was broader.

Hard to imagine that was an honest mistake.

I tend to note whether something is wide-screen or full-frame, myself... particularly when I'm about to accuse someone of racism based on it.

YOU HAVE ALL BEEN HAD BY A VERY BAD, OR VERY DUMB PERSON POSTING AT DAILY KOS

[populistdriven]

73. The hue, yellow-saturation, eyebrows all accidents? nt.

[anigbrowl]

78. GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY!

This isn't the fucking Zapruder film...it's a disposable campaign commercial that was probably done in a rush. I've explained a simple and common reason why things like that happen. If you were at my house I could sit you down and show you footage that was supposed to look one way and came out looking another, or where something that looked fine on a monitor looked weird on the TV, even though that effect was never intended. The shorter your deadline, the higher the chances of something going amiss.

It is not that big a deal. You make the Obama campaign look stupid by obsessing over it. If it consistently turns up in MORE Hillary commercials, THEN you'll have a good point. One single commercial doesn't mean shit. Meantime, you look like a tinfoil hat wearer.

Please, move on and deal with something substantive.

[populistdriven]

84. i am not part of the Obama campaign, hillary has consistently used race against Obama

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

80. Addressing only the "wideness" issue, just to take that aspect off the table.

As for the de-saturation and increased contrast, that's standard in negative political ads.

The question of whether what has been done to every white candidate who has ever had a negative ad run against him is inappropriate if the candidate is black is a complicated question.

I will say, though, that thousands of white men's faces have been desaturated and contrast-increased in political ads, and it wasn't to make them look black.

It was to make them look unappealing.

I leave it to others to say whether it is an outrage for a black candidate to be made to look unappealing, absent clearly racial motivation.

(If this was down to Clinton and Edwards, Edwards would have been less saturated and higher contrast also.)

[populistdriven]

83. the yellow was specifically lowered, the face was widened, the eyebrows darkened

[Major Hogwash]

77. Of course Hillary's campaign did it, as far as I know.

Of course, she will say she didn't know a thing about it, that it was done by someone she never heard of before, and then will act as innocent as Mary about it.