I wouldn’t know a cloning pattern if I saw one, but I’d be willing to bet someone else around might. Maybe even a Hillary supporter who is peeking in on this site... if they are, hey, we’re here to help! ;)
Seriously, if AP or Reuters were foolish enough to try that to boost the crowd numbers, it could backfire badly.
Here are a couple of places to start for cloning pattern detection:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=detecting+photoshop+cloning+patterns+
http://www.bountyfishing.com/blog/2007/06/19/photoshop-and-fishing-dont-go-hand-in-hand/
(Fish stories seem to go hand in hand with politics ;)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/14/business/photoshop.php
Anyone else know of any quick and dirty cloning detection routines? These pix are gonna have their maximum impact over the next day, so brew a pot of coffee and have at it!
I’d settle for a good hi-res version of the large crowd shot in the original post. I swear some of the people in the middle distance look smaller than the people in the far distance, which isn’t optically possible. Unless they’re all children in the middle of the crowd. Which I doubt.
Or maybe the image has been stepped on too much and everything’s pixelated all to hell.