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Here's a great discussion on Spit and Image, or Spitting Image, from Slate.com

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/31/spit-and-image.aspx

"Spit and Image"
Posted Thursday, March 31, 2011 4:41 PM | By Juliet Lapidos

In my "Completeist" article on Woody Allen (I've seen all of his movies, and have lived to tell the tale), I write in the introductory paragraph that he has a tendency to recycle character types, including "the neurotic Jewish New Yorker (the filmmaker's spit and image)." My use of spit and image provoked a lot of comments. Here's one example from someone calling him/herself Inspyrd1: "SPIT AND IMAGE? C'mon, Juliet Lapidos. It's "SPITTING IMAGE." Tell your iPad to behave itself. And be advised that if you're going to opine, it's best to proofread. Thanks."

Well, thanks, but "be advised" that spit and image is perfectly correct! As this site explains, spit and image is actually the original phrase, used since around 1825, and spitting image is a later variant.

And here's The Straight Dope take on the origins of spitting/spit and image:

The term "spittin' image" is a shortening of the original "spit and image," which means that you are both the stuff that your parents are made of (the spit) and you look like them, too (the image). There are many folk etymologies (fanciful stories made up to explain the usage), but this is the only one that has any basis in fact. Webster's says that one of the older uses dispenses with the image, as in "You are the very spit of your father," i.e., he might just have spit you out.

At this point, so many people say spitting image that either usage is acceptable. (I'm no prescriptivist.) But I prefer spit and image because it makes more sense to me. What's a "spitting image," anyway?

I'll close with a plea to commenters, which I know will be ignored: Before you correct something you see in an article, make absolutely sure that you're right, and the author's wrong. A simple Google search will usually do the trick.

He he... that's not me... that's all the article. I take my Google searches with a grain of salt

For a long time I had thought, and probably not as the only person in the world either, that it was 'splitting image.'

But I may be forgiven because 'splitting' seems so logical, so meaningful ! Even after long having been well disabused, I still feel tempted to wage a fight for 'splitting.'