Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo

[SloYerRoll]

A short but interesting read from Scientific American.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=5-ways-to-spot-a-fake&print=true

[jziegler]

Interesting article. Although, I found that it was a little odd that they seem to consider enhancing the contrast to be "doctoring" an image. It's interesting that they can detect the contrast enhancement, but I'm not sure that they should care about that. I doubt that many people would consider contrast enhancement to be doctoring like cloning and compositing is.

[frosty111]

i enhance a lot of my photos using paint shop pro
it really makes the picture stand out more

i wouldnt call it fake

its just what photographers do in digital dark rooms.
i mean thats what they do rite.

[DavidTO]

Great read!

Thanks for posting that, SLO!

[dbd]

Interesting article. Although, I found that it was a little odd that they seem to consider enhancing the contrast to be "doctoring" an image. It's interesting that they can detect the contrast enhancement, but I'm not sure that they should care about that. I doubt that many people would consider contrast enhancement to be doctoring like cloning and compositing is.
Doctoring begins as soon as you point the camera and exclude the parts of the image that don't fall on the sensor. Does it matter? It depends on the conclusions you wish to draw. The authors of the article have algorithms that determine the positions of the light sources that created the scene in an image. Contrast enhancenent can produce images where there is no place the light sources could have been and created the brightnesses displayed in the image, so their algorithm notices, so they care. Does it put people in the picture who were not there? No. Does it mislead a forensic analysis? Yes.

Are you taking your pictures for forensic analysis? If not, YMMV.

Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com

[Tango]

photos can be altered?:huh

[DavidTO]

photos can be altered?:huh


Good news for you, my friend! :deal




:hide

[Tango]

:rofl

[Nikolai]

He forgot to mention few more clues:
1) fringing/halo effect on the edges when a background is replaced
2) different DOF/focusing distance in different parts of a composed image
.. etc :-)