Software To Authenticate Paintings

eldavojohn writes, "There's a new software tool out and about called Authentic which analyzes paintings to determine if they are indeed authentic works of the artist. If you don't think this is a serious problem to tackle, some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake. From the article: 'By dividing 145 digitized paintings into pixels and analyzing the colors of each and how they compared with nearby pixels, the system was able to spot patterns unique to the painter. The software also showed Van Gogh's use of complementary colors (PDF) increased during his most active period from 1885 to 1890, according to the study published in Pattern Recognition Letters... In tests, Authentic performed as well as 15 human volunteers who were each given a small segment of a painting to study.' I've heard of many tools that analyze texts to verify the author but this is an extra dimension and a new frontier for pattern recognition. Tacking on another dimension, how much longer until we are able to analyze video in the same way?"

Comments

Weally?

[suv4x4]

If you don't think this is a serious problem to tackle, some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake.

What if I *still* don't think this is a serious problem?

The value of those pictures is a pure bubble anyway, if you can willingly give a $10k or so for a mere painting and it looks real to you, maybe it doesn't matter if it's fake. Better not tell you otherwise.

While not obvious at first site, there's a very tight relation to the "authenticity" of paintings (and antiquated things as a whole), and... digital piracy.

In both cases we're talking about things that can't cover their announced value just for what they are. Instead you're told they own some sort of authenticity, and thus cost X dollars.

In both cases you can make much cheaper copies (or free copies) so abuse will always happen, unless we wisen up and stop paying for "star power", and artificially limited supplies.