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Identifying Manipulated Images

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the check-that-out dept.

Jamie found a cool story at MIT Tech Review. (As an aside, it sits behind an interstitial ad AND on 2 pages: normally I reject websites that do that, but it's a slow news day, so I'm letting it through.) Essentially, software is used to analyze light patterns in still photographs. Once you can figure out where the light sources are, it becomes a lot easier to determine if an image has been photoshopped.

8 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Steganography by unbug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does it also apply to steganography? Would sort of suck if it did.

  2. Goes both ways by Nerdposeur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and then the photoshoppers will write evolutionary algorithms to modify their photographs until they pass evaluation by this tool.

  3. Adds a step for the photoshoppers by crowemojo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One would think that it would be simple enough, after finishing whatever touch-ups that you want to perform, that you use this technique to calculate where the light sources should be, and then correct the minute details that would give it away as an altered image. Sounds like the kind of thing that would be a simple photoshop plugin actually, once you are all done you just run the "make undetectable from light source detection analysis" tool and call it a day.

  4. Re:Limited utillity by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Moreover, it is well known that photoshop is a standard and commonly used tool for professional studio photography anyway. I think the tool purpose is limited to check that a "genuine" photography used to prove a crime or the existence of UFO/Bigfoot is not a blatant fake.

  5. Re:Good by dotancohen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's why I say "to gimp a photo" rather than say "to photoshop a photo". It spreads awareness, breaks the Adobe monopoly, and sounds more natural. Even Adobe discourages the use of "photoshop" as a verb.

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  6. Re:Good by m.ducharme · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even Adobe discourages the use of "photoshop" as a verb. You know why, right? If they let "photoshop" be corrupted in the language as a verb, they would eventually lose the trademark rights to the name. Eventually, companies would be able to get away with naming their software "MS Photoshopping Program" or "Gimp Photoshop Utility" or whatever, and Adobe wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

    Are you sure now, that you want to discourage people from using "photoshop" as a verb?
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  7. "photoshopped"? by Lxy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When did "photoshop" become a verb?

    This post has been gimped by the gimper

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  8. Re:Detector == Quality Control by xquark · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If they can automate the detection then they can as easily automate the circumvention.

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