A blog about sharpening. How to find out if a photo was edited in Photoshop or in another editor How to find out if a photo was edited in Photoshop

Today, we all have to deal with a lot of rumors, fake news and fake photos - professional media often participate in their dissemination, inadvertently misleading readers. In this article, we will look at 13 services that will help you install Photoshop or not, and find the author of the photo.

This article was written for journalists, but will be useful to anyone who wants to find the original source of the photo or just try to check if it is a fake or a real photo.

The Internet, on the one hand, increases the amount of false information (first of all, we are talking about data taken from social networks), and on the other hand, it provides many digital tools for verifying it.

With the help of several online tools, you can verify the authenticity of a photo, "extract" as much data from them as possible and find more information about a human.

13 services for authenticating images

Findexif.com is a free service where you can upload a photo or give a link to it - it will determine the EXIF ​​data (information, when the photo was taken, what device, image parameters, for some photos you can also determine the location of the shooting).

Foto Forensics is a website that can do error level analysis (ELA), that is, find areas that have been “drawn in” on an image or inserted into it while editing. After processing, the program generates a photo, where the edited fragments will stand out against the background of others. In addition, the program will also provide EXIF ​​data for the photo.

Google Search by Image- reverse image search, you can upload a photo here to find its original source and see where else it was published.

TinEye is another reverse lookup tool.

JPEGSnoop - a program that is installed on a computer (works only for Windows), also allows you to view metadata not only of images, but also of AVI, DNG, PDF, THM formats. The program can be used for many purposes, for example, it allows you to see if an image has been edited, to identify errors in a damaged file, etc.

How to check the original source of the image

The most obvious and usually most effective way to do this is to contact the person who uploaded the photo or sent it to the editor and ask if the person took the photo himself. It is also imperative to search for a photo through a reverse image search. Google also shows similar images, which sometimes helps you see if the photo has been edited. Link to photo in high resolution, as a rule, is the primary source.

2. Check the identity itself.

It is necessary to verify the very person who disseminates the information. In order to gather more information about her, there are several different resources, and although most of them are created for residents of the United States, there are some that will be useful for different countries... For example, Pipl.com is designed to search for a user's "Internet footprint", help identify him, find photographs. The program searches all American social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace) - for this you need to enter the first and last name in Latin letters. The peculiarity of the program is that it searches on the "deep Internet" (deepWeb), which is ignored by conventional search engines and is inaccessible to users.

If you think that the photo in front of you has been edited, try the methods given - from simple to complex.

Please note that there is no one-size-fits-all method to tell the difference between a photomontage and a real shot. An experienced photo shopper can bypass any method and make the fake look incredibly realistic. In addition, often photo toads come across your eyes after they have been saved and cut down many times, and it is much more difficult to recognize a deception in such a picture.

Pay attention to the following points.

1. Unrealistic picture

The most rude fakes can be distinguished without any tools - observation is enough. Just look at the picture as a whole. If it's a group of people, count how many arms and legs they have and make sure all limbs have masters.

The ladies on the right and in the center have something with their hands, the limbs literally disappear. But the happy father has a lot of hands on the left, on the contrary.

Estimate the proportions of the bodies and heads of people in the photo: often inexperienced fotogabers insert other people's faces into pictures too carelessly.

2. Deformed background

When a beginner photographer changes the shape and size of an object in a photo, the distortion can affect the background as well. For example, some men in the photo enlarge theirs, and women enlarge their breasts and hips.

However, if there are straight lines, walls, doorways next to the object being changed, then they are also often deformed. And it immediately catches the eye. For example, here is a whole gallery of pictures of these athletes: these guys are really scary.

3. Absence of pores and wrinkles on the face

Even the most ideal skin on closer inspection is not at all smooth: it has wrinkles, moles, pores and blemishes. Therefore, if the face in the photo resembles the face of a porcelain doll or a model from a video game, this is a montage before you.

4. Traces of cloning in the picture

The easiest way to remove something from a picture is to use the Clone Stamp feature in Photoshop or some other image editor. The tool copies areas of the photo that are close to the processed area and uses them to blur unwanted objects.

Inexperienced photoshoppers abuse this function, as a result of which absolutely identical pieces appear in the picture, which are striking.

5. Problems with shadows and lights

Pay attention to light and shadow. Make sure all objects are casting shadows in the right direction. See if, on the contrary, there are unattended shadows in the picture. And if there are any, it means that some object was removed from the picture, but the retoucher forgot about the shadow.

Also check the light. If two people or objects in the photo are lit differently, as if each has its own light source, then the photo has been edited.

Look for the original picture

Just upload the picture to a search engine and try to find similar images. If your photo is photoshopped, chances are that you will be able to locate the original and see what exactly was retouched.

In addition, it is useful to look at the dates of the appearance of the image on the Web - this can also be found using search engines. If you see a snapshot supposedly from a location, but there are identical photos dated the last month, it is obvious that they are trying to deceive you.

You can use Google, Yandex or a specialized search engine TinEye. And it is better to look both there and there - for reliability.

This is a very simple, although not the most reliable way. Open the EXIF ​​metadata of your image and view it. You can do this in the file properties: right-click on it in Windows Explorer or Finder in macOS.

If you're lucky, you will be able to see the camera model, the date of the photo, and the date the image was edited. There is a little more confidence in pictures that have fields with the camera model and shooting time filled in.

When an image is corrected in Photoshop or another editor, the application can store its version information in the image metadata and operating system in which the.

True, this way you can only catch an inexperienced retoucher, because EXIF ​​data is easy to edit. In addition, if the photographer simply tweaked the brightness, colors and contrast, but did not change anything else, the metadata will still indicate that the image has been photoshopped.

Make color correction

Some fakes are not made so crudely that they can be recognized with the naked eye. And in this case, any graphic editor or image viewer that allows you to carry out color correction will come to your rescue.

In Windows, you can use FastStone Image Viewer to explore photos. Open an image in it and click "Colors" → "Color Correction".

On macOS, the built-in Viewer. Click Tools → Adjust Color ....

Play with the sliders and you may notice some details in the photo that are not immediately apparent.

• Tweak the brightness and contrast. Dark areas become brighter and bright areas darker. This will allow you to see artifacts and splices in the photo.
• Increase the saturation level. So, you can also notice in the photo the borders of the gluing next to the objects added with the help of montage.
• Increase the sharpness. You might find what you were trying to hide with the Blur tool in blurred areas.
• Pay the colors. In FastStone Image Viewer, click Colors → Negative. In macOS Preview, use Tools → Adjust Color ... and drag the sliders on the histogram so that the right is on the left and the left is on the right. Inverting the colors in the image will help you see blurred areas against a solid background.

Analyze the noise in your photo

This is a more complex method. It is unlikely that a beginner will be able to recognize the first time what is wrong with the noise in the picture, but it's worth a try.

Real photographs, due to imperfections in photographic equipment, always have a fairly high level of noise. Graphic editors practically do not create it. Thus, by examining the noise in the picture, you can identify the inserted object.

To do this, use the Forensically online tool. Open it, load the desired image, and then select the Noise Analysis tab on the right. You can turn the sliders back and forth to change the sensitivity. Alien objects will stand out against the general background.

But keep in mind that this method can be deceived. So, if the Photoshop manually adds noise to the fake, it will be much more difficult to distinguish extraneous elements.

Analyze the error rate

Error Level Analysis, that is, error level analysis, is a method that allows you to detect artifacts when one image is superimposed on another. Looking at the image through the ELA filter, you will see that the corrected areas appear whiter than the rest. If the photo has not been edited, then it looks uniform: no area will be darker or lighter.

Forensically supports this method as well. To investigate a suspicious image through the ELA filter, upload it to the service and select the Error Level Analysis item on the right.

However, if the photo has been re-saved or resized many times, the editing traces will be blurred and ELA will not help you find them.

Today, we all have to deal with a lot of rumors, fake news and fake photos - professional media often participate in their dissemination, inadvertently misleading readers. In this article, we will look at 13 services that will help you install Photoshop or not, and find the author of the photo.

This article was written for journalists, but will be useful to anyone who wants to find the original source of the photo or just try to check if it is a fake or a real photo.

The Internet, on the one hand, increases the amount of false information (first of all, we are talking about data taken from social networks), and on the other hand, it provides many digital tools for verifying it.

With the help of several online tools, you can verify the authenticity of a photo, extract as much data from them as possible, and find more information about a person.

13 services for authenticating images

3. The next step in verifying the photo should be to confirm the location, date and approximate time when the photo was taken. It is easier to ask the author himself or ask him to take other pictures of this place - if he is available for communication. Next, check the initial data using the above programs. Journalists who are well versed in digital photography, the numerous options provided by this program will be understood. For the rest, the more necessary information is the time, place of shooting, camera. If the metadata is not available, you need to carefully examine the image: car numbers, weather conditions, landscape, clothing style, advertisements, buildings, shops - these details will help determine the area, and sometimes become evidence of a fake.

There is one more seemingly obvious point in checking the photo - confirmation that the photo really depicts what it is claimed to be. After all, it may be real, but the description will not correspond to reality. For example, during Hurricane Sandy, the following photo was circulated on Twitter:

It depicts, as if during a storm, three soldiers are standing at the memorial to the unknown soldier. But in fact, the photo was taken a month earlier - a reverse image search helped establish this.

To understand the locations will help Google maps or Wikimapia(crowdsourced version of GoogleMaps). Useful site Panoramio- here you can place photos, indicating their geographic coordinates (the site is integrated with Google maps).

Geofeedia- tool "curator social networks»That aggregates results not by keywords or hashtags, but by location you specify. The service processes messages from Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, Instagram and Picasa, sent using GPS, and then presents them in the form of a collage. The service is paid, only a demo version is free.

Another way to check the photo is to see what weather conditions were in the declared location on a specific day. This is where the search engine comes in handy. Wolfram alpha... It is worth talking about this tool in more detail - it is not even a search engine, but a knowledge base with a scientific bias. An intelligent robot that can answer a variety of questions. But he is guided only by topics related to accurate, encyclopedic information, not current events. It does not provide links to other sites, but gives a ready-made answer. You need to work with Wolfram Alpha in English.

Wolfram Alpha is not only intended for checking the weather, it can be useful both in the daily work of a journalist and for entertainment.

Let's say a photograph is open in front of you. How can you determine if it has been edited, for example, in a Photoshop program?

In general, there are some signs that can be noticed if you look closely at the photo. If you are an erudite person, you know, or simply have deductive thinking, then most likely you will be able to draw the correct conclusion.

But if you don't want to waste your time on this at all, you can use online service — imageedited.com... This site analyzes the photo and, based on its algorithms, shows how likely it is that the photo has been modified in a photo editor. Let's do an experiment.

I recently photographed my cats. Uploading a snapshot for analysis. To do this, click on the button Analyze File, an explorer window will open, in which you need to specify which photo should be checked.

Now you need to wait until the photo is uploaded and some time will pass, during which the service will analyze it. The more the photo weighs, the longer you will have to wait. Here is my result: Maybe not.

Well, the answer is correct, the photo has really not been processed either in Photoshop or anywhere else.

And now I will resize the image, make it smaller so that it weighs less. Checking ... Result: "Yes".

Look at the report, it indicates that direct traces (tags) were found Adobe photoshop, and even from them it is safe to say which version of the program left these traces.

So, let's say I changed that photo not in Photoshop, but, for example, in standard Paint. And still, look, although I'm not so sure anymore, the service tells us: "Probably".

In this case, the algorithm based its assumption on the analysis of the photograph.

How it works

This service is shareware. All users have access to only basic methods of photo analysis. The authors, however, claim that they can unleash a flurry of all kinds of tests and comprehensively deeply evaluate the file with the photo. But this is for a fee. But, as we can see, he copes with his task without it.

So how does photo analysis work?

Any image contains a certain amount (title, author, camera description, creation date, keywords and many others). So, when editing a photo, some data may be erased or, on the contrary, added. Comparing them with the standard set of metadata, we can conclude about the likelihood of photo changes. In addition to this data, the image has certain color profiles. Some programs can change them, which is also subject to analysis.

In addition, any image is a container of pixels. Editing an image is primarily about changing the color of pixels. With the help of certain decryption algorithms, it is possible to establish the fact of the appearance of non-native pixels.

If you are seriously interested in this topic, check out the work on Image Forgery Detection.

If you spot an error in the text, select it and press Ctrl + Enter. Thanks!

Believe in our time absolutely no one. Even if the most convincing photographs are offered in support. More recently, we told you how you can use simple techniques to increase the length of your legs or reduce your waist. And when Photoshop intervenes, you can depict anything in the picture. Therefore, everything needs to be checked, literally everything. You will learn how to do this in this article.

By the way, for one thing, I would like to advise you to purchase the Canon MP250 multifunctional device - this is a high-quality and reliable device for any printing tasks. Which can not only print, but also make copies, scan. It will come in handy anywhere: at home and in the office, for amateurs who print a lot of pictures and for users who work with texts more often.

Visual inspection

Today, graphic editors are used everywhere for image processing, whether it be amateur photographs from your mobile phone or high quality illustrations of fashion magazines. But it's one thing when software are used to adjust lighting, brightness or contrast and correct small errors, and it is quite another matter when new objects are inserted into the photo, the background completely changes, the shape and location of the main objects are corrected. Here, in fact, we can already talk about creating a photo fake.

However, even the most skilled photographers do not always manage to deceive nature. Very often, focusing on one aspect, for example, on reducing the model's waist, they completely lose sight of other details and forget to draw a hand in place or wipe excess folds on the dress. Judging by how many of these blunders get into print, even in highly respected and fashionable publications, such oversights are found everywhere. Therefore, the first step in analyzing the reliability of a photograph should abstract from its artistic features and the beauty of the model and focus on small minor details.

• Count how many arms and legs are in the picture. Do they all have their own owners? Is it possible in real life to take a similar position without dislocating the limbs?
• Pay attention to the hair and objects around it. For beginner falsifiers, this is a rather difficult object, so this is where you can find a lot of interesting things.
• Estimate the size and shape of the objects in the photo. Often, a change in the shape of one object or person leads to disturbances in the proportions of other parts, which, although not striking, are noticeable upon close examination. For example, in the photo below, due to the editing of the girl's figure, the line on the wall also became slightly crooked.

Pay close attention to the shadows. This is a stumbling block, even for seasoned editors, because it is very difficult to restore the natural play of light and shadow. Here it is necessary to show special care, since sometimes nature throws us completely implausible pictures, which, however, have not been subjected to any processing. For example, famous photo from the moon with "absent" shadow from the flag.

Software

In addition to a keen eye and common sense, there are other ways to study the authenticity of photographs. Below you will find several web applications that will help you get additional information about a photo and, based on this, make a conclusion about its authenticity.

Retrieves all metadata stored in a snapshot. You can find out when the photo was taken, under what conditions, on which camera. In some cases, you can also find out the location of the shooting.

A very useful site that can indirectly determine which objects in the image have been added or edited. It works on the Error level analysis (ELA) technology, which gives pretty convincing results.

This service analyzes the image you uploaded by many parameters, including from the point of view of the reliability of the metadata, the presence of traces of illumination correction, the correspondence of artifacts in different parts of the image, and so on - a total of six tests. As a result, a certificate of authenticity of the photograph is issued, which determines the degree of its originality.

A specialized site that deals with reverse image searches. That is, it finds all the pictures that are exactly the same or very similar to the one you downloaded. This will help you determine if the image you are examining is original or by a different author under different circumstances. Image search from Google is no less useful in this sense.