How to know if a picture has been photoshopped

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Observation, critical thinking and a couple of special services will help you.

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 photodogs catch your eye after they have been saved and cut down many times, and it is much more difficult to recognize a deception in such a picture.

Inspect the photo

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.

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 of the men in the photo are increasing their muscles, while the women are increasing 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.

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 out 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 allegedly from the site of a recent event, 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.

• Google Image Search →
• Search by image in Yandex →
• Search by image in TinEye →

View image metadata

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 save information about its version and the operating system in which the retouching was performed in the image metadata.

However, 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 aid.

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, too, you can see 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 in the noise in the picture, but it is worth trying.

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 online Forensically tool. Open it, load the image you want, 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.

Forensically →

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.