Identifying Manipulated Images 162
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.
Steganography (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Steganography (Score:5, Funny)
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Most image steganography isn't that great, though, and steganography by a well-known means of cleartext data is fairly pointless.
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Detector == Quality Control (Score:5, Interesting)
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So use the new tool, determine the light sources and then add the correct light sources to you well rendered CGI model. Then the tool says it is "OK" and untampered with? Looks like a Photoshop plugin could be developed to check for this, and then maintain consistency. Just what we need. Better photo counterfeits!
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Re:Detector == Quality Control (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not sure what you mean about heuristics not being guaranteed to finish. A heuristic is just a quick-and-dirty approx
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It's easy to check a crypto signature but hard to generate it (if given only the public key).
I'm not saying there are any similarities between this and public key crypto, but just because you can check something easily, doesn't mean you can generate something that passes the check easily.
Everything is photo-shopped! (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm sure there is an xkcd strip to cover this eventuality....
I'm sure its in here [xkcd.com] somewhere
Expert User Required (Score:1, Insightful)
So basically, if you want an image to be doctored, you use one set of values. If you want an image to be genuine, you use another set of values. Maybe somebody else's requirements differ from mine, but this is not the kind of flexibility I want in a tool that is supposed to tell me if an image has been altered or not.
For an example of a better tool, see this article [slashdot.org] from Slashdot in
Re:Expert User Required (Score:5, Informative)
So basically, if you want an image to be doctored, you use one set of values. If you want an image to be genuine, you use another set of values. Maybe somebody else's requirements differ from mine, but this is not the kind of flexibility I want in a tool that is supposed to tell me if an image has been altered or not.
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It is if you get to pick the parts of the image.
I can tell... (Score:2, Funny)
No ads, all on one page (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=20423 [technologyreview.com]
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First time I hit the article (from the link in the summary) it loaded fine. Clicked your link and I got an ad with the "skip this ad" link (although the ad wasn't there because of AdBlock) then it took me to the main article across two pages.
Looks like those damned evil news people don't want us to avoid their adverts.
Re:No ads, all on one page (Score:4, Informative)
The link works fine if, instead of clicking on it, you cut-n-paste it into a new browser tab. Here's what you get, if you can't be arsed to go to the trouble:
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Darn advertisers!
That should help (Score:2)
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My vids on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/zotzbro [youtube.com]
If you check the comments on the "UFO vs Paper plane test" you will see people talking of a real one.
Perhaps on some of the paper plane instruction vids too. If you watch those, as the camera pans in one of them, after the construction and before the flight test, you can see what the "UFO" really is.
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
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Not sure, it feels better there. My dad was the same way iirc.
Supposedly, I was ambi as a kid until pre-school made me go righty.
I water ski like a lefty. I wind a top like a lefty but spin it from my right hand. I have a stronger kick from my left foot but am more accurate with my right... And a number of other oddities...
Unless I am a photoshop creation... wwnns
Re:That should help (Score:5, Informative)
As one of my instructors used to say, "I don't know what I like but I know what art is."
-mcgrew
Colombo did this on his 1970's TV show (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not sure which episode it was. Peter Falk as Det. Lt. Colombo
Found the episode (Score:4, Informative)
Uh Oh (Score:5, Funny)
Goes both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the same codebase, in fact (Score:2)
Re:Goes both ways (Score:4, Funny)
weak (Score:4, Interesting)
this method is way better
Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's Image Doctoring [slashdot.org]
way better? (Score:2, Interesting)
Revision history: This code has been stripped out of imgana by Hacker Factor Solutions. (Imgana does much more than quality analysis, but that's all that is being released right now.)
Said program by Hacker Factor is also mentioned in TFA as a more basic approach to checking whether or not an image has been manipulated. I'll leave you to judge what this means.
As an unrelated sidenote, Hacker Factor features a very interesting javascript that guesses the gender [hackerfactor.com] of the author of a block of text (>300 words). Thus far, I've found it to be eerily accurate.
I found it eerily inaccurate (Score:2)
I threw a bunch of random samplings of English text from Project Gutenberg at it. It claims almost everyone is male.
-- Terry
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Limited utillity (Score:3, Informative)
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Adds a step for the photoshoppers (Score:4, Insightful)
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If there's a plugin for helping me with that part of the struggle, I hereby scream to my fellow slashdott
Finding Photoshopped Pics for Fun (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, that's just the geek in me I guess, because I really do enjoy finding flaws in images. What I hate is an image that has a sort of surreal perfection to it that I know must be composited, but I can't find any smoking gun.
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Er... I mean... I just read the articles, but that's what a friend told me about the pictures.
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Not at small apertures (high F-stops) [wikipedia.org].
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Good (Score:1, Offtopic)
Yah, bad sarcasm, im just tired that "photoshop this" "photoshop that" like there would not be any other image manipulation software. I bet that over 50% Photoshop owners just has a warez version of it and 80% of photoshop users could do their things with any other s
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, now that I think about it, I kinda like it...
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I hope you don't have a runny nose or a paper cut, because you'd probably get upset if someone offered you a Kleenex or Bandaid. Unless those don't fit your agenda. All the pros are using MS Paint anyway.
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Do you also hang around the Epson at work explaining to people how they aren't really "xeroxing" anything?
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure now, that you want to discourage people from using "photoshop" as a verb?
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You photoshopped my comment!
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But you can bet Adobe is secretly pleased that almost every time someone mentions a manipulated image, their brand-awareness gets a small but definite boost. I know people who think that ONLY Photoshop can be used for such manipulation, in part thanks to this verbification.
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Also, Adobe's brand would be eroded, not marginally boosted, if there were actually a feature-for-feature competitor for it's product. Note how kleenex is such a generic term, because there is no real difference between a Kleenex, and any other brand of paper snot-wipes.
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Unfortunately trying to maintain a lost brand trademark by being the best in the field doesn't work, since most people buy cheapest regardless of quality.
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Photoshop & Verb (Score:2)
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Just "Google" it. It is a legitimate verb now.
"I bet that over 50% Photoshop owners just has a warez version of it and 80% of photoshop users could do their things with any other software"
And I bet there is a 100% chance you pulled those numbers from right out of yer ass. Thinking something doesn't automagically make it a fact. And haven't you ever seen the GIMP vs. Photoshop discussions like a million times on Slashdot before? If not let me cond
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In the business world, most copies are probably legitimate. Hobbyists and amateurs probably have bootleg copies (aside from the serious hobbyists who feel compelled to buy one), because Adobe prices it as a business tool. Plain old Photoshop CS3 is US$650 for the full version. "Extended" is US$999. If you want the whole Creative Suite, it ranges from US$1199 to US$2499. I do photography as a hobby, and my camera (a secondhand D70) cost less tha
Apollo (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Apollo (Score:5, Funny)
That must be why (Score:2, Funny)
Easily masked light sources (hint: they're everywhere!).
Well, there goes the pr0n industry... (Score:2)
strings (Score:2)
$ strings pic.jpg | grep -i photoshop
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anyione (Score:2)
speaking of which (Score:5, Interesting)
apparently this guy took some photos of some cannonballs in the crimean war that became famous as a poetic commentary on war. this documentary filmmaker, errol morris [wikipedia.org], has gone completely unhinged obsessive compulsive over whether or not the photos are fake and/ or manipulated. it's utterly fascinating, and a little weird, to see so much time and effort devoted to these photos. specifically, cannons and shadows. utterly esoteric and thorough. he also expands into the larger topic of the history of manipulated politically sensitive photos. makes for a good read, especially if you are interested in pre-photoshop image manipulation
check it out, talk about thorough [nytimes.com]
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http://scarydevil.com/~peter/images/Extra-balls-in-OFF.png [scarydevil.com]
http://scarydevil.com/~peter/images/OFF-plus-false-color.png [scarydevil.com]
http://scarydevil.com/~peter/images/ON-plus-false-color.png [scarydevil.com]
dude (Score:2)
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Also, the area appears to have been slightly muddy, and the cannonballs on the road show no sinkage, while those elsewhere do. Ergo, those on the road have been there less time than those in the d
Silver Button? (Score:2)
I'm assuming he was trying to say silver bullet. Do we blame the professor, or the journalist?
Analyze, not "analyize" (Score:2)
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Some other stuff (Score:2)
http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-08/Krawetz/Presentation/bh-dc-08-krawetz.pdf [blackhat.com]
Compresion analysis tool:
http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-08/Krawetz/Extra/jpegquality.c [blackhat.com]
"photoshopped"? (Score:3, Insightful)
This post has been gimped by the gimper
Re:"photoshopped"? (Score:4, Funny)
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Another good tool for detecting photoshopping (Score:3, Informative)
JPEGsnoop, by Calvin Hass
In very active development; suggestions and bug reports welcome. Free download from http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/jpeg-snoop.html [impulseadventure.com]
You read the links? (Score:2)
Sorry, Taco, I'm not buying it. This statement implies that Slashdot "editors" actually read the links in the submitted articles, or at least click on them. We all know from past experience that that's just not true.
Duh (Score:2)
Trust in your source is more important (Score:2)
Of course, we've heard stories about staffers at papers and magazines faking or 'enhancing' photos. If it happens with people ON STAFF, then why do news outlets take hand-out art from companies, foreign governments and other non-trusted sources?
For years, I have made my living as a freelance news photographer, and am a member in good standing with several professional organizations. Sure, I could still lie, doctor photos or submit work that isn't my own; but I have added incentive not to: I depend on b
...I can tell by some of the pixels (Score:2)
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I'd guess that modern printers and scanners would probably n
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