Friday, November 16, 2012

How to check if picture photoshopped real or fake?


So I came across 4 pictures that look like they have "ghosts" in them, immediately I want to find out if they are photoshopped or edited in anyway, shape or form.

Original pictures I was given, told they are "unedited" and "right from the camera"






First step: check the metadata.
Looking at the above pictures (download original) you can see that the sizes are extremly small. Which is first suspicious part since most modern cameras have at least 1mb in size. But overlooking this data we can open the properties of the file:
A place where you would have information about which type of camera took this pictures, but sure there's some that might exclude this information.

Second step: find tools to analyse the photo.
First tool I found was web based online tool at www.pskiller.com:
As you can see it indicates that color balance is adjusted and there is no make/model information.
But I want to be sure so I keep looking.

Second tool I found is called jpeg-snoop:
This is probably the best proof so far, there is clear indication that adobe has left a mark on this picture.

The third tool is called Error level analysis but was discontinued "After two years, this image forensics analysis service has been turned off." so I found a secondary site hosting this: 29a.ch/sandbox/2012/imageerrorlevelanalysis/:
I'll be honest, I really don't know much about how this part works so this is not very meaningful to me but hopefully with a little more knowledge (or some expertise) this tool is probably very useful.

Finally: use common sense.
After we analyse it's pretty clear that the pictures are not original photos from a camera of any type. I know that the best experts could fool us pretty easy but these guys were sloppy enough to leave us clues and evidence that this is not real.

Personally I never believed the supernatural but I like to think of myself as very open minded and if there's good proof out there I will reassess my beliefs.
I was critical as soon as I got word of these pictures but I carried out the investigation as it would be anything else and the proof is in the pudding.

------------
What do you think of these pictures? do you have any images you would like me to analyse?
Do you believe in supernatural entities (like poltergeist)?

Put your thoughts in the comments below.