Knowing if a photo is edited is a simple but sometimes cumbersome process, this can be done through some websites and special applications for it. With some dedication, a detailed analysis of an image is achieved to find out if it has filters or is edited or modified.
If you want to learn how to identify the editing of a photo or image, here we will basically explain what you should do. We will also talk to you about the usefulness of knowing if a photo is edited, or modified in some way, keep reading.
Basic ways to identify edited photos or images
On many occasions, we have images that do not need much analysis to know if they are modified or not. For this, we will give you some brief advice on what we have to inspect, these being the aspects where editing is most noticeable in a photograph. These are:
look at the little details
As obvious as it may seem, it is at this point where those who edit images fall. It can be something as simple as a window with a reflection that is not it, English signs on a photo of Japan, etc. On many occasions these small details escape, allowing us to see these editions.
Know the source of the image
Another important point that we must take into account is to confirm where the photograph comes from. This filter is mandatory in news media, either to give credit to the photographer or to know if he is reliable. When we find photos on social networks, we are not one hundred percent sure that they are true.
So it’s best to turn to journalists and photographers in the field, who have a reputation for authenticity to maintain as well as being professional, so they don’t want to edit any of your photos.
Do an analysis with professional tools
Ultimately, if we do not see anything suspicious at a glance, we have to resort to tools that do a deeper analysis of the edition. These analyze aspects and elements that would be impossible for us to detect.
Tricks to identify montages in photos with Photoshop
Photoshop is a visual editing tool developed by Adobe Systems. This is used for graphic design and photo editing. When using Photoshop, the modifications are made from scratch, and there are common ‘mistakes’ among those who use the application to make their montages. Here are some tips for identifying edits in Photoshop.
Identify curved surfaces
Surfaces that have curves are a point where montages made in Photoshop fall. When modifying any element in the application, making curves can be especially complex, sometimes being strange if you look closely. It may not be noticeable with the naked eye, but when zooming in on curved surfaces, the clipped pixels reveal the assembly.
Analyze shadows and highlights
Another of those complicated aspects to modify with Photoshop are the shadows and lights. This difficulty is due to the different perspectives where there can be lights, modifying each of the objects that receive light, also creating shadows that must be replicated in the most natural way possible.
So, since we know that shadows and lights are especially complex to edit well, where do we start? What we have to look at is all the objects that can reflect shadows, trying to find one that is artificial, identify where the light comes from and how it affects them.
Do a metadata check
Metadata is, in a nutshell, the data that is generated on the data, giving a description of it, its characteristics, and its history of changes and creation. This last characteristic is the one that interests us, since we know the modifications that the image had and what type they were.
Tools to discover if a photo is modified
Previously, we saw how we can manually identify the montages that a photo may have, but if we want to go further, there is a group of tools that can help us with this task. We will mention some of the best that exist, giving a brief summary of how photomontages are identified.
Archive.IS
Archive.IS or better known as the Internet Archive, is a non-profit platform that is responsible for storing all the content of the internet, with an immense amount of information deposited on the internet.
Now how can we use it to know if a photo is modified? Using this platform, we will be able to check if the photograph has been used on other websites or if it has been previously identified as a montage. Also checking where it comes from.
TinEye.com
Developed by Ideé Inc. TinEye is an image search engine, with which we can introduce the image that we think is a montage, seeing similar results where elements have probably been copied and pasted, confirming that it is not real.
ImgOPS.com
With ImageOPS, in addition to searching for images, we have other functions that we can use to find out everything about a photograph. In the case of knowing if it is a photo montage or not, we have the category of ‘hidden data’ or hidden data, where the date of when it was taken, the location where it was captured, are reflected, in addition to showing us if it has any indication of editing .
findexif.com
Finally, we find Findexif.com, which allows us to know metadata in photos, facilitating the task of knowing if a photograph is real or a montage.
Tools and programs to detect fake photos
As the days go by and the advancement of technology, we have more and more applications, one of these being the ones that detect fake photos. Previously we mentioned some of the best, since talking about all the existing ones would take us forever.
However, it may happen that we have problems with the previous ones we are talking about, so we will mention a couple more, being an excellent alternative to the others. Such as Imageedited.com and Fotoforensics.
How to use a Photoshop detector and detect filters on a photo
Photoshop is a program widely used in photo editing, either to add a filter or edit the photo with a montage. To detect it we have very simple applications to use.
In most they only require that we drag them to their search tray and confirm, having the diagnosis in a few seconds. This procedure is basic for everything related to images, without the need to do anything else.
How to know if a photo or image has filters?
Photo editing ranges from an occupation or profession to the hobby of many people, most of the photos you can see have a high probability of being a victim of editing. It is in fact a hobby for many people, who have fun adding the best filters.
There are different applications that exist to edit a photo, modify it or put a filter on it, and there are several that allow a user to see if a photo or image is edited.
To find out if a photo has filters or is edited, there are some applications and web pages that work with metadata, or with a simple filter identification system. One of them is ImgOps, which can do amazing things for photo edit identification.
Even if a photo or image is edited by a professional, with this application you will be able to easily detect if there was a modification; It is especially used to identify the filters that have been used, based on information (metadata) that certain photos have.
With it, you may find any filter applied, no matter how subtle, and it works for anyone. For example, it works for Instagram and Photoshop filters in an effective way.
How to know if a photo or image is edited or modified?
Knowing if a photo is edited is most of the time a very simple process, however, it can be tedious when using imprecise tools for it.
However, here we will talk about web pages that serve as very precise tools, and with them you can identify if there is any type of editing in the image or photo that you want.
A tool for this is JPEGsnoop, which is perhaps the best known in all this. To use these tools you don’t need to make any type of registration, you just have to go to the page with the URL of the image you want to scan, in order to search for any edition in it.
With the URL, you are going to paste into the search bar of this page; Once this is done, you will have to wait a few seconds while the search engine does its thing.
What we previously recommend is that you take the image to a JPG format, so that the search process is faster due to the size of the image in question.
JPEGsnoop will show you each of the possible parts of that photo that have suffered an effect or any edition that has been applied to it, and it does so with a certain description, explaining if a type of filter or contrast was used.
What is the use of knowing if a photo or image has filters or is edited or modified?
And in this way, you can find several applications or websites that help you detect possible editions in any photo you find.
Because of this, you may be wondering why there are so many applications, because there are others that you can get, such as: Findexif.com and Fotoforensics, and they serve the same way, even providing more information when scanning a photo or image.
This is done so as not to be victims of plagiarism, or tabloid pages or newspapers, manipulators who often edit photos in order to deceive about things that may be happening.
With this type of tools you can search for the defects of a photo, as well as find some part or pixels of the photo that can give you valuable information.
They are used to detect if a photo was uploaded at a certain place and time, and to see if a photo or image is intended to be hidden.
