Photo Manipulation: Software to Unmask Tampering

Abstract

In the Internet era, digital images are extensively produced, shared, and used as an information sharing method. Media are commonly used in unlimited forms: i.e. human communications, social networks, medical records, evidence into a court of law. In many cases, people need to trust digital images, for example an investigative journalist in needs of using a digital image as source. The wide availability of professional digital image editing software allows people to easily manipulate images to show fake contents, in such a way that may lead to misinformation, financial or human lives’ losses. In digital image forensics, image authentication verifies the originality of an image by detecting malicious manipulation. We present what image authentication is and why people should care about it; furthermore, we classify and discuss modern digital image authentication approaches, techniques, and tools.