In this month’s Popular Science, Steve Casimiro wrestles with the implications of widespread photoshoppery on our culture. Fakes abound. I’ve been known to swap a head or two in my day. I would estimate that roughly 50% of Americans know it’s possible, 20% know how they’re around and can recognize an obvious fake, and 1-2% can pull one off themselves and spot the sneaky ones. My ‘Fishing with George’ shot, took about 20 minutes. It’s crude but you get the point. (View the source images here, here and here.) As the original image (also altered) demonstrates, it’s a powerful vehicle for Swiftian satire, whether we propose eating Irish babies, wish to imply guilt by association, or imagine the future. The article reviews some technologies designed to spot frauds, but all the solutions mentioned require some sort of tagging of the original image or high resolutions, neither of which is likely in cases in which controversy arises. All in all, no convincing solutions, raising the specter of some day watching courts refuse to allow digital photographs as evidence for fear of not being able to identify modifications.
Read the article, “Can Photos Be Trusted?“
