[xkcd.com]

The pixels, of course.

Temoto

totally the pixels... my wife gets Oprah magazine (suppress laughter) and she's edited on almost every cover, BIG time. Mostly Photoshop liquefy tool which you can totally see just look at the items that had to be stretched to make her appear more thin.

drsphincter

Isn't this from Scientific American Magazine.

georgexu316

One easy way to tell it's photoshopped: the letters "NSFW" appear near it...

But seriously, it's not too hard to figure out most of the time. Liquefy touch ups are pretty distinct...

eboula

@drsphincter: I do an enormous amount of digital retouching and it has gotten to the point where I can't even look at magazines without spending more time "reverse engineering" their Photoshop techniques than actually reading the articles.

Jason Fitzpatrick

@georgexu316: Does the big Scientific American logo on the top of the linked article give it away?

Dirk

Here is my Photoshop story and the reason I started to use the program. I used to work for a magazine in New York City, which shall remain nameless, in the marketing department but I during first year there I used to wonder over to creative services occasionally to see what was going on. One day I was in the creative director's office when one of his minions comes in with a mock-up of the upcoming magazine's cover with creative edits written all over it. It was a picture of Dolly Parton and I was stunned at the work that was being done to the image. Everything from whitening the eyes, enlarging the eyes, whitening the teeth, removing wrinkles from around the eyes (of course!), the neck, and the wrists. Manipulation of lightening and the suggestions when on and on. The thing is she didn't look too bad in the picture; however, when I saw the final image after proofing I was stunned how good--and different--the photo looked looked in comparison to the original I had seen. I thought wow this is like magic.

After that I was hooked on Photoshop and have happily been "enhancing" my images ever since, though I am not a professional designer, just a hobbyist. I always refer to any work I do to a photo as "enhancing," as I just think it sounds nicer--same with plastic surgery, it's just enhancement work:) I keep to mostly basic edits, but even with the basics you would be surprised what well-placed sharpening on the eyes and lips contrasted with a little blur to balance out the skin tone can do for someone. Give the image a nice pop when someone looks it over, and is that so bad?

As for finding Photoshop edits like lightening issues and eye direction, which is indeed a dead give away, is basic 102 stuff that you learn to check for when making edits because you know that even an amateur will feel the image is off even if they can't place what it is. If a designer has some experience under their belt it shouldn't be too easy to pick out most of the Photoshop work. I have a friend who is a professional designer and he spends a good amount of time make sure there is continuity in the image and it everything flows well.

Finally, I have to say that I always get a kick out of the line of shadowing around between womens' breasts to give their cleavage a kick. Too me it always looks so obvious, not matter how subtle the attempt. Check it out next time you are waiting on line at the grocery store. Cheers!

captainsky

@Dirk:

That logo looks sorta Photoshopped.

Deprong Mori

From a Spooks episode: you look at the shadows and the lines where the hair meets the background.

Prolific Programmer

@theartist: Oops beat me to it

MadModderX

This was a pretty entertaining site that a friend stumbled upon while looking for pictures: [photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com]

MadModderX

I'm a Photoshop professional and one thing I've been noticing is that there are a lot people using the App. who don't really know how to use it or aren't artists- which helps a lot!!!

Wandered across this really funny site, might have been from here!?!?
[photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com]

theartist

@captainsky: "Finally, I have to say that I always get a kick out of the line of shadowing around between womens' breasts to give their cleavage a kick. Too me it always looks so obvious, not matter how subtle the attempt. Check it out next time you are waiting on line at the grocery store."

I tried this and ended up getting slapped three or four times before I realised you were talking about checking out magazine covers. Might be worth clarifying that next time.

tossrStu

Great site! This one's my favorite:

VayaConQueso

i like to split to channel and scope for pattern discontinuities

DaoKaioshin

Look for things that shouldn't be, look for pixelation (require zooming in)

Internet-TV

*looks at his own pic* if it were full-size anyway, it's easy to see that its Photoshopped >.> lol. Brown hair to blue, ears darkened, coat changed to white and given a gold/yellow trim, and my screename slapped on for good measure.

But! Down to business :3 As mentioned by people above me,
1) Pixelation and/or artifacts
2) Odd lighting/shading
3) Poor blending (sharp jagged lines/edges, not enough blur/smoothing out)
-plus-
4) A picture you've seen before and now you see the 'fingerprints' of MS Paint all over it (im looking at you, majority of people on Deviant Art <.< lol )

Aibyouka-kun

A guy called John Graham-Cumming has written an algorithm in C (based on a white paper by a Jessica Fridrich) which compares pixels with pixels in an image which can highlight where the Photoshop Clone tool has been used. You can read about it and download the source code HERE.

His original motivation? To win an Aston Martin in a newspaper 'spot the ball' competition (where the soccer ball is photographically hidden and the readers have to guess where it is in the photograph).

He didn't win the car but the program is cool, ey?

Also check HERE to see the program highlighting the cloned parts of those famous Reuters pictures that journalist Adnan Hajj got in trouble for.

da5id_nz

I look for eye highlight irregularities. Hair is hard to shop as well, without a lot of time and effort and many times theres a good tell right there, as there could be irregular highlights or original background colors. Obviously, irregular highlights or shadows are a dead giveaway as well.

Lazarus

@captainsky
I found your story about Dolly Parton sad, not inspiring. Perhaps if we put pictures on the covers of magazine that were of actual women and not some marketer's idea of a woman we wouldn't have so much insecurity, anorexia and generally unhealthy attitudes about beauty.
The Dove Evolution ad comes to mind:

+ Watch video

tpaine54

@tossrStu LOL. Yes, I should have mentioned I was talking about magazine covers. Will I ever learn?

@tpaine54 - Hey I couldn't agree with you more. The media industry pushes images of both men and women that are totally unrealistic. I am including men too because I think guys, myself perhaps, can become a bit insecure if they don't have a chiseled chin, cutting-sharp cheekbones, and piercing eyes.
To further illustrate your point about creating unrealistic images in the media for women is the fact that my friend had a friend who worked at Playboy magazine's creative service department. When you are working with Dolly who is in her 50s you expect that some Photoshop work is needed, but the stuff I was told they did to these young, hot women, women who are already pretty good looking, was amazing. Reshaping breasts, slimming hips, puckering lips, and the list goes on. So, yeah, the media is really f*cking with our minds. But some facts should tell girls or women that these models are not the norm. The average female model's height is 5'11" and under 120 pounds. How many women do you know that even come close to that height? Not many I would guess, because the average height of an American women is 5'4", so you can see that there is definitely going to be some body image problems.

captainsky

I've read that if you switch a photo to negative mode you can often see where edits have been made. I haven't actually tried this though.

Brett

Check out this site, which has a great little java app that shows you exactly where changes have been made to an image. detouch.org

"Drawing photographs from existing online portfolio sites of professional re-touch artists, this application allows a user to explore precisely how the images were altered."

charlie13

There are more retouches out there than you can imagine. There probably isn't a single image that comes out of our office that isn't retouched, although hopefully you can't tell... our goal is to make them as transparent as possible. The photo above is an obviously bad retouch, but sometimes you are given bad source material to put together. A good mantra for Photoshopping images from multiple sources is that you have to match the worst photo, cuz you generally can't make them better.

crustyjoe

@tossrStu: "...Check it out next time you are waiting on line at the grocery store."

I tried this and ended up getting slapped three or four times before I realised you were talking about checking out magazine covers.

That, sir, was awesome! +1 to TossrStu for a comment I was definitely not expecting. :)

Honkycat

i did this quick n dirty after that katie couric thing went down.
[www.kirksheltonart.com]

kirksucks

As a graphic artist graduate, here's some tips to tell the real ones from the fakes:

A) If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

B) No person's skin is perfect, most photos of people in magazines have blemishes and such removed just like one can have removed for high school pictures.

C) Along with the lighting technique in the post, look at the proportions of each character and object in the photo, even the slightest difference to what one knows from real-life could mean a fake!

D) Most of all, use common sense. Building from point C: start taking note of how objects, backgrounds (such as clouds), and people look like in real life. Recall those notes when looking at photographs and you'll start to see how easy it is to spot a bad fake.

ddthesm

Enlightening tips da5id_nz.

I myself am a Photoshop newbie so I just use the clone stamp tool in conjunction with the liquify and blur radius tools, so it'd be pretty easy to identify any *enhancements* I've made.

PoseidonFreak

Yes, shadows and light temperature are an easy tip-off, but I am constantly surprised to see "professional" photography in top magazines with those repeated rubber stamp tool regions around touch-ups. You know, repeated swaths of the same pixels over and over. Newer versions of Photoshop have made it easier to clone and "heal" without being so obvious, but it still happens.

SubhujaNestor

Angle of the feet (if they're shown). Very rarely matching with the floor.

Also, highlight colors. I'm less good at approximating direction, but I notice slight color differences easily.

Also, the edge of the manipulated object usually just doesn't quite mesh - the edge is sharper or blurrier than most of the edges in the picture, whether because one photo was better, or the cut one was cut too close.

Shadows. Do the new people even have shadows underneath them (sometimes)? Do those shadows extend to, say, other people in the picture (much less so)?

dunvi

I can tell by those pixels, and I've seen a lot of shops.

eLindemann