Any way to reverse 'photoshopping' to expose the real pics?

Pretty good! Thanks.

This one is more difficult:


They say Focus Magic can unfocus it... but I tried and it can't.

I am afraid that i do not hae photoshop nor focus magic to hand. so i cant be certain of FM's ability to focus that image, using iris on this could be tricky because it lacks the single dot/circle to use as a reference to the ammount of bluring in the photo.

This might not be exactly on topic, though relates to identifying manipulated images which is close to the subject here and others might be interested.

Took me a bit of time to remember where I was reading about it but finally dawned on me it was a post on slashdot.org (read comments, some are interesting):

Identifying Manipulated Images

Original article comes from the Technology Review:

TR: Identifying Manipulated Images

Also of interest might be JPEG Snoop:

JPEG Dump Decoding Utility

Detecting "photoshopped" images manipulated with the clone tool:

Detecting Forged Photos Algorithmically
Proof of concept with source code

Light source analysis:

Research paper by Neal Krawetz from Blackhat conference
Compression Analysis tool source code
Article from Wired with links to paper and code and al Qaeda sample images

...this should be enough links for some "easy" late night reading

[edit on 18-3-2008 by amigo]

I have these two images taken with the same camera (but without any EXIF data because of Paint Shop Pro) that I have used before to see if anyone can say which one of those was altered in any way.

Image 1
Image 2

If anyone can find a tool or a trick that shows what was changed in one of these images (and because I know what I changed) then it will be a good way of knowing if it may work on other images.

As for recovering what was there before, as already said, it is impossible.

reply to post by amigo


Amigo, how do I compile the source file? I've tried using Dev-C++, and it didn't work. Is the program for windows? If not, can it be compiled for windows?

reply to post by ArMaP


Without having much time to check these photos out and just looking at them in firefox (with zoom)

I think I have found some issues with it.

Image1
Something looks a bit funny/blurry near the mousemat near the top right

Image2
Seems there is something thats been removed under the white switch - possibly words

Something odd with the top edge of the machine too...looks a bit wobbly and has a reflection in that im not sure is a tile (maybe it was a cup on the top?)

maybe I shall get time tonight to have a proper look at them, but till then I have to go build a fence

there is no way to do this because once a pixel has been recorded over another it is impossible to go back on. think of it like a canvas and where you didn't want shown you ripped off and plastered on another image. no matter how hard you tried you can't reverse it. along with blur outs, unless you can actually see the image well and can identify it you can't. if i saw a license plate with box numbers to where it was just 4 pixles each they would either be black or green. so each of those 4 pixles would be hard to decipher because it would kinda just be guessing on what the image actually looked like and probably make a mistake. so no no program for what your asking for because it's impossible to do, you might see this kind of stuff in tv like image enhancers where you cant even see the plate of the car but they just run the image through a program and can read it perfectly... Sorry but no that can't happen the computer would have just made up numbers, the reality that had the pic taken is real but the photo isn't..

never insult NASA like that, who cares if they did use airbrush they still kept us from seeing what they wanted to hide. so really they did a great job. and if they took a pic of an alien city they woudn't even post the picture they would keep it and study it to prevent the public from becoming mad. what if there is life on all other planets and NASA is just hiding it. i'm fine with that because i don't need to know about it, i am not on a need to know basis. like everybody seems to think they are, and if there were aliens on mars what good would it do to release that kinda info to the public? to further our understanding of the universe? or would it just cause a ton of panic, fear, excitement and curiosity. because then people would start making # up about it so nasa would like to get to know what it is, Threat or Not before they release that kinda info to the world.

then there are all these people online that just want to be right about something and become like an internet star, well trashing NASA doesn't do that. anybody that denies this is unwilling to accept the facts, idk why