Detecting the “PS”

Photoshop has been around for a long time. February 19, 1990 to be exact. This means that people have been ‘photoshopping’ images for a long time as well. I’m think you’ve seen more ‘photoshopped’ images than you know. Sometimes, these are harmless little changes, like someone making their butt bigger, but other times these pictures can be incredibly harmful, ruining someone’s career. As someone who has spent almost half their life on the internet and has a few years of training in Photoshop, I have seen my fair share of these images and want to help others “detect the PS” and not be fooled the next time they see a picture with some features that don’t necessarily match up. 

The Basics

There’s a few basic things you should look out for when trying to tell if a picture you’re looking at is ‘photoshopped’.

Is the background warped in any way?

This is a common mistake most “beginner photoshoppers” make when trying to make something look bigger. Have you ever seen one of those pictures where someone’s standing in a doorway and the door frame looks kind of bent? What about someone standing in front of a fence and the gaps between the slats kind of curve around the person? It has been ‘photoshopped’. Most of the cases involving this are when someone’s trying to make a specific body part look larger using the liquefy tool and they don’t bother to look at how it has affected the background.

Are there any “bad edges”?

Take a look around the edges of objects that are at the center of attention in the image you’re studying. Are there any colors around the objects that don’t match up with the background? Do the edges look a little “funky” to you? Maybe sharp or jagged, or just a little too blurry? That means that the image is probably ‘photoshopped’.

Does it look like the same image over and over?

If you see something repeated that definitely shouldn’t be, it’s likely that whoever made the image just pasted the same image over and over again. Look for patterns that seem out of place and edges that don’t match up.

The Next Level

These are a few things that are a little more difficult to spot when you’re looking at an image.

Does the lighting look off?

If the lighting on someone’s abs doesn’t quite match the lighting on the rest of their body, this probably means they’re ‘photoshopped’. Watch out for shadows that don’t quite line up, or shadows that may seem a little stronger in one space than in the rest of the area. In that same vein, keep an eye out for highlights that don’t quite line up as well. This is one of the harder things to accomplish in Photoshop and is often looked over when an image is being inspected.

Is everything in the image in focus?

When you look at the image, are the foreground, mid-ground, and background all in sharp focus? If so, this means that it’s likely that two or more pictures were put together in order to make the image. This is more of an issue in pictures of landscapes, but it’s still something for you to keep an eye out for.

Does something look too smooth?

If you can’t see any pores, bumps, wrinkles, lines, moles, or any sort of “defect” that could be considered natural, the picture’s likely been ‘photoshopped’. This is really common in celebrity photos or pictures of models, but it can also be used as a way to smooth out spaces where something’s been spliced together.

Three General Tips

Any time you’re looking at a picture, there’s a couple of things you should be wary about. Some of these are super common techniques that people really latch on to to make their content more believable.

Pixelation or high amounts of grain

out for pictures that are really pixelated or grainy. These images are a ‘photoshopper’s dream. Grain in an image is an optical texture that’s most commonly present in film photography due to the makeup of the actual film. A lot of people add it on digital images to give them a film effect, but it can be turned into a tool to make ‘photoshopping’ easier. If an image has too low quality or has a lot of grain applied to it, this makes it really easy to make other objects blend in. All someone would have to do is blur the edges a little bit, slap a grain filter on and the image would essentially photoshop itself.

The topic of the image itself

A lot of people like to capitalize on current events to stir the pot more. Any time you see something that could tip scales in one direction or another, take a second before you react. Look closely at the image and make sure that you don’t see anything that I’ve mentioned in this blog. If you don’t, then you’re safe and free to post it all over Facebook and write posts in all caps.

Reverse search

If there’s an image that you’re not sure about the source of, it’s always a good idea to reverse image search. Often times if the image has been photoshopped, the original image will show up when you search. In Google Chrome, you can right click the image and in the menu that appears, click “Search Google for image” and it will take you right where you need to be.

Closing

Hopefully after reading this post, you’ve gotten a better grasp on what makes an image obviously ‘photoshopped’. Next time your cousin posts something about how “this one political figure did this in an image!” you’ll be able to point out in the comments how maybe the political figure’s hand doesn’t quite match up with their jacket and the shading is off.