is there anyway to detect or prevent a photo from being edited?

[edprush]

My cousin works at the state Natural Resources Department and each year they have a photo contest where residents submit nature photographs and the winner(s) get a few hundred dollars.

Is there a way for them (contest holders) to prevent or dectect photos that have been edited with photoshop or a similiar piece of editing software?

This year they plan to allow digital photos.

 

[Syringer]

Nope.

 

[NogginBoink]

The best way to handle this is to include terms in the submission where the submitter attests that the photo is unretouched (and their original work).

There's no foolproof way to detect if an image has been edited.

 

[Analog]

Yes, ask for the negative and not include digital photos. But I bet that won't fly very far.

 

[Jzero]

Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

 

[NiKeFiDO]

Originally posted by: Jzero
Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

agreed


w.t.f. mate?

 

[edprush]

Originally posted by: Jzero
Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

Because the contest is not to award people for being skilled in Photoshop. It is to show the state's natural beauty.

 

[mobobuff]

Yes. But it's not fool-proof.

EXIF data comparison of an image straight off the camera to an image edited in Photoshop.

Keep in mind that even if the Photoshop tag appears in the EXIF data, that might just mean they simply used Photoshop to resize the image. But checking for the tag is a good way to start.

 

[myusername]

Assuming the original photo is of sufficient detail/resolution, someone with an eye for it could tell you with 90+% accuracy. You could always post them to bbzzdd and let the ATOT experts sort em out 😉

 

[littleprince]

Even if I take a photo with film, I can edit in the darkroom. Photoshoping skill has nothing to do with taking a great photograph. Who cares if someone adjusts exposure or white balance. A good photo is a good photo.

I'm sure theres never been a photo ever published commercially whether taken digital or film thats not been edited

 

[gsellis]

Even in the darkroom, photogs may do post work to fix a picture. Things include touchup on scratches, selective exposure to fix inconsistancies, and other tricks that I don't remember because I have not done film development in about 25 years.

Just make sure the contest rules say No photoshoping to alter content or such and chances are someone may recognize that the picture has been changed.

 

[edprush]

Mabye, like yellowfiero said, they could have contestants mail in negatives and not have digital submission.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: edprush

Originally posted by: Jzero
Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

Because the contest is not to award people for being skilled in Photoshop. It is to show the state's natural beauty.

Have you ever used a digital camera? Color reproduction is very iffy. For one thing EVERY DIGITAL CAMERA HAS A COLOR BALANCE SETTING. Are you going to ban that too?

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: edprush
Mabye, like yellowfiero said, they could have contestants mail in negatives and not have digital submission.

If it were me, no way would you get the negatives. Too easy for you to lose and my work would be gone. Check with a photog user forum. Someone will have detailed contest knowledge and maybe even stock entry forms to use.

 

[xospec1alk]

digitally watermark it.

my senior project was a digital watermarking scheme for BW images. If a watermarked image has been altered, when you try to extract the watermark, the watermark will be fubared and you'll know that its been altered.

just a suggestion...

edit: whooops i misread, i thought you wanted to make sure YOUR OWN image doesn't get photoshopped. ignore please 😱

 

[edprush]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: edprush

Originally posted by: Jzero
Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

Because the contest is not to award people for being skilled in Photoshop. It is to show the state's natural beauty.

Have you ever used a digital camera? Color reproduction is very iffy. For one thing EVERY DIGITAL CAMERA HAS A COLOR BALANCE SETTING. Are you going to ban that too?

They want to prevent contestants from adding squirrels, deer, and monkeys to landscape/nature photos where a squirrel, deer, or chimp wasn't present.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: edprush

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: edprush

Originally posted by: Jzero
Post-production editing is a part of the art, whether it's in the darkroom or on the computer. As long as the submission is 100% original work, why try to enforce a ban on editing?

Because the contest is not to award people for being skilled in Photoshop. It is to show the state's natural beauty.

Have you ever used a digital camera? Color reproduction is very iffy. For one thing EVERY DIGITAL CAMERA HAS A COLOR BALANCE SETTING. Are you going to ban that too?

They want to prevent contestants from adding squirrels, deer, and monkeys to landscape/nature photos where a squirrel, deer, or chimp wasn't present.

In many cases, close examination works here. The light source will be different, so will show up that way.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: edprush
They want to prevent contestants from adding squirrels, deer, and monkeys to landscape/nature photos where a squirrel, deer, or chimp wasn't present.

Done easily in the darkroom as well. For a lot of people, probably MORE easily, in fact. By attempting to ban digital postproduction, you're really just giving film shooters an extra advantage, unless you're going to ban darkroom editing as well. Of course that would be hard to enforce as well.