We describe a photo forensic technique based on detecting inconsistencies in lighting. This technique explicitly measures the 3-D lighting properties for individual people, objects, or surfaces in a single image. We show that with minimal training, an analyst can accurately specify 3-D shape in a single image from which 3-D lighting can be automatically estimated. A perturbation analysis on the estimated lighting is performed to yield a probabilistic measure of the location of the illuminating light. Inconsistencies in lighting within an image evidence photo tampering.

Date Published: 4 March 2015
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9409, Media Watermarking, Security, and Forensics 2015, 940902 (4 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2075544

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9409:
Media Watermarking, Security, and Forensics 2015
Adnan M. Alattar; Nasir D. Memon; Chad D. Heitzenrater, Editor(s)