CiiT International Journal of Digital Image Processing, Vol 9, No 5, May 2017 103

A Survey on Image Forgery Detection Techniques

S. Manjunatha and Dr. Malini. M. Patil

Abstract---Image forgery detection is emerging as one of the hot
research topic in the area of image forensics. In this modern digital era
due to availability of advanced technology, powerful computer photo
editing tools and software packages digital images can be easily
forged. In the fields such as forensics, medical imaging, industrial
photography and e-commerce authenticating the originality of images
and detecting traces of manipulation without any prior knowledge of
the image content or any embedded information is a challenging task
and quite impossible to say images are authentic. As a result,
photographs have almost lost their trustworthiness. In this paper an
attempt is made to present a survey on classification of Image forgery
detection techniques and a state-of-the-art review of the forgery
detection techniques with complete bibliography.
Keywords---Image Forgery Detection, Image Forensics,
Copy-Move Forgery, Image Processing
I. INTRODUCTION
MAGE tampering is a process of intentional manipulation of
I images to conceal some information of image. Due to
advancement of sophisticated image editing tools and image
processing software packages a digital image can be modified or
tampered very easily [1, 26]. Digital images play a important
roles in many fields as a evidence of events of the depicted
happenings [29]. If the digital forged images neither are nor
recognized properly then it will lost its authenticity
automatically. Hence integrity and authenticity validation of
digital image has got much attention in the field of image
processing field [3]. So forgery detection has become an
important and most popular research field of image processing.
Digital image forgery detection is an emerging research field
with important implication of ensuring the trustworthiness of
digital image [13]. Many image forgery detection techniques
have been proposed in the field of digital image forgery
detection. The exhaustive surveys of the existing methodologies
are presented in this paper. From the literature review its found
that the existing techniques can be classified into two main
approaches.
1. Active approaches (Non- Blind Approaches)
2. Passive Approaches (Blind Approaches)
In active technique prior information about the image is
indispensable to the process of authentication. It is concerned
with data hiding where some code is embedded into the image at
the time of generation which would limit their application in
practice [3, 4]. The main drawback of this approach remains
that they are to be inserted i.e., water mark or digital signature in
to the images at the time of recording using special equipments.
It also decreases image quality and security and limited to
controlled environments.
The passive approach does not require any prior information
about the image. To detect traces of tampering it will use the
image function, statistics and content of the available image [4].
It is based on the assumption that digital forgeries may leave no
visual clues of having been tampered with and they may likely
disturb the underlying statistical property. Passive approach
determines the location and amount of forgery in the image. The
following are the some of the applications.
 Document verification in various fields
 Finger print recognition
 Authenticity of evidence in various conditions
 Authenticity of information captured from cameras
Detailed classification of Image forgery detecting techniques is
as shown in figure.1 and is self explanatory.
II. ACTIVE APPROACHES
Active approaches are related to preprocessing concepts.
There are two approaches namely.
 Digital Water marking
 Digital signature
These two methods work only when there is some prior
information about the image.
A. Digital Water Marking:
Digital water marking consists of inserting a digital water
mark in the image at the time of capture and then verifying at the
recipient for integrity of image. This technique is used to ensure
and facilitate data authentication, security and copyright
protection of digital media by inserting a digital watermark and
verifying through certain efficient algorithms. But this method
decreases image quality and security and moreover it is limited
to controlled environment [3]. Limitation of this approach is
that it needs to be embedded in image at the time of recording by
an authorized person with specialized equipment. Classification
of digital watermarking is domain specific namely.
1. Spatial domain technique
2. Frequency domain technique

Manuscript received on May 18, 2017, review completed on May 22, 2017
and revised on May 29, 2017.
S. Manjunatha is with the Department of ISE, GAT Bengaluru. E-Mail:
manjunaths@gat.ac.in
Dr. Malini. M. Patil is with the Department of ISE, JSSATE, Bengaluru.
E-Mail: drmalinimpatil@gmail.com
Digital Object Identifier: DIP052017003.

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Fig. 1 Classification of Image Forgery Detecting Techniques

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CiiT International Journal of Digital Image Processing, Vol 9, No 5, May 2017
1) Spatial Domain Technique:
In this technique, mainly image is modifies or alters the pixels
of one or two randomly selected subsets of an image.
Modifications might include quick movement of low order bit
of each pixel. Spatial domain methods embed the data by
directly modifying the pixel values of the original image. Some
of its main algorithms are as follows.
a. Least Significant Bit
b. Predictive coding schemes
c. Correlation based technique
d. Patchwork technique
a. Least Significant Bit: In this technique the watermark is
added to the lowest order bit of each pixel (embed the
watermark in the LSB of pixels). The bits are embedded in a
sequence which acts as the key. In order to retrieve it back this
sequence should be known. It is very simple to implement but
the robustness of the watermark will be too low.
b. Predictive Coding Schemes: This scheme is proposed by
Matsui and Tanata for gray scale images. The correlation
between adjacent pixels is exploited. The watermark is
embedded by choosing a set of pixels and alternative pixels are
replaced by difference between the adjacent pixels. The cipher
key is created which enables the retrieval of the embedded
watermark at the receiver.
c. Correlation Based Technique: A pseudorandom noise
with a pattern W(x,y) is added between random noise and an
image is found out and if the value of that is exceeds a certain
threshold value the watermark is detected else it is not [5].
d. Patchwork Technique: Patchwork is a data hiding
technique based on a pseudorandom, statistical model. In this
the watermark is gradually inserts with a statistic using a
Gaussian distribution. During this, image is divided into two
subsets. One feature or an operation is chosen and it is applied to
these two subsets in the opposite direction. The difference
between the two subsets would intuitively result in some
value for water marked images.
2) Frequency Domain Technologies:
The frequency domain technique is also called transform
domain watermark technique. The watermark is inserted into
the coefficients of digital transforms of the host asset or image.
It is provided with more information hiding capacity and high
robustness. Various frequency domain techniques are as
follows:
a. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)
b. Discrete Frequency Transform (DFT)
c. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT)
a. Discrete Cosine Transform: The DCT represents the
entire image as coefficients of different frequencies of
cosines (It is a process which converts a sine and cosine
waveform with different amplitudes in the frequency domain). It
allows an image to be divided into different frequency bands
which are High, Middle and Low frequency bands. When an
watermark is to be inserted an suitable band is chosen. This
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technique is robust compared to spatial domain technique. DCT
domain watermarking can be classified into Global DCT and
Block based DCT.
b. Discrete Frequency Transform: Fourier transform is an
operation that transforms a continues function into its
frequency components. It has robustness against geometric
attacks like Rotation, Scaling, Cropping, Translation etc., It is
well know transform allows selecting the adequate parts of the
host signal to embed the watermark in order to obtain the best
compromise between visibility and robustness. In most case, the
phase of the DFT of the host signal is modulated by the DFT of
the watermark. It seems that a modification of the phase has a
smaller impact on human perception than an amplitude
modulation.
c. Discrete Wavelet Transform: This technique is suitable
to identify the area in the image that contains secret image.
Wavelet Transform is a modern technique frequently used in
digital image compression, watermarking, processing. The
transforms are used on small waves, called wavelet of varying
frequency and limited duration. The DWT separates an image in
to 4 sidebands. Lower resolution approximation image (LL),
as well as horizontal (HL), Vertical (LH) and diagonal (HH)
detail components. The process can then be represented
iteratively to produce N scale transform. This method enables
good special localization and has multi resolution
characteristics.
B. Digital Signature:
A digital signature consists of extracting unique features from
the image at camera and encoding them into a signature. These
signatures are used for verification at the time of detection time.
Major drawback is that presence of an embedded data may
degrade quality of images. Digital signatures schemes are
usually classified into two categories.
1) Direct Digital Signatures:
In this technique the communication is done only between the
sender and the receiver of message, assuming that receiver
knows the public key of the sender. Signature can be generated
either by encrypting the entire messages with the sender’s
private key.
2) Arbitrated Signatures:
In this technique the communication is done between the
sender and receiver of the message via the trusted third party.
Sender sends the signed message then receiver performs various
security analysis of the message to confirm its origin and
contents.
III. PASSIVE APPROACHES
Passive approaches are the newly developed techniques uses
the received image only for assessing its integrity, without
relying on any pre-extraction or pre-embedded information.
But only utilize the statistics or content of the image in question
to verify its genuineness. These techniques work on the
assumption that although digital forgeries may leave no visual
CiiT International Journal of Digital Image Processing, Vol 9, No 5, May 2017
clues that indicate tampering, they may alter the underlying
statistics of an image.
These passive approaches can be classified mainly into five
categories.
 Pixel-based image forgery detection
 Format based image forgery detection
 Camera based image forgery detection
 Physical environment based image forgery detection
 Geometry based image forgery detection
A. Pixel-based Image Forgery Detection:
Pixel based techniques highlight on the pixels that
constituting the image. The various techniques either indirectly
of directly between pixels as a result of forgery [23]. These
techniques roughly classified into types.
1. Copy-move (Cloning/ copy paste)
2. Resampling
3. Splicing
4. Statistical
1) Copy – Move:
In this particular type of forgery one region of the image is
concealed by using another region from the same to cover it. As
the closed region can be of any shape and location, it is feasible
to search all possible image locations and sizes. There are 2
most efficient algorithms, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) [7,
14, 27] and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Besides they
are also robust to minor changes in the image due to additive
noise or lossy compression.
2) Resampling:
In order to create convincing tampering it is necessary to do
some image processing operations (Resize, Rotate or
Stretch). In this Resampling method an unnatural
correlation between neighboring pixels can be found to detect
specific manipulations [17, 28]. The Expectation/
Maximization Algorithm is used to solve a problem in
Resampling that is to know which pixels are correlated with
their neighbor.
3) Splicing:
In this, digital splicing of two or more images is done into a
single composite, this gives rise to certain abnormalies at the
splicing boundary. When splicing done carefully, the
boundary between two regions can be visually hardly noticeable
[6, 14].
4) Statistical:
This is another method to find authenticity. It examined
statistical properties [7, 1, 2, 27] make used of statistical
moments from a wavelet decomposition of the image and local
co-occurrence characteristics in image bit-planes
B. Format based Image Forgery Detection:
Now a day’s JPEG lossy compression is the most common
image format. This is based on representing the image as DCT
blocks and quantizing the resulting coefficient. This
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quantization is the source of the lossy compression. In this
technique, such compression gives rise to certain artifacts which
can be exploited to detect tampering or forgery. There are three
techniques detect forgery in images.
1) JPEG Quantization:
Most of cameras encode images in the JPEG format, this
image is representing the image as DCT blocks & quantizing the
resulting coefficient. The manner in which the DCT coefficients
in each block are quantized is determined by a table called
quantization table. The size and quality of image is determined
by quantization table and these tables tend to differ between
camera manufacturers [7, 21, 22]. This difference between the
tables is used to perform a forensics analysis on the image.
2) Double JPEG:
During forgery the image being tampered must be loaded in
to photo-editing tool and resaved. Since both the images stored
in the JPEG format, this results in the JPGE image being
compressed twice. Because of the lossy nature of the JPGE
format this double compression introduces specific artifacts
not visible in singly compressed image. These artifacts can be
used as evidence of manipulation [15, 18]. However it is to be
noted that detection of such double compressed does not
necessarily imply malicious intent.
3) JPEG Blocking:
For JPEG image compression DCT transform is the basis. In
this process an image is break down into 8 x 8 blocks and these
blocks are introduces Horizontal and Vertical edges are called
blocking artifact grid [16]. When an image is manipulated these
blocking artifacts may be disturbed. These artifacts can be used
to detect manipulations and manipulated regions in the images.
C. Camera Based Techniques:
In modern world digital camera is the major device to take
images. When picture has taken it involves a series of
processing steps on the path from sensor to memory. There are
many techniques which is specifically model artifacts induced
by the different stages of the imaging process. These techniques
can be used to estimate different camera artifacts. The
inconsistencies among these artifacts can be used for images
forgery detection. Camera response, sensor noise color filter
array and chromatic aberration are major techniques.
1) Chromatic Aberration:
Chromatic Aberration can be employed in a camera to detect
the image tampering and source of camera [25]. There is a
chance of expansion or contraction of the color channels due to
different wave length of light [10]. If any object is inserted in to
image it is likely that contraction or expansion pattern will be
distributed allowing for the tampered regions to be detected.
The disadvantage is this will work well only for
non-compressed or non-uniform pacts of the image. It is more
regions dependent.
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2) Color Filter Array:
In today modern world digital camera have a single CCD or
CMOS sensor in order to capture images. This is accomplished
by color filter array at the top of sensor. Only one sample color
(Red/Green/Blue) is recorded at the pixel level & remaining two
colors are estimated from neighboring samples. This process of
estimating these missing samples is called CFA interpolation
and particular algorithm is adopted and it can be used to
distinguish between cameras. The specific type of interpolation
can be identified from a periodic correlation exists between
subset of pixels in each color channels [19, 24]. Deviation from
the periodic correlation pattern can be used as evidence of
global or local tampering.
3) Camera Response:
The sensors in cameras are tending to be linear. There is an
existing of linear relationships among cameras in terms of
amount of light measured by different sensor and corresponding
final pixel value. However in order to enhance in final image,
cameras often apply a point wise non linearity [8]. This
distinctiveness of response function in the entire image can be
used to detect tampering.
4) Sensor Noise:
When a camera capture digital image during copying of
image to computer it will undergoes a series of processing i.e.,
white balancing, quantization, filtering etc. this process
introduces a unique pattern it may contain various sources of
noise [20]. It is possible to model these operations and detect if
an image has undergone any subsequent processing. A camera
sensor also contains various sources of noise [7, 22]. Later this
has being showed to be distinct for specific sensor and it can be
used to identify specific camera with which the image was
captured.
D. Physics Based Techniques:
An image can be manipulated by splicing together individual
images of any two objects. During this process one of biggest
challenge in creating a convincing spliced image is to match the
light source directions of the images being combined. The
differences in lighting can be used as evidence of forgery in an
image. There are three techniques for estimating different
properties of the lighting environment.
1) Light Direction 2-D:
During illumination of light on an object the lighting
direction can be estimated at various points in an image from the
2-D surface normals at the obstruct object boundary, it is
assumed that the surface of interest is Lambertain surfaces with
constant reflective values and a point lights surface at infinite
distance, a set of equations can be solved for the lighting
directions and ambient light terms [9]. Inconsistencies in
lightning can and have been used to identified the tampering.
2) Light Direction 3-D:
There is an ambiguity in the light direction in 2-D or in a
normal image. Because it is usually difficult to determine 3-D
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surface normal’s. The required 3-D surface normal are
determined by 3-D model of human eye [14]. These obtained
directions can be compared for various peoples in the image.
3) Light Environment:
In this method, distinct lighting condition can be present and
it can be created by using multiple lights source. By assumption
that light striking a Lambertain surface can be calculated the
direction of light source may be estimated and checked for
consistencies across the image.
E. Geometry based Techniques:
These techniques measure the relative positions of camera
and world of objects. There are two main techniques includes
principal point and metric measurements.
1) Principal Point:
The projection of the camera Centre to the image plane is
known as the principal point. When an object or image is
manipulated the principal point also shifted accordingly or
proportionally [12]. This estimated difference across image can
be used as evidence for tampering.
2) Metric Measurement:
In this there are some tools for projective geometry which
gives a way to rectify of planner surfaces and provides the
ability to make real world measurements from a planner surface
[11]. In general the image is captured at different angle it is very
difficult to discover certain details of image. Under certain
assumption we can make metric measurement from a single
image with suggested geometric tools. These depend on
knowledge of polygons, vanishing points and co-planarity of
circles in order to remove planner distortions that enable metric
measurements to be made on the plane.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this modern era with the rapid progress of image
processing technology, the need of digital image forgery
detection is more essential in various fields i.e., Defense,
Medical, legal evidence etc., which will play a vital role in the
decision making. In this paper an attempt is made to understand
the existing image forgery detection techniques available in
literature. It reveals that these techniques address various
aspects of forgery detection that help to detect forgeries in
digital images.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
One of the author acknowledges Global Academy of
Technology and JSSMVP’s JSS Academy of Technical
Education for providing the facilities to carry out the research
work.
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