The honest starting point
Computer-generated pictures have improved quickly. Some are obviously artificial, and others are very hard to tell from photographs. No checklist can promise a correct answer. The clues below are best understood as reasons to look more closely, not as tests you can pass or fail. A real photograph can show several of them, and a convincing synthetic image can show none.
With that in mind, two kinds of evidence are worth gathering: what is in the picture, and what surrounds it.
Visual details to look at
Zoom in and look slowly. Commonly mentioned areas include:
- Hands, ears and teeth. Extra, merged or oddly shaped fingers, or teeth that blur together, have appeared in many generated pictures. Newer tools make this mistake less often.
- Text in the scene. Signs, labels, book covers and clothing logos may show garbled or nonsensical lettering.
- Repeating or mismatched details. Earrings that do not match, glasses that merge into skin, or patterns that do not continue across a fold.
- Lighting and shadows. Shadows falling in different directions, or reflections that do not match the scene, can suggest an assembled image.
- Backgrounds. Look for blurred shapes that do not resolve into real objects, buildings with impossible geometry, or crowds where faces seem to be copies of each other.
- Skin and hair. An unusually smooth, glossy or “airbrushed” look, or hair that fades into the background in odd ways.
- Physical logic. Objects that merge into one another, a chair leg that disappears, or a bridge that leads nowhere.
Even so, ordinary photos can show soft backgrounds, heavy retouching, odd lens effects or low resolution. Compression and screenshots can also smear details. A strange feature raises a question; it does not answer it.
Context clues
Often the surrounding information tells you more than the pixels do.
- No clear origin. If nobody can say who took the picture, where or when, treat it with caution.
- Too perfect for the story. An image that matches a dramatic claim a little too neatly may have been made for that purpose.
- Missing coverage. A major event usually produces many photos from many angles and from established news organizations. A single striking image with no companions is a reason to wait.
- Odd posting pattern. Pictures spread by brand-new or anonymous accounts, especially several at once, deserve extra scrutiny. The signs described under fake accounts are relevant here.
- Emotional pressure. Images designed to provoke anger or pity, and which come with calls to share immediately, are the kind that spread fastest whether real or not.
- Captions that do not fit. A real image can also be paired with a false description, which is a separate problem covered under recycled images.
Checks you can do
- Look for the earliest version. Try to trace where the picture first appeared. A lookup using the picture itself can help, and a separate article here covers reverse image search.
- Look at higher resolution. Larger versions make small errors easier to see, though they can also make a real picture look odd.
- Check for labels or credits. Some images carry labels or metadata saying how they were made. These can help, but they can be missing, removed or wrong, as discussed under content labels.
- Compare with other photos. Search for other pictures of the same place or event and see whether the details match.
- Ask the person who shared it. A friend may know the source, or may admit they do not.
- Be wary of detection tools. Websites that claim to say whether an image is synthetic can be wrong in both directions. If you use one, treat the result as one weak input.
Edited versus generated
Not every misleading picture is generated from scratch. A real photo may have been cropped, retouched, combined with another or recolored. The same cautious questions apply: what is the source, what is missing, and does the story around it hold up? Both forms can mislead, and both can be harmless, such as artwork or advertising that everyone knows is staged.
When it involves a person
If a synthetic or edited picture shows a real person in a harmful or private-seeming way, it can cause real distress. Do not share it, even to condemn it. Keep a copy for evidence, use the platform’s reporting tools, and consider contacting local police if you are in the picture or know the person is. If a child appears in such an image, contact your national child-protection hotline or local police. Supporting the person affected matters as much as proving the image fake.
What to do when you cannot tell
Often you will not be able to decide. That is acceptable. You can say “I can’t confirm this” and simply not pass it on. A short delay costs little, and a real image will usually be confirmed by reliable sources within a reasonable time. Treating unverified pictures as unverified is the most dependable habit you can build.