Illuminant colour based image forensics using mismatch in human skin highlights

This paper presents a method to detect image splicing, specifically copying and pasting a person from an image to another. This is based on the fact that it is very difficult to match the illuminance property of the light sources estimated from several persons in a spliced image. The proposed method detects the illuminant colour mismatch among different persons in a composite image. The dichromatic reflection model is utilized to obtain the illuminant colour estimate from human skin highlights. The illuminant colour obtained is quantified using chromaticity coordinates. It is then matched against that of different persons in the composite image to detect the forgery.