Digital Image Forensics for Identifying Computer Generated and Digital Camera Images

We describe a digital image forensics technique to distinguish images captured by a digital camera from computer generated images. Our approach is based on the fact that image acquisition in a digital camera is fundamentally different from the generative algorithms deployed by computer generated imagery. This difference is captured in terms of the properties of the residual image (pattern noise in case of digital camera images) extracted by a wavelet based denoising filter. In (Jan Lukas, et al., 2005), it is established that each digital camera has a unique pattern noise associated with itself. In addition, our results indicate that the two type of residuals obtained from different digital camera images and computer generated images exhibit some common characteristics that is not present in the other type of images. This can be attributed to fundamental differences in the image generation processes that yield the two types of images. Our results are based on images generated by the Maya and 3D Studio Max software, and various digital camera images.