JPEG image tampering detection using blocking artifacts

Image forgery is nowadays widely used as digital images are easy to manipulate due to high availability of powerful image processing tools. It is possible to add or remove objects from an image without leaving any visible traces of tampering. This paper describes a method for detection of copy-paste manipulation on JPEG digital images. It is a type of image forgery in which a part of the image is copied to another location in the image with the intent to cover or add an important image object. The detection method was implemented through extracting and analyzing blocking artifact grids (BAGs), introduced by block processing during JPEG compression. Analysis was based on fact that BAGs usually mismatch after performing copy-paste operations. Proposed method was demonstrated on two doctored images.