Can you spot if this image is Photoshopped? Four in ten can’t

Most of us think we can spot Photoshop airbrushing a mile off – particularly when a celeb uses it to shave a few inches off their waist.

But actually, most people are terrible at spotting even obvious photo fakes – with four in ten unable to tell a digitally manipulated photo from a real one.

Even those who could spot that there was something wrong could only put their finger on it 45% of the time, according to University of Warwick researchers.

The researchers devised an online test and asked 707 participants to pick out photoshopped images – including the image above.

Answer: it has been retouched in four places, with a boat added, trees stretched, trees added on the right, and the man’s face retouched.

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The researchers found that even when people knew that images had been manipulated, they were bad at spotting the changes.

Here, the man’s shadow has been moved, the bins added, the branches stretched, and the man’s face retouched.

‘Our study found that although people performed better than chance at detecting and locating image manipulations, they are far from perfect’, said Sophie Nightingale of the University of Warwick.

‘This has serious implications because of the high-level of images, and possibly fake images, that people are exposed to on a daily basis through social networking sites, the internet and the media.’