Insights into Manipulation: Unveiling Tampered Images Using Modified ELA, Deep Learning, and Explainable AI

Digital image forgery (DIF) is a prevalent issue in the modern age, where malicious actors manipulate images for various purposes, including deception and misinformation. Detecting such forgeries is a critical task for maintaining the integrity of digital content. This thesis explores the use of Modified Error Level Analysis (ELA) in combination with a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), as well as, Feedforward Neural Network (FNN) model to detect digital image forgeries. Additionally, incorporation of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to this research provided insights into the process of decision-making by the models. The study trains and tests the models on the CASIA2 dataset, emphasizing both authentic and forged images. The CNN model is trained and evaluated, and Explainable AI (SHapley Additive exPlanation— SHAP) is incorporated to explain the model’s predictions. Similarly, the FNN model is trained and evaluated, and XAI (SHAP) is incorporated to explain the model’s predictions. The results obtained from the analysis reveals that the proposed approach using CNN model is most effective in detecting image forgeries and provides valuable explanations for decision interpretability.