A deep learning-based decision fusion framework for image forgery localization

Abstract

As an answer to the need to prove the authenticity of digital images, several forensic tools for image forgery localization have been proposed in the past. However, authenticity analysis remained a challenging task, which requires an expert's knowledge to correctly interpret each forensic algorithm's output. Moreover, since different tools look for different manipulation traces, a thorough analysis requires the joint interpretation of the maps produced by several tools, which is nontrivial since each tool's reliability is possibly affected by different elements. Recently, deep learning-based forgery localization schemes were proposed, allowing for more automated reasoning; however, their accuracy significantly decreases when they are tested on forgeries that deviate from those used for the training phase. This work proposes a deep learning-based framework that merges the forgery localization maps provided by model-based image forensics tools based on the U-Net architecture. The experiments show that the proposed approach improves the quality of forgery localization maps compared to those produced by single tools and by state-of-the-art fusion frameworks while simultaneously achieving a desirable generalization capability.