Photos can lie
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What you will learn
By the end, you can name three ways a picture can be changed and spot the clues that give it away.
Fatou's phone buzzes: a photo of a cat as big as a bus, asleep on her street. Hundreds of people have shared it. Fatou looks closer. The cat's shadow points left; the lamp post's shadow points right. Someone made this picture.
Read the explanation
A photo feels like proof, but every picture is a choice. A crop cuts out part of the scene. A filter changes colours, light and shapes. An AI tool can build a whole picture from a text request, with no camera at all. A picture is not proof until you check it.
- Shadows and reflections should agree about where the light is.
- Hands, teeth and letters are hard for AI: look for extra fingers or scrambled text.
- Ask what is outside the frame, and who posted the original.