Focal stack based image forgery localization

Image security is becoming an increasingly important issue due to advances in deep learning based image manipulations, such as deep image inpainting and deepfakes. There has been considerable work to date on detecting such image manipulations using improved algorithms, with little attention paid to the possible role that hardware advances may have for improving security. We propose to use a focal stack camera as a novel secure imaging device, to the best of our knowledge, that facilitates localizing modified regions in manipulated images. We show that applying convolutional neural network detection methods to focal stack images achieves significantly better detection accuracy compared to single image based forgery detection. This work demonstrates that focal stack images could be used as a novel secure image file format and opens up a new direction for secure imaging.