Forensic estimation of gamma correction in digital images

In the digital era, digital photographs become pervasive and are frequently used to record event facts. Authenticity and integrity of such photos can be ascertained by discovering more information about the previously applied operations. In this paper, we propose a forensic scheme for identifying and reconstructing gamma correction operations in digital images. Statistical abnormity on image grayscale histograms, which is caused by the contrast enhancement, is analyzed theoretically and measured effectively. Graylevel mapping functions involved in gamma correction can be estimated blindly. Experiments both on globally and locally applied corrected images show the validity of our proposed gamma estimation algorithm.