How to tell if an image is AI-generated

Checks that give certain answers

1. Content Credentials

Look for a signed C2PA manifest. OpenAI, Adobe, Microsoft and others record AI generation in it. The tool above reads it automatically; the C2PA viewer shows every detail.

2. The IPTC “made by AI” field

Google and Meta, among others, mark generated images with the digital source type trainedAlgorithmicMedia in XMP metadata.

3. Generator settings

Stable Diffusion tools store the prompt, seed and model in PNG text chunks; ComfyUI stores its whole workflow; NovelAI hides its settings in the alpha channel.

Checks that give strong hints

4. Camera metadata — or its absence

Real photos straight from a phone carry the make, model, lens, exposure and time. A full set that matches the claimed time and device supports authenticity. None at all is normal for shared images, so only count it as weak evidence of AI.

5. Size and shape

Generators favour fixed sizes: 1024×1024, 1536×1024, 832×1216. Phone cameras produce 4032×3024 and similar. Cropping and resizing hide this.

6. The first appearance

Reverse-search the image and sort by date. AI images often trace back to an AI art community or an account that posts nothing but generated pictures.

7. Corroboration

A real event is captured by many people. A dramatic image that exists in only one version, from one account, with no other coverage, deserves suspicion.

Visual checks that still catch many fakes

8. Small text

Headlines are often perfect now; read the fine print, price tags, licence plates and background signs, which still turn into near-words.

9. Things that must match

Earrings, glasses arms, shirt buttons, shoelaces, window frames and fence posts should be consistent from one side to the other and continuous behind objects.

10. Physics

Check that shadows fall away from the light source together, that reflections in mirrors, water and sunglasses show the right scene, and that objects rest on surfaces rather than float.

11. Too-even quality

Cameras blur things at different distances and add noise in dark areas. Generated images often render everything — skin, background, fabric — to the same smooth finish.

12. The story behind it

Ask who benefits from you believing the image, and whether the original poster can provide the camera file. A real photographer usually can; someone sharing a generated image usually can’t.

No single item on this list is conclusive except the first three. When four or five of the others point the same way, you can be fairly confident — and the automatic check above will usually agree.