How to Spot AI-generated and Fake Halloween Photos?

Scams related to AI-generated photos

What’s the point of AI-generating Halloween photos? Here are some known scams:

• Sales - Selling cheaply-made items as quality goods by AI-generating their photos
• Online recognition - Faking photos to gain likes
• Misinformation - Spreading fake Halloween scenes or events to trick people online
• Copyright issues - Taking someone else’s original costume and passing it through AI to falsely present it as your own creation.

How hard (or easy) is it to fake a Halloween photo?

Most modern AI models can generate Halloween images or alter someone else’s work. Here are some examples.

Faking images to sell items online

While it’s hard to tell for sure if the images are fake, you can find some posts online where users share their suspicions regarding certain online items for sale. For example, in this Reddit thread, users were discussing whether nails sold on a popular e-commerce website were AI-generated by the seller.

Asking AI to alter an original image

Images can be altered and claimed as an original creation. In this case, it’s hard to prove copyright. Here’s an example of how easy it is to fake an image in this way using ChatGPT:

Original photo by Zetong Li

How to spot fake images generated by AI? Top 5 ways.

To check if an image was generated with AI, you can use online tools or ask online communities. Here are the 5 best ways to spot an AI-generated photo online:

Reverse Image Search with lenso.ai

Use lenso.ai reverse image search to find photos online and detect AI-generated images.

Detect original photo from AI-altered one

Upload the image to lenso.ai and check if human-made copies appear online.

Upload a photo and check if it returns AI results

AI-generated photos are more likely to return other AI images, like in the case below:

Sightengine

Use Sightengine to find out whether an image was generated with AI. Upload the photo and see the verdict in seconds, with the page pointing to the exact model.

Decopy.ai

One more page that can spot AI-altered content is Decopy.ai.

It counts the possibility that the image was AI-made in seconds. The great thing about this one is that it shows what exactly seems to be off about the photo.

Wasit.ai

Another page that spots AI images is Wasit.ai. Similar to two other pages, it checks if the photo was AI-altered.

r/isthisAI

Finally, whenever you’re not sure, try to ask the online community. The subreddit isthisAI is very helpful in spotting AI-generated photos.

How to tell if an image is AI-generated just by looking at it?

1. Visual inconsistencies

• Uneven or distorted hands, fingers, limbs
• Unnatural reflections, shadows
• Strange backgrounds (text, logos, or patterns that don’t make sense)
• Oddly shaped objects or facial features

2. Repeated patterns

• Repetitive or “too perfect” patterns
• Backgrounds, hair, and clothing have unnatural symmetry or smoothing
• Plasteline-like textures

3. Yellow filter

• Yellow or orange hue in a photo
• The image seems to be too warm-toned

Want more tips? Here’s an article for you: How to spot deepfakes and AI-generated people with lenso.ai.

Final thoughts

I hope this article helped you spot whether the Halloween photo you found online was AI-generated. If you have more tips, make sure to share this article and add them to your post!

*Cover image by Gundula Vogel