The Perception of Lighting Inconsistencies in Composite Outdoor Scenes

Abstract

It is known that humans can be insensitive to large changes in illumination. For example, if an object of interest is extracted from one digital photograph and inserted into another, we do not always notice the differences in illumination between the object and its new background. This inability to spot illumination inconsistencies is often the key to success in digital “doctoring” operations. We present a set of experiments in which we explore the perception of illumination in outdoor scenes. Our results can be used to predict when and why inconsistencies go unnoticed. Applications of the knowledge gained from our studies include smarter digital “cut-and-paste” and digital “fake” detection tools, and image-based composite scene backgrounds for layout and previsualization.