This article addresses a common sensor dust problem among digital single lens reflex cameras that impacts detection and matching due to dust spots; it proposes a novel source-camera identification method to prevent false detections; and notes that experimental results indicate the proposed scheme can be used to identify the source of digital single lens reflect camera at low false-positive rates.
Digital single lens reflex cameras suffer from a well-known sensor dust problem due to interchangeable lenses that they deploy. The dust particles that settle in front of the imaging sensor create a persistent pattern in all captured images. In this paper, the authors propose a novel source camera identification method based on detection and matching of these dust-spot characteristics. Dust spots in the image are detected based on a (Gaussian) intensity loss model and shape properties. To prevent false detections, lens parameter-dependent characteristics of dust spots are also taken into consideration. Experimental results show that the proposed detection scheme can be used in identification of the source digital single lens reflex camera at low false positive rates, even under heavy compression and downsampling. (Published Abstract Provided)