Dear Amped Authenticate users, we are so glad to announce a new update to the most complete solution for image and video authenticity analysis! We have lots to show so let’s go straight to the point. Ready?
Now let’s go back to our example. It would certainly help to magnify the region over the subject’s eyebrows, so we select the Magnify tool, draw a rectangle and move the blue dot over the region we want to zoom on.
By default, the Magnify tool uses the “Nearest” interpolation algorithm, which means it will limit to enlarge existing pixels. You can always change the interpolation algorithm to “Bicubic” or any other of the available options.
Annotate allows you to place objects outside of the original image size: the canvas will be automatically extended to fit the annotations. You can customize the extension color and decide if the extended area should go in the report by clicking on the Options button.
We then notice that the shadows projected by glasses and the one projected by the face over the neck are somewhat inconsistent. We can thus use the Arrow tool to point to those regions, and perhaps write textual comments in the bookmark’s description.
You may have noticed that the square icon on the left of the bookmark’s name now shows a pencil: it is a quick way to know that a bookmark is annotated.
When you visit again an already-annotated bookmark, the Annotate panel will now open up automatically, so as to allow for a simple review of the existing annotations.
If you want to add new annotations or edit the existing annotations for a bookmark, just click on it and then click on the pencil icon, and you’ll be ready to go. You may also decide to hide all annotations temporarily: this is obtained by clicking on the “pencil with eye” icon in the Project panel. This is useful in case you need to review the bookmarked filter’s parameters since they are hidden when viewing or editing annotations.
Of course, when a bookmark contains both an Evidence and a Reference image, you can separately annotate each of them. This comes in very useful when comparing elements, such as in the example below. When annotating a bookmark with both Evidence and Reference images, the reference scaling is automatically turned off.
Let’s now have a quick look at the Text tool, which lets you write and customize text over the image.
Most of the available options are rather self-explaining, but there is one feature that is worth a description, and that is “Add Macro”. It lets you add data about the file such as filename, pixel resolution, and several Exif fields.
By default by “Add Label to Macros” checkbox is ticked, so when you click on a macro, both its name and value are automatically added to the text box (click on the image below to see it animated).
As usual with Amped products, everything you did is described in detail when you generate the report: you’ll indeed find a list of annotation objects with their coordinates and content, and of course, you’ll find the annotated bookmark, as shown below.
There’s so much more we could say about the power of Annotate, and that we can’t fit in a single post. Remember however that it is widely described in our blog and YouTube channel (see the links we’ve put at the top).
Saving Report to Custom Location
This is a simpler yet highly requested improvement: with this update, it is now possible to choose where to save the report. Just click on Tools -> “Generate Report” and you’ll see the new input field:
As usual, if you try to overwrite an existing report, you will be asked to confirm your decision.
Improved Report
We’ve already seen that the report includes details about the new Annotate feature. But there’s more! Following a kind suggestion from a user, we realized it was not ideal to always leave room for both the Evidence and Reference image filename and hash in each filter’s section. Therefore, from this update on, you will only see them when a file is actually present for that bookmark.
We also reorganized the information about the software version and platform at the top and included details about the CPU of the computer that generated the report.
Other Improvements and Bug Fixes
We have fixed a few bugs and made some improvements to the software interface, thanks to users who helped us with their valuable feedback!
- We improved the behavior of the Project panel, especially when the user dragged bookmarks to a different location.
- We corrected an issue with the normalization of values in the JPEG Ghosts Map filter when the Simplified Model was used.
- We fixed a bug that prevented importing Social Media Identification signatures from images in the JFIF format.
Please be aware that projects created with this version of Authenticate will not load in previous versions of the software.
Don’t Delay – Update Today
If you have an active support plan you can update straight away by going into the menu Help>Check for Updates Online within Amped Authenticate. If you need to renew your SMS plan, please contact us or one of our authorized distributors. And remember that you can always manage your license and requests from the Amped Support portal.
