A new software program created by Dartmouth College professors Hany Farid and Eric Keemay may be able to figure out if a photo has been doctored, according to UK gadget news site Pocket-Lint.com.  The software aims to rank photos by how much the image has been doctored.

“The idea is that this value could be placed at the bottom of images which would give people a better idea of what’s been going on. The difficult part is the sell, as many publications both on and offline depend on celebrities for their readership. However, on the flip side there are publications that don’t heavily rely on tweaking, so a low Photoshop value could be seen as very positive, gaining readership for their honesty.”

We wrote in March about Farid’s advice on how to spot phony photos. We also wrote in May of this year and June 2008 about some of Farid’s tips for checking out photos.