Find earlier copies
Most misleading images are real photos from another time or place. Finding the earliest copy usually settles it.
Search
ot run osintverse-community/reverse-image-links --url "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Tour_Eiffel_Wikimedia_Commons.jpg" --format tableOpen the links one by one. Each engine has strengths:
- Google Lens: objects, products, landmarks, text in the image.
- Yandex: faces and places, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
- Bing: a good general second opinion.
- TinEye: sort by oldest to find the first appearance.
- SauceNAO and IQDB: artwork, anime and illustrations.
Crop to the interesting part (a building, a sign) and search again if the whole image gives nothing.
Compare
When you find a candidate original, check it is really the same picture:
ot run osintverse-community/image-hash --url "https://example.org/candidate.jpg" --compare "https://example.com/suspect.jpg"A pHash distance of 8 or less means the same photo, even if resized or recompressed. A larger distance with the same scene suggests a different shot from the same place or an edit; compare them side by side.
Next: place and time.