EXIF question

Please bear with me, this isn't exactly about photography..... I'm hoping someone here can offer a bit of insight into the EXIF data from an image.

The reason I'm asking is that my recently widowed sister in law is being scammed by someone she met online, there's no doubt that the "doctor" she met through a dating site is bogus as all get out but she's too emotionally invested to see it.

I pulled up his facebook profile and his photo looks to me like it was scanned and poorly cropped. In looking at the exif data from that photo I'm seeing "Device Attributes - Reflective, Glossy, Positive, Color", and there's not a single item that leads me to believe it's from a camera. Can someone tell me if I'm all wet?

Here's a screenshot of the EXIF information:

I'm surprised you got that EXIF from a FB download. My FB-downloaded pics have stripped EXIFs. Anyway, I don't think you can infer much from the presented EXIF.

Ordinarily EXIF content from a digital camera will contain lots of Exposure related data, like ISO value, shutter speed, aperture, exposure mode, metering mode, flash use, etc.
Here is an example of the information (this extracted by Opanda PowerEXIF reader) In this case, the information was first extracted from a RAW file by a RAW conversion program (Lightroom) and then modified further with a pixel editing program (Paintshop Pro)

The "original" photo may well have been taken with a camera, but the EXIF data that you are seeing appears to be computer generated as their are no camera / exposure details included. Also, I'm not aware of Microsoft Corporation making cameras which this data has as the primary platform used. As mentioned already Facebook may have stripped the original data from the image. I'm no expert in this kind of thing, but it looks to me like a copied image from a computer.

All photos came from some sort of camera but are rarely posted directly. The "Device Attributes" leads me to believe that the image has been scanned as these are all scanner attributes. Additionally, depending on how it was processed, EXIF can also be changed so it's really not a good indicator of authenticity.

If I may, I'd like to chime in with a brutally honest approach. You are absolutely wasting your time and effort by attempting to prove or disprove if the image came directly from a camera. Quite simply, "proving" the image was scanned does not mean it is not an image of the person in question. Your sister will find justification for whatever you think you might be proving/disproving to her. Building a case works in the courtroom, but rarely has an effect in real life, other than sometimes creating the opposite of the desired action.

I personally know someone who went through this catfish situation. It went on for years and involved financial and emotional damages. My unsolicited advice would be to engage her with family, friends, and help her meet new friends as much as possible without trying to explicitly pull her away from the internet predator. If she senses you are attempting to reduce communications, she is likely going to latch on more strongly.

I have to agree with Mannetti21. Whether or not the photo is bogus is not likely to change her mind. You might try a TinEye photo search to see if the photo comes up in another context. But I doubt you'll find one with a headline, "Fraudster exposed in Romance Scam".

How did she meet this guy on-line? I once convinced a brother about a romance scam when I sent an email to the beautiful "model" who latched on to him as "the only one for her". In response, she started love-bombing me too -- in poor English.