Looking for clues ...

At work (in magazine publishing) I receive images from lots of different photographers, always in jpeg format.

I always request raw photos (unedited, I mean, not "Raw" eg CR2). Most photographers assure me they're not touching the images, but I suspect otherwise.

My question is, what clues can I look for as evidence of retouching? The obvious one is a gappy histogram, but that is usually masked by the jpeg save.

Is there any EXIF data (or similar) that records Photoshop editing?

got to ask why do you want unedited ? all the mags i submit to request full editing so they can just slide it into the page layout and be done

i belive exif does record some photoshop data

they do click here for example

Should have explained a little further ... I'm the enhancer for our magazines, and all the photos are from our organisation's own photographers. They're all lovely people, but hopeless at post processing! It's much easier for me to enhance from raw, than to fix their dodgy editing.

ahh fair enough look at the link it shows the software used

personaly it might be worth changing protocol so you only accept raw formats just a thought

I'd love to see Raws as well, but our IT department is never going to accept files of that size! Unless Uncle Rupert springs for much bigger servers!

I've read and re-read the example you supplied, but I can't see what you're referring to. I see no evidence that editing has occurred.

right look at software in shot one this is a image that has been modified in photoshop

image two has not been modified notice no software information

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I'd have thought that rather than trying to 'catch them out' after the event, it might be better to educate them first into not p*ssing around with the images unless they know what they are doing
I also would have thought that if you need software to tell you they have touched them then they can't be that bad...

easier way, tell them to give u their cards after the shoot, not the data. then u copy the cards to your computers and give them back. takes only few minutes to download the data.