PubMed Source Image Plagiarism Detection
Detect reused manuscript visuals across the industry’s largest image-plagiarism database, with more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images
Why Image Plagiarism Matters
Plagiarism—whether deliberate or accidental (e.g., self-plagiarism)—undermines the originality of scientific work and can have serious consequences. Even a single reused image can result in editorial rejection, formal retraction, reputational damage, or loss of funding. And because every co-author is held accountable, the harm extends well beyond the individual who reused the image.
Rejection or Retraction
Journals may reject at submission or retract after publication.
Reputational Damage
Affects all authors, institutions, and journals connected to the work.
Loss of Trust in Science
Can trigger academic or professional penalties.
Erosion of Trust
Weakens confidence in scientific literature.
Plagiarism Types We Detect
Proofig AI compares manuscript visuals against more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images, the industry’s largest image-plagiarism database.
Direct Reuse
Identifies copied manuscript visuals from published papers, including images, graphs, charts, diagrams, and plots.
Modified Reuse
Detects cropped, resized, or otherwise altered images reused from prior publications.
Self-Plagiarism
Flags reuse of your own prior images.
Cross-Paper Overlaps
Finds partial image matches across different PubMed articles.
How It Works
Upload Your Manuscript Drag and drop your PDF or DOCX file—no formatting changes needed.
AI-Powered Analysis The system scans all manuscript images and cross-checks them against PubMed’s open-access database.
Review and Validate Inspect flagged matches with links to the original PubMed article for context and verification.
Download a Final ReportReceive a detailed PDF report to confirm originality before submission.
Trusted by Leading Institutions and Publishers
Largest Image-Plagiarism Database
Access to more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images for comprehensive image-plagiarism checks.
Global
Trust
Already integrated into publisher and institutional workflows.
Seamless Integration
Used by researchers to prevent unintentional reuse before submission.
Integrity Support
Adopted by journals and ethics committees to support editorial screening.
Proofig helped us catch issues we would’ve missed entirely.
High-Impact Journal
Image plagiarism detection: frequently asked questions
Which databases are used to detect image plagiarism in research papers?
Proofig AI checks your figures against the industry’s largest image-plagiarism database, with more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images. Proofig AI finds direct copies, modified copies and partial matches across different PubMed articles, including reuse of your own earlier published images. Each match links to the original PubMed article, so you can review the context before deciding what it means.
Does Proofig AI only look for reused images inside my manuscript, or in published papers too?
Proofig AI does both: it checks every image within your manuscript for duplication and reuse, and matches each one against published literature. The external check searches the industry’s largest image-plagiarism database, with more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images, and links each match to its source article. Proofig AI supports paper-mill and cross-journal detection, and serves individual researchers, publishers, institutions and ethics committees.
Can Proofig AI find a published image that was cropped, resized or altered before reuse?
Yes, Proofig AI detects modified reuse, where a published image was cropped, resized or otherwise altered before appearing in a new manuscript. Proofig AI also finds partial matches, where part of an image overlaps a figure in a different PubMed article, across more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images. Each match is flagged with a link to the original article, so you can judge whether the reuse was permitted and credited.
Does Proofig AI's image plagiarism check include graphs, charts and plots?
Yes, Proofig AI checks graphs, charts, diagrams and plots for plagiarism, as well as microscopy and other scientific images. Proofig AI finds direct copies and modified versions of visuals published in open-access PubMed articles, across more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images. Inside each manuscript, graph, chart and plot duplication screening also makes Proofig AI relevant to computer science, data science, engineering and economics. Every finding is flagged for your review before it reaches a report.
Are paywalled articles included in Proofig AI's image plagiarism check?
Proofig AI’s image plagiarism check covers open-access images from the PubMed Open Source Database, so images in paywalled articles sit outside that comparison. Copyright and licensing determine which images can be included, and the open-access collection still runs to more than 155 million images. To screen against your own paywalled, confidential or unpublished material, use My Database, a private repository on the Enterprise plan.
Who is held responsible when a reused image is found in a published paper?
Journals generally hold the whole author team accountable, and honest errors or a collaborator’s mistake still carry consequences for the principal investigator. Proofig AI’s Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Dror Kolodkin-Gal, built the platform after seeing colleagues at Harvard Medical School investigated for image problems they had not caused. Running Proofig AI’s image plagiarism check before submission lets the author team find and fix reused visuals while they are still easy to correct.
If my manuscript passed a text plagiarism check, are its images cleared too?
No, a text plagiarism check compares wording, not image content, so a reused micrograph, blot or chart can pass it unnoticed. Proofig AI analyzes the images themselves against the industry’s largest image-plagiarism database, with more than 155 million PubMed Open Source Database images, and catches cropped, resized and partial reuse. Run both checks before submission: one for the words, one for the figures.
Further Resources
Journals can screen references at submission with a desk check of each manuscript's reference list before peer review. The desk check covers four problems: citations...
Proofig AI checks far more than images. Its image checks detect duplication, manipulation, plagiarism, self-plagiarism and AI-generated figures. RefGuard, Proofig AI's reference integrity product, flags...
To check that a citation supports its claim, read the claim, open the cited paper and ask whether the source says the same thing, something...
To detect hallucinated references before you submit, check each entry against the published record: open its DOI and confirm it leads to the same paper,...
To check whether a paper you cite has been retracted, open each reference at its DOI or journal page, look for a retraction notice, and...
AI-generated scientific images are entering the published literature, and visual inspection alone cannot reliably catch them. Proofig AI's AI-Generated Image Identification capability is built specifically...