[Leo_Germond]

That's not quite the full picture you're painting here.

First of, at the moment the effort is super asymetrical: it takes way more efforts to check a paper for image duplication than it takes to alter an existing image to add it to a paper. So the journals are losing against the counterfeiter as we speak.

What's more, it is possible to run the detection tools long after publication, which makes it harder for someone to fake images because they run the risk of being detected later on with a more advanced version of the tooling. Typically malware devs try to erase all traces of their bad deeds and to run away undetected for this exact reason. But how do you hide an already published paper?

Finally, it takes efforts to run the tools. If this effort is greater than the effort it takes to fake an image, which it is, then the cost may become prohibitive, so fakers will try to avoid faking+prechecking in favour of faking+hiding (by publishing in unchecked journals for example). That is until they group together to organize faking at scale (setting up and automating a tool like that is probably were the cost is, not running it). Faking at scale does exist, some countries practice it eagerly. So now the question becomes: do we turn a blank eye to such blatant misuse of research or do we try to take them red-handed and to ban/punish bad behavior? Not such a hard question since being on the offensive is the only scenario where we have a remote chance of stopping or at least reducing the influx of faked papers, you don't stop the mafia by ignoring them.