Adobe Announces Adobe Content Authenticity App

by John Ricard October 8, 2024 0 Comments

With the rise in popularity of AI-generated images and AI-generated modifications of photographs, there has been an increased desire for transparency regarding whether AI was used wholly, or even in part, in creating an image. To aid in making this determination, Adobe is expanding the capabilities of its Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) by announcing the creation of a web-based tool called Adobe Content Authenticity.

According to the CAI website, Content Credentials allows a creator to “record and display the most important details about a piece of content at every step of its lifecycle.” These details include the name of the creator and information about the devices used in creating the image, including any software or AI-based tools that were used to modify the image.

Adobe likens Content Credentials to a nutrition label for imagery that helps a viewer understand how an image has been modified from its original incarnation and if that original incarnation was, in fact, AI-generated. I spoke with Andy Parsons, Senior Director of the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe, about the Content Authenticity web app, which will launch in early 2025 as a free public beta.

“You could walk into a grocery store and buy any food you like, and you have a fundamental right to know what it is, where it came from, and what's in it. And we think the same is true of digital content, especially given the power and potential deceptive power of deepfakes, as they're called. AI is a tool that can enhance creativity and help creators do their jobs using these powerful tools. For us, at least, it’s not meant to replace creativity or replace human beings in any way. But any transformative technology like generative AI breeds a certain amount of uncertainty in the creative ecosystem,” said Andy.

A journalist writing an article about a military conflict would need to be certain that an image accompanying their article was not AI-generated. Conversely, a photographer who took a photo of that content would want editors to know that the image is, in fact, an accurate depiction of a real incident.

Images that utilize Content Credentials would display a small white circle with the letters “cr” inside, known as a CR pin. A viewer would click this pin to access the information associated with that image.

Andy states, “It’s totally open. The specification underlying all this is not owned by Adobe. There’s no Adobe intellectual property here.” Adobe’s goal is to see widespread adoption of the technology. “The more places Content Credentials appear, the more companies that are implementing them, all the way from hardware and silicon to news sites and social media and everywhere in between, the more effective this particular measure is going to be.”

Currently, the Leica M11 is the only camera to seamlessly integrate content authentication using the Content Credentials standard, but there are over 3,700 members of the CAI, including Sony, Canon, and Fujifilm. Platforms such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI will also support the use of Content Credentials.

The new product is called Adobe Content Authenticity. It’s a free web-based tool that allows creators to attach Content Credentials to their work. Once the information has been entered into the image through the Adobe Content Authenticity platform, it will travel with the image across the internet on platforms such as Behance, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.

“So you prove under your Adobe account that you have access to these accounts, and then you can connect them to your content. When someone sees your work on the web, they know that it’s you,” said Andy.

“It enables creators to protect and gain recognition for their work by adding their credit and social media accounts. It enables them to better connect with their audiences that exist, and for people who discover their content online, to learn more about them, their website, and social media identity, and to maintain control over how their content is to be used or not used by generative AI models.”

“Adobe Firefly, which is our Gen AI set of models and tools, is only trained on content that we have rights to, never on customer content. But we know that every company doesn’t behave that way, and in many cases, companies crawl the open web, waiting for copyright legislation and other things to catch up. We think that creators should have a way to express agency in how they want their material to be used. So we have this setting that also gets imbued in that content credential that says, ‘I don’t want my material to be used to train Gen AI models or to make things that look like my material, thereby co-opting my style, for example,’” said Andy.

While creators may have to wait until next year for the full launch of the Adobe Content Authenticity web app, a Chrome extension offering some of the same functionality will launch today in beta form. The extension will allow anyone to see Content Credentials anywhere they exist on the web. Information about the image, including who created the work, who contributed to the creation, how the image was edited in Photoshop, how the photograph was composited, and if the image can be used to train AI, will be instantly available.

Currently, many photographers use IPTC metadata to embed their photo credit into their images. This information can be intentionally stripped using Lightroom and other products. The information is often stripped unintentionally as an image is modified and transmitted. To ensure this does not occur with Content Credentials, an invisible watermark is added to the image. This undetectable watermark remains with the image even after the image has been screenshotted. The Chrome extension can view this watermark and access the information it contains.

“The goal eventually is to make all of this available not through a browser extension, but through browsers themselves, or mobile operating systems, or desktop operating systems. For now, we’re offering this browser extension that takes advantage of the combination of the watermark and the CR pin. Whatever someone has chosen to include is available wherever that content goes, anywhere on the web,” said Andy.

Creators who wish to be part of the public beta for the Adobe Content Authenticity web app can sign up here.

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Photoshop