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About Adobe’s Content Credentials content transparency mark

An ‘explainer’ resource created by

Elliott Bledsoe

who is convinced that we’re actually living in Biff World!

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A content transparency initiative allowing creators to label their content and allowing users to verify information about content pushed by Adobe and aligned with the Content Authenticity Initiative.

TL;DR

Content Credentials is a content labelling and content verification system that records and displays information about content using a visual pin. Users are abel to view information such as the creator details, the content’s provenance, use of AI in the content and the issuer of the credentials. Some metadata information is displayed automatically, while others are optional and can be turned on or off by the user. Users can attach Content Credentials directly to a file, publish them to the Content Credentials cloud, or do both, although it is currently limited to JPG and PNG files. Adobe created it, but it has also been implemented by other players including Leica Camera, Microsoft, Nikon, and Publicis Groupe.

What

Content transparency initiative

Who

Adobe; Content Authenticity Initiative; and others

When

Launched: October 2023

Where

Online: contentcredentials.org

Why

To add attribution, provenance and AI transparency information to content

How

Using metadata and ‘assertions’ outlined in the C2PA standard

What else

Supports content labelling and content verification in ways designed to overcome limitations of other labelling and verification schemes

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

A suite of content labelling and content verification tools called Content Credentials that allows users to add “tamper-evident metadata” [Adobe, 2024a] that displays information about the creator, their creative process and the origin and history of their content [C2PA, n.d.-a] Adobe says, “This information allows creators to receive more recognition for their work, connect with others online, and enhance transparency for their audience” [Adobe, 2024a]. This metadata is attached to the content wherever it goes, “enabling individuals to enjoy content and context together” [Adobe, 2024a].

The website itself does not provide much information but Adobe’s help documentation and other websites about the launch give more detail.
To say it’s intentions are ambitious is something of an understatement. Having read a lot of information about Content Credentials, my summary of what it is designed to do includes:

  • building credibility and trust through the transparent disclosure of information about the creator and their creative process,
  • automate the giving of credit to creators when sharing content online,
  • promoting creators by maintaining a way to identify and contact them,
  • labelling content to inform users of the use of generative AI tools in the content’s creation,
  • record provenance information about the history of content such as where it has been edited, and
  • reduce the spread of mis and disinformation online, while also
  • attempting to overcome the problem of metadata stripping.

Content Credentials is part of the Content Authenticity Initiative‘s technology ecosystem and contributes to its “[dedication] to restoring trust online by creating a standard way to share digital content without losing key contextual details such as who made it and when and how it was created” [Adobe, 2024a]. It uses the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity‘s C2PA standard.

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How does Content Credentials work?

There are two main aspects of how the initiative works: marking content with labels that provide information about it and allowing users to verify information about the content.

Labelling content

When Content Credentials apply to material a Content Credential pin is displayed – a visual “icon of transparency” [C2PA, n.d.-b] that looks like a black outlined teardrop filled with white and a black lowercase ‘c’ and a lowercase ‘r’ in a heavy sans serif font inside. The ‘cr’ stands for ‘credentials’. When a user clicks on the pin a pop-up appears showing a snapshot of Content Credentials information and a yellow ‘Inspect’ button that takes the user to Verify where more details are available.

Video: A video showing the Content Credentials pin and that the ‘CR’ stands for ‘credentials’. © C2PA. Full information below.

When a file with Content Credentials applied is displayed in a platform that supports them the pin will be displayed. Where Content Credentials are displayed for a particular piece of content the pin and pop-up act as a form of content labelling, disclosing information about the content, such as its creator, its provenance and whether AI was used in its creation.

Verifying content

Separate to the content labelling, Content Credentials also supports verification of the information associated with the content. The website includes a verification tool – simply called Verify – that allows users to inspect Content Credentials information for an uploaded file (if it has Content Credentials information).

Video: A video from the Content Credentials website demonstrating a user clicking on a pin and revealing the pop-up information. © C2PA. Full information below.
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What information is displayed?

Adobe has invested the most in implementing Content Credentials, but other companies have also deployed it.

Adobe and Content Credentials

How the metadata is generated is a bit complicated. In some circumstances some of the recorded metadata will be displayed automatically. Displaying other metadata is optional.

Currently, the only automatic Content Credentials metadata displayed is:

  • Generative AI transparency – This information is automatically applied to content made using Adobe Firefly or Adobe Firefly features in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe XD [Adobe, 2024a] and Adobe Illustrator [Adobe, 2024b]. It includes the following metadata information:
    • Content summary – A statement about the use of AI is automatically displayed (before the other details in the quick view and labelled ‘Content summary’ in Verify. Examples of statements shown on the Content Credentials website include ‘This image was generated with an AI tool’ or ‘This image combines multiple pieces of content. At least one was generated with an AI tool.’ The tool used displays is labelled ‘AI tool used’.
    • Edits and activity – Automatically recorded actions taken in the Firefly software.
    • Output thumbnail – A thumbnail of content for assets created using the Text to image feature in the Firefly website [Adobe, 2024b].
    • Produced with – Automatically recorded information about the software or device that was used to create or edit the content. The name of the software or device is labelled ‘App or device used’. The label shows under the ‘Process’ heading in Verify.
    • Signed by – Identification of the issuing organisation that recorded the metadata information and issued the Content Credential, and when it was issued. The issuing organisation is displayed at the top of the quick view and is labelled ‘Issued by’ in Verify and the time and date stamp for when the Content Credential was issued is labelled ‘Issued on’. Both labels and their corresponding information display under the ‘About this Content Credential’ heading in Verify.

Some of the other metadata information that can form part of Content Credentials is optional and can be turned on or off by the user. These are:

  • Assets – Automatically recorded thumbnails of other pieces of content introduced into other software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, XD and Illustrator. Identification of the other content may be labelled ‘Assets’ or ‘Ingredients’. ⟨ The Photoshop help documentation for Content Credentials refers to this information as assets but the label given to it in the Preview in Photoshop is ‘Ingredients’. Also, currently I am unsure where this displays as I haven’t published material using Content Credentials yet. ⟩
  • Connected accounts ‒ If the user associated with the Adobe account that is logged in to the Adobe software has connected a social media account or associated an NFT creative attribution to their account using Adobe Connected Accounts the user can opt to include or not include them. Each social media account or web3 address can be displayed or hidden individually. ⟨  I am unsure where this displays at the moment. ⟩
  • Edits and activity – Separate to any edits and activities recorded in relation to the use of Firefly or Firefly features, other actions taken in other software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, XD and Illustrator are recorded. For Photoshop Content Credentials needs to be turned on for each document [Adobe, 2024c] or enable for new and saved documents. For Lightroom edits and activities are automatically recorded “in a way that Content Credentials can reference at Export” the information [Adobe, 2024a]. Examples of actions include ‘Created: Created a new file or content’ and ‘Opened: Opened a pre-existing file’. ⟨  I discovered ‘Created’ by uploading the butterfly image from the Content Credentials homepage to Verify and I discovered ‘Opened’ by experimenting with Content Credentials in Photoshop. ⟩
  • Producer ‒ The name of the creator of the content. Currently for content created using Adobe software “the name listed on your Adobe account” [Adobe, 2024d]. Currently Content Credentials only supports one name as the Producer, and that is automatically the name associated with the Adobe account of the logged in user when the content was exported.

While users can select whether to display or not display this information, they cannot manually change the information.

Users can attach Content Credentials directly to a file, publish their Content Credentials to the Content Credentials cloud or do both. As Adobe notes, attaching Content Credentials directly to a file is more private but increases the file size and is less resilient because the Content Credentials metadata can be stripped by others. Publishing Content Credentials to Abobe’s Content Credentials cloud reduces file sizes and improves their resilience because they may be able to be “recovered” using Verify if the metadata was stripped and your published Content Credentials may appear as possible matches for content that is visually similar. Doing both gives creators the widest coverage.

Currently Content Credentials are limited to the following file formats:

  • JPG, where the file was exported from Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom, and
  • PNG, where the file was exported from Adobe Photoshop.
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Leica Camera and Content Credentials

Leica Camera has released two camera models – the M11-P and the M11-D – that seamlessly integrates Content Credentials.

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Microsoft and Content Credentials

Microsoft has added support for Content Credentials to outputs generated using Image Creator in Bing [Adobe, 2023]. Reportedly they will also integrate Content Credentials capabilities into Microsoft Designer [Adobe, 2023].

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Nikon and Content Credentials

Nikon demonstrated a sample Z 9 equipped with image provenance functionality, including Content Credentials, at MAX 2023.

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Publicis Groupe and Content Credentials

Publicis Groupe will adopt Content Credentials at enterprise scale using Adobe tools across its worldwide network of designers, marketers and creatives [Adobe, 2023].

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Qualcomm/Truepic and Content Credentials

At the end of 2020 Qualcomm and Truepic developed a secure hardware implementation of the C2PA standard that “enables photos taken in “secure mode” on smartphone devices to attach key facts from the moment of capture” [CAI, 2020]. “This technology will soon be in the hands of consumers as part of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 platform. Snapdragon powers millions of mobile devices worldwide” [CAI, 2020].

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Future features

Once a file is uploaded to Verify for inspection a prompt is displayed to the user to ‘Search for possible matches’. The tooltip explains that it can be used to “Find Content Credentials that may be related to your file based on their content’s visual similarity to yours.” But it seems that is not active yet (when you use it you get an error message that reads “Possible matches are currently unavailable”).

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References

Adobe (2024a) ‘Content Credentials’, https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/content-credentials.html.

Adobe (2024b) ‘Content Credentials overview’, https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/get-set-up/learn-the-basics/content-credentials-overview.html.

Adobe (2024c) ‘Learn about Content Credentials’, https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/using/content-credentials-lightroom.html.

Adobe (2024d) ‘Content credentials in Photoshop’, https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-credentials.html.

Adobe (2023) ‘Adobe MAX 2023: Milestone wave of Content Credentials adoption with industry partners Microsoft, Leica Camera, Nikon, Publicis Groupe, and more’, Adobe Blog, https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2023/10/10/new-content-credentials-icon-transparency.

Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (n.d.-a) ‘Content Credentials’, https://contentcredentials.org.

Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (n.d.-b) ‘Introducing Official Content Credentials Icon’, https://c2pa.org/post/contentcredentials/.

Content Authenticity Initiative (2020) ‘Secure Mode Enabled’, https://contentauthenticity.org/secure-mode-enabled.

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Disclosure

AI use

This resource was drafted using Google Docs. No part of the text of this resource was generated using AI. The original text was not modified or improved using AI. No text suggested by AI was incorporated. If spelling or grammar corrections were suggested by AI they were accepted or rejected based on my discretion (however, sometimes spelling, grammar and corrections of typos may have occurred automatically in Google Docs).

I used Gemini in Google Workspace to summarise the text of this resource, however the summary (see TL;DR) goes not duplicate any of the AI-generated text. Rather, it was used to help me gather my thoughts on the most important parts of the text to include in a summary.

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Credits

A screenshot of a video from the Content Credentials website showing the Content Credentials pin and that it stands for ‘credentials’. It shows the Content Credentials pin: black lowercase letters C and R inside an outlined teardrop shape with a black outline and a white fill. The pin is on a purple background.

Video: A video from the Content Credentials website showing the Content Credentials pin and that it stands for ‘credentials’. Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), untitled video, date unknown. © C2PA.

My use of this content is permitted under multiple copyright exceptions in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). In my opinion, it is a fair dealing for the purpose of reporting news under section 103A and a fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review under section 103B.

This content is excluded from the Creative Commons licence that applies to this resource.

A screenshot of a video showing a mock up of the rendering of the Content Credentials pin layered over a video. The Content Credentials pin is black lowercase letters C and R inside an outlined teardrop shape with a black outline and a white fill. It floats in the top right-hand corner of a video frame. The video shows a number of penguins and occasional chunks of ice in a sandy desert.

Video: A video from the Content Credentials website showing the Content Credentials pin and that it stands for ‘credentials’. Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), untitled video, date unknown. © C2PA.

My use of this content is permitted under multiple copyright exceptions in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). In my opinion, it is a fair dealing for the purpose of reporting news under section 103A and a fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review under section 103B.

This content is excluded from the Creative Commons licence that applies to this resource.

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Provenance

This resource was produced by Elliott Bledsoe from Agentry, an arts marketing micro-consultancy. It was first published on 4 Oct 2024. I have updated the resource since it was first published. This is version 1.3. Questions, comments and corrections are welcome – get in touch any time.

Changelog

v 1.3: Minor technical and copy fixes – Tuesday 29 October 2024.

v 1.2: Added missing credits information and fixed typos – Monday 7 October 2024.

v 1.1: Added launch date of Content Credentials – Friday 4 October 2024.

v 1.0: First published – Wednesday 2 October 2024.

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Reuse

Good ideas shouldn’t be kept to yourself. I believe in the power of open access to information and creativity and a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture. That’s why this resource is licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons licence.

A bright green version of the Creative Commons brand icon. It is two lowercase letter Cs styled similar to the global symbol for copyright but with a second C. Like the C in the copyright symbol, the two Cs are enclosed in a circle.A bright green version of the Creative Commons brand icon. It is two lowercase letter Cs styled similar to the global symbol for copyright but with a second C. Like the C in the copyright symbol, the two Cs are enclosed in a circle.

Unless otherwise stated or indicated, this blog post – About Adobe’s Content Credentials content transparency mark – is licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). Please attribute Elliott Bledsoe as the original creator. View the full copyright licensing information for clarification.

Under the licence, you are free to copy, share and adapt this resource, or any modified version you create from it, even commercially, as long as you give credit to Elliott Bledsoe as the original creator of it. So please make use of this resource as you see fit.

Please note: Some content in this resource is excluded from this licence. See Credits above for details of excluded content.

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