Content Credentials

What are Content Credentials?

Content Credentials are a new kind of tamper-evident metadata. It allows creators to add extra information about themselves and their creative process directly to their content at export or download. This information allows creators to receive more recognition for their work, connect with others online, and enhance transparency for their audience. 

Content Credentials are part of a growing ecosystem of technologies available through the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI). Adobe, along with CAI members in media, creativity, and civil society, is dedicated 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.

Alongside the CAI, Adobe co-founded a standards development organization, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), to develop an open, global standard for sharing this information across platforms and websites (beyond just Adobe products). Content Credentials is an implementation of this standard.

Why use Content Credentials?

Using Content Credentials is an easy way to share content transparently. It can help build credibility and trust with viewers by sharing more information about yourself and your creative process. It can also help prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation online.

Content Credentials allow you to attach your identity and contact information to your work, giving people more ways to find and connect with you when they encounter your content online.

How do Content Credentials work?

Content Credentials attach additional information to content at export or download, stored in a dedicated, tamper-evident set of metadata called a Content Credential. The Content Credential accompanies its corresponding content wherever it goes, enabling individuals to enjoy content and context together.

Over time, if a piece of content undergoes different stages of editing or processing, it can also accumulate multiple Content Credentials. This creates a version history that people can explore and use to make more informed trust decisions about that content.

What are some use cases for Content Credentials? 

Content Credentials are most useful for creators when they want to attach credit and usage details to their work and provide an extra layer of transparency for their audience. Content Credentials can be used by casual and professional artists alike for purposes including, but not limited to: 

Creators can use Content Credentials to help ensure that they receive credit for their content as it's published and shared and indicate how they prefer it to be used by others. Creators can also share their general editing process with their audience, transparently showing what was done to produce their content without giving away the fine details of their creative process.

Creators can use Content Credentials to share contact information like social media accounts and web3 addresses using non-Adobe accounts. Read about connecting accounts for creative attribution.

Content Credentials indicating the use of generative AI tools will be included with all content generated with Adobe Firefly to help promote transparency around the use of generative AI. In the future, Content Credentials from other Adobe apps will also support indicating that generative AI was used in the creative process.

Photographers can capture image history, editing, and attribution details to share with their audiences. Check out our case study that demonstrates the complete use of Content Credentials. 

How are Content Credentials stored and recovered?

Content Credentials can be stored and recovered in three ways:

This increases file sizes but can keep your Content Credentials more private. Attached Content Credentials are less resilient and can be stripped from your content when published or shared online.

It reduces file sizes and improves their resiliency. If they’re ever stripped from your content, they can be recovered with Verify. In Verify, your published Content Credentials may appear as possible matches for content that is visually similar to your own.

• Adobe’s Content Credentials cloud is a public, persistent storage solution for your Content Credentials, separate from the cloud file storage included in your Adobe plan.
• If Content Credentials are missing after your content is published online, the platform you're using likely doesn't yet support Content Credentials. If you post your Content Credentials to the Content Credentials cloud, they can be recovered on Verify. 

This gives users the benefits of both methods.

Explore the growing Content Credentials ecosystem

You can find and interact with Adobe’s current Content Credentials implementations in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and XD. Support for more Adobe apps is coming soon.

• Learn about using Content Credentials in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Firefly.
• Inspect Content Credentials on Verify.
• Read about how Content Credentials work on Behance.
  

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Discover how creators can use Content Credentials to obtain proper recognition and promote transparency in the content creation process.