Guides
Explainers on C2PA, EXIF, XMP, AI generation traces and the AIGC implicit label. Learn what a picture’s metadata is saying.
Glossary of image provenance terms
Every term and acronym that appears in an AuditImage report or in these guides, from APP1 to XMP, spelled out and explained in a few sentences each.
SynthID and invisible watermarks versus metadata
Watermarks live in the pixels, metadata in the file. What each can and cannot protect against, and why AuditImage only reads metadata.
JPEG segments and PNG chunks: where metadata lives in a file
How to read every row of AuditImage's "File structure" table. What APP1, APP11, COM, tEXt and caBX hold, and what offset and size tell you.
Common metadata forgeries and how to spot them
Strip and relabel, transplant someone else's EXIF, change the dates, fake a Photoshop record. None of it is hard, and all of it leaves contradictions.
Why metadata disappears
Messaging apps, screenshots, social platforms, online compressors, format conversion. A picture almost always loses its metadata in transit, and that does not mean anything is wrong with it.
XMP and edit history
Adobe's XML metadata. It records the creating tool, document IDs and every edit, and is the main clue to which software a picture has been through.
What EXIF is and what it can prove
The capture settings a camera writes into a photo. It tells you the body, lens, time and place, but anyone can edit it, so it is a self-declaration, not evidence.
What the AIGC implicit label looks like
The metadata label required by the AI-generated content labelling rules, its fields, where it lives in a file, and how platforms actually write it.
The C2PA manifest in DALL·E and ChatGPT images
OpenAI has embedded C2PA manifests in generated pictures since 2024. What the manifest contains, who signs it, and why it is so often missing by the time you look.
Stable Diffusion and ComfyUI PNG parameter blocks
Local generators write the full prompt, sampler, seed and model name into PNG text chunks. Once you know the parameters, prompt and workflow blocks, the origin is obvious.
Midjourney metadata traces
Midjourney does not write C2PA, but a picture downloaded from the site carries a distinctive XMP and EXIF block with the prompt and a job ID.
How to verify a picture's Content Credentials
Four ways to read and verify a C2PA manifest, from a browser drop zone to the command line, and what each one can and cannot show you.
What are C2PA Content Credentials
A digitally signed origin statement embedded in an image file. It records who made the picture, with which tool, and what was done to it, and anyone can verify it.