Glossary
Image metadata and provenance terms, in plain language.
C2PA
C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) is a technical standard that records a file’s provenance: which device or software created it and which edits it received, including possible AI involvement. That information is embedded in the image, and platforms read it to decide whether to apply an AI label. You can review it with the checker and remove it with the /c2pa mode.
Content Credentials
Content Credentials is the public face of the C2PA standard: a kind of “nutrition label” for an image, often cryptographically signed, that tells its creation and edit history. It travels inside the file even when you cannot see it in the preview. If it names a generative AI tool — even on a real photo retouched in Photoshop or Canva — the platform may flag it.
EXIF
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is the metadata block that cameras and phones embed automatically in every photo. It can include GPS coordinates, date and time, device make and model, and technical settings. It matters for your privacy because it reveals where and when you took the picture. Review it with the checker and remove it with the /exif mode, without losing quality.
XMP
XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) is a flexible, XML-based format that editing apps use to store adjustments, authorship and, sometimes, provenance or AI-use marks. A leftover XMP field can trigger the AI label on a real photo. It can be removed with the /xmp mode without changing the pixels.
IPTC
IPTC is an editorial metadata standard built for press and professional photography: authorship, credits, caption, keywords and copyright data. It is useful for attributing an image, but it can also hold information you do not want to publish. The checker shows whether your file carries it.
JUMBF
JUMBF (JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format) is the container that usually stores C2PA credentials inside a file. It is the technical “envelope” that holds the provenance history. It travels embedded in the image and is removed together with the credentials when you use the /c2pa mode.
Metadata
Metadata is the invisible information that travels with an image without being part of the pixels: camera data (EXIF), editorial data (IPTC), adjustments (XMP) and provenance credentials (C2PA). It goes with the file when you share it. You can check and clean it without recompressing or changing the pixels, so the image looks identical.
Provenance
Provenance is the verifiable history of a file: its origin and the edits it has gone through. Standards such as C2PA record it inside the image. Platforms use it to label content, but because it records any compatible edit, it can mark a real photograph edited with modern software as AI. It is the most common cause of false positives.
SynthID
SynthID is Google’s technology that embeds an invisible pixel-level watermark in content generated by its AI models. Unlike metadata, it lives in the image itself, so it is not removed by stripping metadata or C2PA credentials. We say this plainly: our tool does not remove watermarks of this kind.
Invisible watermark
An invisible watermark is a signal embedded in an image’s pixels, imperceptible to the eye, that can identify AI-generated content (for example, SynthID). Because it does not live in the metadata, cleaning EXIF, XMP or C2PA does not remove it. Platforms can also detect content by means other than metadata.
PNG text chunk
A PNG text chunk is a text block that the PNG format can store inside the file. Tools such as Stable Diffusion or ComfyUI use it to save the prompt and the generation parameters. That information can reveal that the image was made with AI and often gets published by accident. The checker detects it, and it can be removed without recompressing the image.
HEIC
HEIC is the high-efficiency image format that iPhones and other modern devices use by default. It offers good quality in small files, but it also embeds metadata such as EXIF and GPS. It is one of the formats supported for checking and cleaning, along with JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and TIFF.
AVIF
AVIF is a modern image format based on the AV1 codec, with very good compression and quality. Like any other format, it can carry metadata and provenance credentials. It is among the supported formats (JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, HEIC) for checking and cleaning without altering the pixels.