ChatGPT · Gemini · Nano Banana
Images made with ChatGPT or Google Gemini (including Nano Banana) leave the generator with provenance attached: C2PA Content Credentials stored beside the picture, and in Google’s case an invisible SynthID watermark woven into the pixels.
Windows · macOS · ExifTool
Windows and macOS both ship with a way to strip some metadata from photos, but each covers only part of the job: Windows focuses on EXIF properties, macOS on location.
EXIF · XMP · C2PA viewer
Before you share a photo or trust an image, a good metadata viewer shows everything the file says about itself — not just the handful of fields a phone or file manager shows.
IPTC · DigitalSourceType
DigitalSourceType is a small IPTC metadata field with a big effect: a single value such as trainedAlgorithmicMedia is enough for many platforms to label an image as AI-generated.
Lossless · JPEG · PNG · HEIC
The quick ways to strip metadata — taking a screenshot, re-saving in an editor, running a file through an online converter — all redraw the picture. You lose the metadata, but you also lose sharpness, resolution or color accuracy.
C2PA · IPTC · AI check
The quickest trustworthy clue to whether an image is AI-generated is inside the file: C2PA Content Credentials, the IPTC DigitalSourceType field and generator text frequently name the exact tool that made an image.