Three families of traces
AI-related metadata comes in three broad kinds:
- Signed provenance — C2PA Content Credentials naming the generator and what it did.
- Descriptive fields — IPTC and XMP entries such as DigitalSourceType, CreatorTool or a description.
- Generation settings — prompt, seed, model and parameters saved as text, mostly by local tools.
OpenAI: ChatGPT images and DALL·E
Images from OpenAI’s image generation carry C2PA Content Credentials identifying OpenAI as the source, so C2PA-aware viewers and platforms can recognise them.
Adobe: Firefly and Photoshop’s generative tools
Adobe attaches Content Credentials to content made with its Firefly-powered features, describing it as AI-generated or AI-edited. A photo touched with Generative Fill or Generative Expand can therefore carry a composite AI declaration even if nearly all of it is a real photograph.
Google (Gemini, Imagen) and Meta AI
Google embeds its SynthID invisible watermark in images from its generative models and uses metadata to mark AI content in some products. Meta has said Meta AI images include a visible marker, an invisible watermark and IPTC metadata indicating AI generation.
Midjourney
Midjourney downloads may include the prompt and a job ID in description or comment fields, along with an IPTC value marking the image as AI-generated. What shows up depends on the download format and the service version at the time.
Local generators: Stable Diffusion front-ends and ComfyUI
Local tools sign nothing, yet they often store the most detail: A1111 and Forge write a “parameters” text chunk, and ComfyUI embeds its whole prompt and workflow graphs as JSON. These options can usually be switched off — for new images only.
Generators change their output between versions, so the reliable approach is to open the file itself: lay it on the table in AI Label Remover to see each field, then wash out whatever you would rather not share with the AI metadata remover.
About generator metadata
Does Nano Banana add metadata to images?
Google marks images from its models with SynthID and has added C2PA Content Credentials to newer models such as Nano Banana Pro. Check a specific file to see what it carries.
Do all generators add C2PA?
No. Large hosted services increasingly do; many tools, especially local ones, write only text metadata or nothing.
Does washing remove invisible watermarks too?
No. Watermarks such as SynthID are in the pixels, and washing never changes pixels.
Why do two images from one tool differ?
Export format, app version, where you downloaded from and later edits can each add or remove fields.