Major steps forward for the CAI: Partnerships with Leica and Nikon, New Content Credentials features in Photoshop and beyond at MAX 2022

Three years ago at Adobe MAX, we launched the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) with the goal of increasing trust and transparency online, as well as combating misinformation and disinformation. The CAI solution focuses on the use of provenance technology to enable attribution for creators and provide transparency about the facts, and origins of a piece of digital content. Today we’re also witnessing the power of creativity via camera innovation and generative AI. But at the same time, we have seen misinformation spread faster than ever before. As we work to restore trust in the digital ecosystem, we believe that provenance is a foundational layer across the content production lifecycle. And that foundation takes a big step forward at MAX 2022.

Today marks an exciting milestone in our mission as we announce partnerships with industry-leading camera manufacturers, Leica and Nikon, to implement provenance technology into two exhibiting cameras — Leica’s iconic M11* Rangefinder and Nikon’s industry-leading mirrorless Z 9*, bringing provenance and authenticity to digital images at the point of capture.

This is a major step in establishing trust and attribution across the content lifecycle — as this is the first time that this secure-capture technology will be in the hands of the creative community. It will allow photojournalists and other creators to protect and increase transparency in their digital work, by securely attaching valuable cryptographic information, such as authorship and when, where, and how an image was captured.

Leica and Nikon are iconic, global brands that have captured powerful moments through advanced innovation and used by millions of creators around the world for decades. This is a critical milestone in our journey to establish trust within digital images and all content by activating the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) technical standard. We now have the full C2PA provenance specification realized on cameras for the first time. Through these partnerships, and the broad availability of our free CAI open-source tools powering them, the CAI is seeing accelerated adoption around the world, including among photojournalists, news outlets, creative professionals, everyday consumers, social media influencers, artists and innovators.

Implementing provenance technology into Leica and Nikon Cameras

Both partnerships will advance the CAI’s efforts of empowering millions of photographers everywhere to attach provenance to their images at the point of capture, creating a chain of authenticity from camera to cloud. It’s a critical step in bolstering trust to combat the pervasive issues of plagiarism, as well as misinformation and disinformation.

• Building on Adobe’s partnership with Leica. For over a century, the Leica brand name has been synonymous with authentic images and cameras that have produced countless iconic photographs. Leica’s existing membership in the CAI, and today’s extended partnership, are broadening CAI’s reach to even more creative professionals and artists. The Leica innovation and development team recently implemented the C2PA standard in a Leica M11* Rangefinder camera to demonstrate the new provenance technology for the first time. Each image is provided with a forgery-proof signature that documents essential information, such as camera model, manufacturer and image content. This ensures an unbroken chain of authenticity from capture to completion. The first available Leica cameras with the C2PA standard are planned to ship in 2023.

• Reaching millions with Nikon. Nikon sits at the forefront of innovative technology. To build on its role as the first camera manufacturer to join the CAI and C2PA, it will exhibit the Nikon Z 9* specially equipped with its image provenance function, which conforms to C2PA standards and was developed in collaboration with the CAI. Nikon leveraged the CAI’s open-source toolkit to implement this provenance function, which is significant as the CAI seeks to empower broader developer and partner adoption across diverse workflows and tools. Nikon is developing the C2PA provenance functionality for a future camera model.

CAI + Generative technology

In the last year, Generative AI has broken through as a creative technology for content generation that can take ideation, exploration, and speed to new levels, aiding and accelerating the creative process. While Generative AI is an exciting technology with incredible potential, early iterations have presented valid creative concerns. As Generative AI capabilities become more widely available, the CAI can give creators a way to prove that their work was human-made and not from AI only. Building on our commitment to increase trust and transparency online, today we unveiled our approach to developing creator-centric Generative AI offerings by incorporating CAI technology into our tools to support creatives’ ability to prove attribution and by investing in new research to support creatives’ control over their style and work.

New Content Credentials features in Photoshop, Verify and Open Source

Today at MAX, we also announced further improvements to Content Credentials, which we launched last year as a beta experience to millions of Adobe creative customers to provide a new way to produce and assess digital content provenance and attribution. Newly available today in:

Photoshop.

• Content Credentials is now available to all individual Creative Cloud subscribers in Photoshop — be sure to turn it on in your Photoshop preferences today, so you can export with attribution and provenance.

• Photoshop now supports multi-user and multi-device workflows so that users can work across accounts and teams to create Content Credentials throughout their workflows.

• Announcing the new Content Credentials cloud, where users can publish their Content Credentials to gain resiliency and save space in their files. Publishing to Content Credentials cloud enables search and recovery so that audiences can see the original Content Credentials, even if they’ve been maliciously or accidentally stripped off. Exporting to Content Credentials cloud allows your work to be publicly indexable and tamper-evident, strengthening creator attribution.

• New and enhanced global settings in preferences give users more flexibility over when and how they use Content Credentials. Whether folks want it always on, or to decide on a document-by-document level, their global preferences will simplify their Content Credentials experience.

• Enhanced support for a range of Photoshop actions now means that creators can use their normal workflows while getting all the benefits of Content Credentials including working with smart objects.

See what else is new in Photoshop.

Verify.

• Verify, a CAI website where consumers can see important provenance information about a piece of digital content, is now updated to support the search and recovery of provenance and attribution history from Content Credentials cloud export files. This allows for the groundbreaking ability to ensure Content Credentials are permanently associated with your content, no matter where it travels.

Open-Source Tools.

• Adobe’s Content Credentials team supports three options for open-source tools to implement C2PA standards beyond just Adobe apps. These tools include options from lightweight JavaScript to read Content Credentials on your site or app to completely customisable tools with the full SDK.

• From our original release of the open-source tools earlier this year, the tools now have both updated documentation and quicker file processing time to improve the developer experience.

• Support for selected video and audio formats, and mobile development, as we continue to explore how we can expand content provenance to new mediums.

Our three-year journey & beyond

Since our founding, the CAI has grown to more than 800 members, joining forces with the leading media and tech companies, NGOs, academics, and others to fight misinformation and further the implementation of provenance technology. Recent additions include The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, The BBC, El Pais, and Getty Images, to name a few.

This summer, we released a suite of open-source developer tools based on the C2PA specification, enabling more developers to integrate content provenance across web, desktop, and mobile projects — for free. We’re getting our tools into the hands of millions of creators and developers to create a safer, more transparent digital ecosystem, while providing users with information to be better informed about the content they see online.

Today’s announcement shows the potential that new ideas have when we focus together on technology, community, and open source to increase trust and transparency in digital content. It is inspiring to have Leica and Nikon leading the way with us as we continue to innovate and address important societal issues. For more information or to become a member, visit the Content Authenticity Initiative here.

* Use of the Leica M11 Rangefinder at Adobe MAX 2022 is for exhibit and demo purposes, and does not mean or imply this specific model will be equipped with the provenance function.

*Use of the Nikon Z 9 camera at Adobe MAX 2022 is for exhibit and demo purposes, and does not mean or imply this specific model will be equipped with the provenance function.