A New Chapter for Content Authenticity: Photoshop at Adobe MAX 2021
By Andy Parsons
When we started the CAI two years ago, it was clear the initiative would require broad, open collaboration and concerted efforts on three fronts: standardization, advocacy, and product implementation. At Adobe MAX 2021 we look proudly at strong progress on all three of these.
In September, we marked a critical milestone for the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) the CAI’s sister organization, focused on writing the technical standard for digital provenance. The C2PA released its draft specification for public feedback a few weeks ago, and now moves quickly forward toward a 1.0 specification release in early 2022. The speed of the standards work is a testament to the urgency felt by all of the contributors to address the problem of misinformation with transparency and trust.
In advocacy, we’ve seen the steady growth of membership and the CAI now counts over 400 members, collaborating with each other, participating in events, and exchanging ideas. We’re joined by major media organizations like The Washington Post, the Gannett newspaper chain, BBC, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Getty Images, VII Photo, and others. On the technology side, we have participation from Arm, CameraBits, Impressions, Metaphysic.ai, Microsoft, Nikon, Qualcomm, Reface, Smartframe, Synthesia, Truepic, and Wacom — among a host of others. In many cases, CAI members are preparing to implement digital provenance in their products. Soon, Adobe will launch a set of open source projects to make the code powering content authenticity in Creative Cloud available to anyone. (Sign up here to receive updates.) I am immensely proud of the CAI community and its continued expansion. As always, there is more work to do to ensure diverse, global points of view are embraced as broad adoption comes into focus.
Today the first full product implementation of content authenticity, the idea first contemplated in the 2020 CAI white paper and now reaching maturity in the C2PA, launches in Adobe Photoshop and a suite of complementary products. The release of Content Credentials, available in beta for all Photoshop users, is the first time the CAI technology is being brought to a wide audience. We look forward to feedback from our beta product users so the team can make Content Credentials ever more accessible, streamlined and effective in providing transparency and safeguarding the work of creators everywhere with proper attribution. Here’s how to use Content Credentials in Photoshop on desktop.
To round out the Content Credentials experience, we’re also releasing support on Behance, in Adobe Stock, and via some significant updates to the CAI’s Verify web application, where digital provenance for any supported image can be viewed and explored. Finally, users will be able to bolster the identity attached to their work by linking social media profiles and crypto addresses to their Content Credentials via Photoshop.
The CAI has always been characterized by bold ambition and a deep sense of purpose. Today’s progress toward a software ecosystem supporting digital provenance opens a new chapter in the journey. With much work to come in the years ahead for the CAI community, we pause for just a moment to celebrate this milestone—the next step toward a future of transparency, trust, understanding of the content we create and share.