Participating Frequently

Answered

Photoshop forcing Content Credentials on ALL exports, regardless of AI usage or disabled settings

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
June 17, 2026
5 replies
124 views

Photoshop is suddenly now forcing Content Credentials on ALL my exports, regardless or whether or not any AI was used, and regardless of whether or not Content Credentials (Beta) is enabled. See attached screenshots.

Additionally, it’s saying the export used Adobe Firefly specifically. Not any other AI model. So it’s basically branding every export with Adobe Firefly, regardless of reality.

Correct answer D Fosse

No, the healing/spot healing tools do not use generative AI. It’s something else.

Note that the trigger can be way back in the file history. It doesn’t matter if it’s later deleted, the watermark just says that it has been used at some point. If you’re using templates, a recycled document, or a starting document of external/unknown origin, it can even be present before you start working.

Generative AI is processed on Adobe’s servers. Anything that still works with the internet connection disabled, is safe. The only exception to that is the new locally processed Remove tool, but you have to jump through several hoops to enable that, so it’s not something you will use without knowing.

Also, the first time you’re calling a generative AI function, you get a popup asking that you accept the terms and conditions. If you don’t ever accept that, you’re safe (but if you already did, you can’t go back).

J

jennisanders

Participant

This is happening to me too. I would like a list of tools that trigger this AI marker, because as far as I know I’ve not used any yet my image is still being tagged as AI.

Does the Heal Tool (not Remove) trigger AI credientials?!

D Fosse

Correct answer

Community Expert

No, the healing/spot healing tools do not use generative AI. It’s something else.

Note that the trigger can be way back in the file history. It doesn’t matter if it’s later deleted, the watermark just says that it has been used at some point. If you’re using templates, a recycled document, or a starting document of external/unknown origin, it can even be present before you start working.

Generative AI is processed on Adobe’s servers. Anything that still works with the internet connection disabled, is safe. The only exception to that is the new locally processed Remove tool, but you have to jump through several hoops to enable that, so it’s not something you will use without knowing.

Also, the first time you’re calling a generative AI function, you get a popup asking that you accept the terms and conditions. If you don’t ever accept that, you’re safe (but if you already did, you can’t go back).

davescm

Community Expert

@ahweber You said ‘Photoshop forcing Content Credentials on ALL exports, regardless of AI usage’

I am unable to reproduce that on ALL exports REGARDLESS OF AI USAGE. If an image file is produced without any generative AI being used then I do not see content credentials on export.

However, if AI has been used on an image then Content Credentials are included automatically on export - even if the AI generated element(s) has been subsequently deleted.This appears to be as designed, as it is attached to the file to give a history, not to a particular element within the file i.e. it is flagging that AI was used in the production of the image.

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/creative-cloud/apps/adobe-content-authenticity/content-credentials/overview.html

Dave

ahweberAuthor

Participating Frequently

“However, if AI has been used on an image then Content Credentials are included automatically on export - even if the AI generated element(s) has been subsequently deleted.This appears to be as designed, as it is attached to the file to give a history, not to a particular element within the file i.e. it is flagging that AI was used in the production of the image.”

Ok but… why? Why, if I delete every layer, everything, should it still flag the file as Firefly AI? It’s simply not accurate.

D Fosse

Community Expert

@ahweber

Not exactly hidden, but yes, like everything else, you have to know about it. I never use any generative AI, ever, and it’s not difficult to avoid.

All that said, there is an active feature request to add a master switch in Preferences that disables all generative AI in one go. They said they’ll “look into that”, and so far it has 158 votes, one of them mine. You should add yours too.

https://community.adobe.com/feature-requests-713/adobe-should-make-opt-out-to-all-of-gen-ai-feature-for-users-655758

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

@D Fosse I think that you and the OP are not talking about the same thing. The point is that Photoshop should not (and does not in my tests) force content credentials on export, even if you did use AI. The OP says (and shows in his screenshots) that Photoshop does force it on export. Can you reproduce that?

-- Johan W. Elzenga

D Fosse

Community Expert

@JohanElzenga

I thought the whole point was that the user can’t turn it off? That would defeat the whole purpose -

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/apps/adobe-content-authenticity/content-credentials/overview.html

The OP’s complaint as I read it is that it’s marked as AI when he claims it’s not. So my point was that Firefly is applied in a lot more cases than a straight “generate”-prompt.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

I can’t reproduce this on my Mac running Tahoe 26.5.1 and Photoshop 27.8. I opened an image, removed something with Generative Remove, and then selected Export as. I did get a question about it, but could simply refuse to use Content Credentials and that’s it. See screenshots.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

D Fosse

Community Expert

There’s a couple of tools that can optionally use Firefly. If on, that will trigger Content Credentials. Here’s the Remove tool for instance:

Note that any generative AI tool used will watermark the file permanently - even if that AI generated content is later removed. Content Credentials only knows the tool was used, it doesn’t keep track of the file’s subsequent history.

Any AI used will trigger a watermark and you can’t turn that off. If you could, that would obviously defeat the whole purpose. This is for ensuring the authenticity of photographs. Enabling it in Preferences just means you can add your own provenance that will follow the file thereafter.

ahweberAuthor

Participating Frequently

UGH I just typed a long reply and hit Send, then it just said “Something went wrong” and deleted all my text.

ahweberAuthor

Participating Frequently

Trying this again…

During export, it does not inform the user why CC is being applied and does not offer a solution for fixing this. Users should not be surprised by a feature doing something they didn’t want or that’s not accurate.
If I delete all layers from a file and just add a rectangle shape, it should not mark that file as AI. Because it isn’t. So it’s inaccurate. Think of it this way — If there’s a ball inside of a box, then I take out the ball... it would be inaccurate to say there’s a ball in the box.
“There’s a couple of tools that can optionally use Firefly. If on, that will trigger Content Credentials. Here’s the Remove tool for instance” — How am I supposed to know this, as the user? What are all the tools, where are they? Why is everything hidden? It doesn’t say anything about that anywhere. The info for CC just says it’ll apply if a “fully AI-generated image” was used, not if a tool somewhere had a thing that was turned on.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.