Adobe Photoshop History Log question - new Content Credentials setting option

[Heather Baxter]

Good afternoon everyone,

We use Adobe Photoshop and with the newest update, we now are seeing a new option under the History Log settings. We aren't sure whether we should enable this new setting or not. We currently have Metadata and Detailed selected. Underneath that is now Content Credentials (Beta), which states "Capture the edits and actions you take on your content. You can then attach that edit history and attribute information when you export the image." Google and Adobe explain "This feature aligns with the upcoming C2PA standard to provide digital provenance across the internet. It creates an open format for sharing information about the producer’s identity and the ingredients and tools used to make the content. These ultimately provide useful attribution information for audiences once the producer shares or publishes the image."

Do we need to turn this on? Or will the current/historic settings capture the information we desire without needing to enable this new function?

Thanks!

[Boyd Baumgartner]

Our profession is more concerned with authenticity of the original image than any chart produced from it or the authentication of the history of changes. That being said, if you have a DIMS, you're already most likely getting a hash (a unique, large, algorithmically determined number) associated with your images when you upload them to the DIMS database.

The Content Credentials are more for proving the authenticity of images that are released into the wild of the internet where there can be questions of deepfakes, NFT authorship, or other such disputes.

At the end of the day, they're just digital signatures, and instead of spending money to add a software layer (and cost) to implement a thing that doesn't get challenged and isn't required by an accreditation standard, you can implement the Bic protocol and just print and sign your charts with a pen.

Voila!