Empirical conclusion from the 2026-06-04 - 2026-06-08 cert sweeps:
every shipped face-restore method (GFPGAN-on-cleaned, PhotoMaker-V2,
InstantID txt2img, InstantID img2img-on-cleaned at three parameter
settings) regenerates the face from an ArcFace embedding via SDXL
diffusion. Output face pixels are diffusion-fresh, which makes the
regenerated face look MORE AI-generated than the cleaned image (gloss,
symmetric pores, SDXL "clean skin" aesthetic) regardless of license.
The cleaned image from the main controlnet 0.20 removal pass is the
LEAST-AI state we can reach without re-introducing SynthID; any restore
on top trades original-look for embedding-driven regeneration. The
fundamental issue is structural: ArcFace encodes "general look" at 512
dimensions, SDXL decodes that into pixels with the inherent SDXL
aesthetic. Stronger identity push (higher strength + IP-Adapter scale)
makes the face closer to the embedding but more AI-looking; weaker push
leaves identity to drift further. No parameter setting recovers original
identity AND looks less AI than cleaned.
Production conclusion: do not ship `--restore-faces` in any monetized
deployment. The extras (`instantid`, `photomaker`) stay in the library
for research / personal use where users explicitly want regeneration.
Documented at every entry point:
- CLAUDE.md: new "Face restore trade-off" bullet + every restore mention
rewritten to "REGENERATES, does NOT recover"; controlnet bullet updated
- README.md: feature bullet + callout + secondary mention all updated
- docs/synthid-robust-identity-research-2026-06-08.md: appended
"Empirical follow-up" section documenting the InstantID sweep phases
(Phase 1 txt2img v1/v2/v3, Phase 2 img2img defaults + stronger params)
- docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md: updated restore-faces
bullet to reflect the empirical conclusion
- CLI help: `_restore_faces_options` docstring + `--restore-faces` /
`--restore-faces-method` help text all updated
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Visual review of the GFPGAN-on-cleaned output (9-face grid, 1448x1086) showed it
only polished the already-drifted face without restoring identity — useless for the
"restore who is in the photo" intent. Dropping it.
The shipped restore path is now PhotoMaker-V2, which delivers true identity-from-
embedding face regeneration via a CLIP+ArcFace dual encoder. The ArcFace branch
pulls InsightFace antelopev2/buffalo_l model packs at runtime, which InsightFace
releases under a research-only license, so the whole extra is **NON-COMMERCIAL**.
raiw.cc and any monetized deployment must NOT install the `photomaker` extra.
This is called out at every entry point: CLI flag help, module docstring,
pyproject extra block, CLAUDE.md extras bullet, README install snippet.
Changes:
- Deleted `src/remove_ai_watermarks/face_restore.py` and its tests.
- Deleted the `restore` extra (gfpgan/facexlib/basicsr + scipy<1.18 / numba<0.60
pins) and the basicsr setuptools<69 build pin from pyproject.toml.
- Restored `src/remove_ai_watermarks/photomaker_restore.py` (V2 this time:
`TencentARC/PhotoMaker-V2`, `photomaker-v2.bin`, no `pm_version='v1'` override).
- Restored the `photomaker` extra in pyproject with all the upstream-compat
pins (einops, peft, onnxruntime, insightface) and the `allow-direct-references`
hatch metadata block.
- `InvisibleEngine` swapped `_restore_faces` -> `_restore_faces_photomaker`;
`--restore-faces-method` removed (only one method, no choice).
- CLI flag help, CLAUDE.md, README, docs/synthid.md, and
docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md all updated.
- docs/synthid-robust-identity-research.md status notice rewritten to list both
abandoned commercial-safe attempts (V1 + GFPGAN-on-cleaned) and the
non-commercial trade-off we accepted.
ruff + strict pyright(src/) clean; 578 tests pass (the 9 GFPGAN tests are gone,
the 11 PhotoMaker tests stay green).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
After 7 cascading upstream-compat fixes (insightface dep, peft dep, pm_version,
device, etc.), the PhotoMaker V1 cert sweep still hit a CFG batch-dim mismatch
inside the denoising loop. The upstream PhotoMaker `pipeline.py` is forked from
diffusers v0.29.1 and our env runs 0.38; SDXL prompt-encoder handling changed
significantly between those versions, so making PhotoMaker work end-to-end
needs a proper fork or a diffusers downgrade — both expensive. Not worth
shipping today.
Pivot: restore `face_restore.py` (GFPGAN) with a single-line fix that makes it
SynthID-safe by construction. The previous design ran GFPGAN.enhance on the
ORIGINAL watermarked image and was oracle-confirmed to re-add SynthID via the
weight-0.5 pixel blend. The fix is to run GFPGAN on the diffusion-CLEANED
image — whatever pixels GFPGAN derives from are already SynthID-free, so the
partial blend cannot transport the watermark. Identity fidelity is lower than
a true identity-as-embedding stack would deliver, but it ships and works.
Changes:
- `src/remove_ai_watermarks/face_restore.py` restored from pre-wipe state with
one line changed: `restorer.enhance(cleaned_bgr, ...)` instead of
`restorer.enhance(original_bgr, ...)`. `original_bgr` is kept as an unused
positional argument for API stability.
- `src/remove_ai_watermarks/photomaker_restore.py` and its tests REMOVED. The
research note (`docs/synthid-robust-identity-research.md`) keeps a "status
notice" documenting why PhotoMaker is parked for now and what the path back
in would look like.
- `pyproject.toml` `restore` extra restored (gfpgan/facexlib/basicsr +
scipy<1.18 + numba<0.60 pins + the basicsr setuptools<69 build pin), plus
`photomaker` extra (with its einops/insightface/peft pile) and the
`[tool.hatch.metadata] allow-direct-references = true` block REMOVED.
- `InvisibleEngine._restore_faces_photomaker` removed; `_restore_faces`
restored. The `--restore-faces` CLI flag and its plumbing through cmd_*
signatures are unchanged.
- CLAUDE.md, README.md, docs/synthid.md, docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-
research.md updated to describe the shipped GFPGAN-on-cleaned design and to
reference PhotoMaker only as the parked alternative.
ruff + strict pyright(src/) clean; 578 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
A Modal cert sweep caught what the research doc missed: PhotoMaker-V2 fails at
import without InsightFace ("No module named 'insightface'"). Reading the upstream
source confirms it: `photomaker/__init__.py` imports `FaceAnalysis2` (an InsightFace
wrapper) at module load, V2's encoder is named
`PhotoMakerIDEncoder_CLIPInsightfaceExtendtoken`, and `model_v2.py`'s forward
takes an `id_embeds` argument that the pipeline computes via
`insightface.app.FaceAnalysis(name='antelopev2', ...)`. So V2 is a DUAL encoder
(CLIP + ArcFace), not CLIP-only as the model card line "id_encoder includes
finetuned OpenCLIP-ViT-H-14 and a few fuse layers" implied.
InsightFace's pretrained model packs (antelopev2, buffalo_l) are research/
non-commercial only per their own README:
"The pretrained models we provided with this library are available for
non-commercial research purposes only."
So V2 is blocked for a paid service like raiw.cc.
PhotoMaker-V1 is the commercial-safe alternative — its `PhotoMakerIDEncoder`
(model.py) forward takes only `(id_pixel_values, prompt_embeds, class_tokens_mask)`,
no ArcFace branch. Identity is CLIP-only, license is Apache-2.0, no InsightFace.
Code change: swap the repo + filename constants in `photomaker_restore.py`
(TencentARC/PhotoMaker, photomaker-v1.bin). Tests still pass (the 9 PhotoMaker
tests use a fake pipeline, so the model swap is transparent to them).
Doc correction: rewrote the verdict / license table / section 5 of
`docs/synthid-robust-identity-research.md` to lead with V1 and add a correction
notice explaining the V2 misread. Bulk-renamed `PhotoMaker-V2` to `PhotoMaker-V1`
across CLAUDE.md, README.md, docs/synthid.md, and
docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md (kept V2 only in the correction
notice, the license table, and the anchor reference).
ruff clean; 578 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The GFPGAN `restore` extra and its `face_restore.py` module are gone. They were
oracle-confirmed to re-introduce SynthID by blending watermarked original face
pixels at fidelity weight 0.5 (clean A/B: gemini_3 controlnet 0.20 detected WITH
GFPGAN, clean WITHOUT). Keeping them as the default restore method was a footgun
for the removal pipeline. PhotoMaker-V2 (added in the previous commit) is the
single shipped restore path now -- identity-as-embedding, SynthID-safe by
construction.
Removed:
- src/remove_ai_watermarks/face_restore.py + tests/test_face_restore.py
- pyproject.toml `restore` extra (gfpgan/facexlib/basicsr + scipy/numba pins)
- pyproject.toml `[tool.uv.extra-build-dependencies] basicsr = [...]` build pin
- CLI: `--restore-faces-method` and `--restore-faces-weight` (no method choice
to make, no GFPGAN weight knob to expose)
- InvisibleEngine._restore_faces method (only _restore_faces_photomaker remains)
- All restore-faces-method / restore-faces-weight threading through cmd_*
signatures and _process_batch_image
Kept:
- `--restore-faces / --no-restore-faces`: now binds to PhotoMaker-V2.
- All adopted oracle findings about GFPGAN re-introducing SynthID (kept in the
research docs as historical context that explains why the path was removed).
Docs updated: CLAUDE.md (restore extras bullet collapsed to photomaker, removed
face_restore Key-modules bullet, several inline GFPGAN refs scrubbed), README.md
(face-identity callout + install section now point to the photomaker extra),
docs/synthid.md 5.5 (net recipe), docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md
(recommendations).
ruff + strict pyright (src/) clean; 578 tests pass (the 9 GFPGAN tests are gone,
the 9 PhotoMaker tests stay green).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ran the isolated raiw-controlnet-cert Modal app (raiw-app/modal_cert.py) over a
strength x seed grid, restore OFF, --max-resolution 1536, each vendor checked on its
OWN oracle (OpenAI -> openai.com/verify, Gemini -> the Gemini app). Certified
controlnet SynthID-removal floors:
- OpenAI 0.20: 2 photoreal images (9-face grid + bracelet) x seed {1,2,3} = 6/6 clean;
the bracelet that flipped at 0.15 is seed-robust at 0.20. Transfers to prod (OpenAI
removal is resolution-independent).
- Gemini 0.30: 0.20 detected -> 0.30 clean on 2/2 seeds (hardest face). Holds only at
<= 1536; Gemini is resolution-sensitive and raiw.cc runs NATIVE, so cap Gemini
<= 1536 + use 0.30, or native-calibrate (~0.35+).
Prod recipe recorded: controlnet + a controlnet-specific per-vendor schedule in
resolve_strength (OpenAI 0.20 / Gemini 0.30, NOT the default 0.10/0.15 ladder) +
FIXED prod seed (kills the near-threshold non-determinism) + restore reworked/off.
Added to docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md (certified floors table),
docs/synthid.md 5.5, and the CLAUDE.md controlnet bullet. Docs only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oracle validation (openai.com/verify + the Gemini app) overturned three claims that
were on main, and consolidates the controlnet findings into one authoritative place.
- controlnet does NOT reliably remove SynthID at the low vendor-adaptive strength:
removal is content x pipeline dependent and the survivors FLIP by content type
(photoreal survives controlnet / clears default; flat graphic survives default /
clears controlnet; flat text clears both). Root cause is insufficient strength,
not the pipeline; controlnet needs a higher, per-vendor floor than default.
- removal near the threshold is SEED-non-deterministic (same image+pipeline+strength
can pass or fail run-to-run); a single clean run does not certify a strength.
- `--restore-faces` RE-INTRODUCES SynthID: GFPGAN runs on the ORIGINAL watermarked
face at weight 0.5 and composites it back over the cleaned result (clean A/B:
a Gemini face stayed detected through controlnet 0.15/0.20/0.25 WITH restore,
cleared at 0.20 with --no-restore-faces). The old "GFPGAN scrubs SynthID" claim
was wrong.
Corrected in CLAUDE.md (watermark_remover controlnet bullet, controlnet
Known-limitations bullet, face_restore bullet, vendor-adaptive strength bullet) and
docs/synthid.md (5.1 controlnet/face-identity, 5.2 strength floors, new 5.5 oracle
validation log). docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md gains an authoritative
"Oracle validation 2026-06-04" section that the others point to as the single source.
Docs only; no code change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add `--pipeline controlnet` (SDXL base + xinsir canny ControlNet via
StableDiffusionXLControlNetImg2ImgPipeline): the canny edge map conditions the
img2img regeneration so text and face STRUCTURE stay sharp, while the watermark
is still removed by the regeneration (`strength`) -- no original pixels are
copied or frozen, so SynthID does not survive. Oracle-verified clean on OpenAI
with better text/structure fidelity than plain img2img at equal strength.
`--controlnet-scale` tunes structure preservation; fp32 on mps/cpu (fp16-fixed
VAE on cuda/xpu). Shares the img2img runner (live progress + MPS->CPU fallback)
and the fp16-VAE-fix / device-move helpers with the default pipeline.
Remove the superseded subsystems -- ctrlregen (SD1.5 clean-noise),
text-protection (differential / region-hires) and face-protection: they either
destroyed real content or shielded the watermark by re-using original pixels.
controlnet replaces them by regenerating everything under edge conditioning.
Canny preserves face structure but not identity; face IDENTITY is a separate
face-restoration post-pass (CodeFormer/GFPGAN), researched + prototyped but not
yet shipped. An IP-Adapter FaceID attempt was built and removed (footgun: needs
high strength, corrupts faces at removal strength).
Docs: docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md, scripts/controlnet_sweep.py.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Victor Kuznetsov