The CLI still advertised --model, --steps, --guidance-scale, --device and a
deprecated --auto. Each pinned a value the two surviving profiles fix -- the
model stack, the per-stage distilled schedule, CFG 1.0, CUDA -- so the only
outcome any of them had was an error raised several frames below the caller,
under a message naming an internal profile. A flag whose sole result is a
refusal is worse than no flag: it advertises a capability that does not exist,
and it lets a wrapper thread a value that will silently do nothing. They are
gone from the parser, from InvisibleEngine, and from WatermarkRemover, so the
failure is now a TypeError or a Click "No such option" at the point the caller
can act on.
The install hint was wrong in the same way. is_available() checked torch and
diffusers, then told the user to install [diffusion] -- which contains neither
DiffSynth nor the Z-Image face stage both profiles run. Following the advice
produced a second, different failure. The module list and the extra name now
live once in watermark_profiles (REMOVAL_MODULES, INVISIBLE_EXTRA) and are read
by both the CLI gate and the remover's precondition, which cannot drift apart
because they are the same tuple.
The adaptive-polish default moved out of the argument parser. It was resolved by
reading Click's parameter source, which put per-profile data in the CLI layer,
left the engine declaring the opposite default (False vs True) so a library
caller and a CLI caller on one profile got different output, and lost the polish
entirely for anything that supplies the flag non-interactively. The flag is now
tri-state (default=None) and resolve_adaptive_polish owns the per-profile
answer. The seed follows the same rule: the CLI stopped pre-resolving it.
Dead code removed with it: six scan_*_video wrappers and the _scan_video helper
none of them had a caller for, PNG_METADATA_KEYS, feather_region_composite and
the remover region path that was only reachable from a no-caller convenience
wrapper, remove_watermark_batch on both layers, try_empty_device_cache, the
_generate/_run_qwen_zimage pass-through pair, self.model_id, and the _internal
PEP 562 shim that no caller ever went through. get_device now answers cuda or
cpu only: mps and xpu travelled one frame to the same CUDA-only refusal while
costing a device probe each, and that refusal now names the resolved device, so
device=None on a CUDA-less host says 'cpu' rather than 'None'. The XPU wheel
index went with them.
Docs: README, cli, installation, python-api, supported-signals,
known-limitations and module-internals all still described the removed profiles,
the CPU/MPS/XPU ladder, a `default`->`sdxl` alias, and the wrong extra.
known-limitations still listed the retired SDXL strength ladder as current.
scripts/smoke_matrix.py and real_examples_e2e.py drove --device mps.
Next release is 0.25.0, not a patch: this removes public parameters and
narrows a published extra on top of the released 0.24.0.
pre-commit: 1) maintain.sh - exit 0 (1091 tests, Pyright 0 errors, no
vulnerabilities); 2) /simplify - 4 agents, 11 findings applied, 2 skipped
(dropping the `device` parameter entirely, which raiw-app pins; folding
diffsynth into the `diffusion` extra, which video-only callers do not need);
3) docs sync - grepped every removed identifier across README, docs/, scripts/,
.claude/; updated 9 docs; 4) CLAUDE.md - added the no-error-only-knobs rule to
.claude/rules/development.md
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The min-resolution floor lifted small inputs toward SDXL's ~1024 training size,
and Real-ESRGAN was an optional way to do that lifting. Both surviving profiles
run at native geometry, so the engine forced the floor to 0 on every path; the
floor never fired, `upscaling` was never true, and nothing downstream of it could
execute. Gone: upscaler.py, _esrgan_upscale, the min_resolution and upscaler
parameters, _target_size's floor branch, --min-resolution, --upscaler,
_warn_if_esrgan_unavailable and the `esrgan` extra. max_resolution stays and is
now the only lever on geometry; it can only scale down.
scripts/smoke_matrix.py was the one live consumer and neither gate saw it -
Pyright is scoped to src/ and Ruff cannot resolve its function-local import - so
`--diffusion` would have died at import. Its knob rows were written for the
removed profiles besides (--pipeline sdxl, --steps 20, --guidance-scale 5.0,
--device mps), so they are rewritten rather than patched: most now assert a knob
is REJECTED, which is the coverage worth having when the CLI accepts a value the
library refuses several layers down. Accepted-knob rows skip without CUDA, so the
row count is host-dependent and verification-plan.md no longer claims a fixed 68.
This removes a public module, a CLI option and a published extra, so the next
release is 0.25.0, not a patch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
qwen-zimage becomes the default and sdxl-zimage the only alternative. The
controlnet, sdxl, qwen and default profiles are gone, and with them the CPU and
MPS paths for invisible-watermark removal: neither matched the two-stage
recipe's face preservation, so keeping them advertised a quality this library no
longer delivers. Visible-mark removal and every identify command still run
anywhere.
Retired names are rejected rather than remapped. Silently routing --pipeline
sdxl onward would run an old script at a different strength, on a different
model, at a different quality, and report success.
CUDA is now checked when the remover is constructed instead of when the model
loads. Auto-detection cheerfully returned mps on a Mac, so the failure arrived
several layers down, after the dependency check and the pipeline import, in a
message naming whichever internal pipeline happened to raise. _DEVICES collapses
to {"cuda"} and the cpu/mps float32 branch goes with it.
resolve_strength stays total. It briefly returned None for qwen-zimage, meaning
"ask the resolution curve", which pushed a branch onto both callers and left one
of the two strength policies outside the strength module; the CLI copy had
already grown an `or 0.0` guarding a path its own comment called unreachable. It
now takes the image size and answers for both profiles, so the displayed value
cannot drift from the executed one.
Deletion fallout removed with it: img2img_runner and progress.py (the MPS
recovery path and its progress monitor had no callers left), viable_steps, the
fp16 degenerate-output retry, the fp16 VAE fix, and the Qwen img2img call
builders. try_empty_device_cache moved into watermark_remover rather than
leaving a module whose docstring outlived its code. _HAS_DIFFUSERS routes
through optional_deps.module_available, which is what the rest of the library
uses and what correctly rejects a pruned namespace remnant.
--steps, --guidance-scale and --model now have exactly one legal value each and
are still accepted at parse time, then rejected in remove(). Their help text
says so, but validating them beside the option would be better.
Not addressed, and worth its own decision: invisible_engine forces
min_resolution to 0 for both profiles, so the --min-resolution floor, --upscaler,
_esrgan_upscale, upscaler.py and the esrgan extra are all unreachable.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
main landed #58 (pill-gate fix, superseded by this branch's localize->fill
rewrite) and #57 (deps bump). Resolved the 6 code/test/doc conflicts by keeping
this branch's post-rewrite versions; the deps bump auto-merged into
uv.lock/pyproject. Full gate green after resolution: ruff, pyright 0, 730 passed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Replace reverse-alpha removal with localize -> fill (template-free mask + one
shared cv2/MI-GAN/big-LaMa fill) for every mark; drops the colour-shift / dark-pit
failure modes, version-robust to a moved or re-rendered mark
- Separate perception/decision/action: engines report Candidates, a pure
decide(candidates, Context) arbiter owns all policy (sensitivity + provenance +
pill gate), remove_auto_marks orchestrates -- behavior-preserving (corpus 46/46/92)
- Three orthogonal knobs replace --method: --backend cv2|migan|lama,
--sensitivity auto|strict|assume-ai, provenance (auto from metadata)
- Add high-level api.remove_visible / visible_provenance (lazy top-level re-export);
visible --mark auto delegates to it so CLI and library share ONE path
- Read+write HEIC/AVIF on the pixel path via pillow-heif; imwrite preserves the input
format at max quality (JPEG q100/4:4:4); a no-op copies the original bytes verbatim
- Lossless byte-level JPEG metadata strip (no DCT re-encode); consolidate the two
remove_ai_metadata into one, delete legacy noai/cleaner + best_auto_mark
- Bump 0.13.0 -> 0.14.0
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Add the Jimeng-basic top-left "AI生成" pill as a CAPTURE-LESS mark
(pill_engine.py): synthetic-silhouette edge-NCC detect + inpaint-only removal.
Gated in remove_auto_marks: kept only when Jimeng is confirmed (TC260 metadata
OR the bottom-right "★ 即梦AI" wordmark fired -- the wordmark keeps recall on
metadata-STRIPPED uploads) AND Doubao did not fire.
- Add an inpaint-fallback removal path + MI-GAN ONNX backend (migan extra, MIT,
~28 MB / ~1 GB peak -- droplet-friendly) alongside big-LaMa. New
--method auto|reverse-alpha|inpaint (shared across visible/all/batch) and
erase --backend migan; footprint_mask on each engine.
- auto is deterministic: reverse-alpha for capture marks (recovers exact pixels,
lighter -- measured cleaner than MI-GAN on structured backgrounds) and inpaint
only for the capture-less pill.
- --mark auto now removes EVERY detected mark in one pass (remove_auto_marks),
so a Jimeng-basic image's top-left pill AND bottom-right wordmark both clear.
- Bump 0.12.1 -> 0.13.0.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
extract_c2pa_info now uses the c2pa-python Reader first (any container, whole
manifest store incl. ingredient manifests), falling back to the hand-rolled caBX
parser for blobs the validator rejects (synthetic/partial, broken wheel). The
issuer/source-type/SynthID/soft-binding registry scan is shared by both paths
(_populate_registry_fields), so the return-dict contract is unchanged. Also
replaces the dead `from c2pa import has_c2pa_metadata` import in metadata.py with
a real Reader presence check. c2pa-python added as a core dep (MIT/Apache, ~+5MB
RSS, no torch; wheels cover the CI matrix).
Validated on the full local spaces corpus (25,725 imgs): 0 regressions; 384
manifests newly parsed (379 non-PNG JPEG/WebP + 2 PNGs the byte-scanner missed);
3 false Adobe/Microsoft->Google attributions fixed via real-manifest parsing.
The docs/module-internals.md section for this change already landed in 41f6797.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
BREAKING:
- Drop `--restore-faces` / `--restore-faces-method` CLI flags
- Drop `restore`, `photomaker`, `instantid` extras
- Drop `restore_faces` / `restore_faces_method` params from
InvisibleEngine.remove_watermark and AutoConfig
Rationale (full empirical record in
docs/synthid-robust-identity-research-2026-06-08.md "Empirical follow-up"):
every face-restore approach evaluated 2026-06-04 - 2026-06-08 (GFPGAN-on-
cleaned, PhotoMaker-V2, InstantID txt2img, InstantID img2img-on-cleaned
at three parameter sweeps) regenerates the face via SDXL diffusion --
output face pixels are diffusion-fresh, so the regenerated face inherits
SDXL's "clean skin" aesthetic and loses original identity precision. The
result looks MORE AI-generated than the cleaned image, not less. The
cleaned controlnet 0.20 image is the least-AI face state we can reach
without re-introducing SynthID.
License:
- MIT -> Apache 2.0 (Apache adds an explicit patent grant + trademark
clause; better fit with the upstream Apache projects this library
mirrors / depends on -- diffusers, transformers, controlnet-aux,
xinsir's controlnet weights)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Empirical conclusion from the 2026-06-04 - 2026-06-08 Modal cert sweeps:
every face-restore approach we built (GFPGAN-on-cleaned, PhotoMaker-V2,
InstantID txt2img, InstantID img2img-on-cleaned at three parameter
settings) regenerates the face via SDXL diffusion rather than preserves
it. Output face pixels are diffusion-fresh, so the regenerated face
inherits SDXL "clean skin" aesthetic and loses original identity
precision -- it looks MORE AI-generated than the cleaned image, not
less. The cleaned image from the main controlnet 0.20 removal pass is
the least-AI face state we can reach without re-introducing SynthID.
Nothing in the restore family achieves the actual goal (preserve the
original person's face). Keeping them around as opt-in invites users to
ship something that defeats the point. Removing entirely.
Library changes:
- Deleted src/remove_ai_watermarks/instantid_restore.py
- Deleted src/remove_ai_watermarks/photomaker_restore.py
- Deleted tests/test_instantid_restore.py
- Deleted tests/test_photomaker_restore.py
- Removed `instantid` and `photomaker` extras from pyproject.toml
- Removed `[tool.hatch.metadata] allow-direct-references = true` (was
only needed for the photomaker git+ URL)
- InvisibleEngine.remove_watermark: dropped `restore_faces` +
`restore_faces_method` params, removed both `_restore_faces_instantid`
and `_restore_faces_photomaker` private methods, removed dispatch
- CLI: dropped `_restore_faces_options` decorator, all four cmd_*
signatures lose `restore_faces` + `restore_faces_method`, kwarg passes
to remove_watermark dropped
- _apply_auto: dropped `restore_faces` from tuple shape (was unused after
the engine no longer takes it)
- auto_config.AutoConfig: dropped `restore_faces` field; `plan()` no
longer sets it; `reason` no longer mentions it
- Tests updated accordingly (test_auto_config.TestReason no longer asserts
"face-restore on" in the reason string)
Docs updated:
- CLAUDE.md: removed the photomaker extras bullet, the Face restore
trade-off bullet, the instantid_restore.py + photomaker_restore.py
module bullets; replaced restore mentions in watermark_remover and
controlnet bullets and prod recipe with the empirical conclusion
- README.md: removed both `--restore-faces` callouts and the install
snippet; the feature bullet and auto-mode comment updated
- docs/synthid-robust-identity-research.md: added Status-retired notice
at the top pointing at the 2026-06-08 followup
raiw-app:
- modal_cert.py: dropped `--restore-faces` flag entirely; sweep() no
longer takes restore_faces; pinned _LIB_SPEC to `[gpu]` extras (no
`photomaker` / `instantid` extras), points at main
ruff + strict pyright clean; 569 tests pass; 18 restore-specific tests
gone.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per the 2026-06-08 deep-research synthesis (docs/synthid-robust-identity-
research-2026-06-08.md), the entire ArcFace-class identity-adapter ecosystem
for SDXL is blocked from commercial use by InsightFace's non-commercial model
packs (antelopev2 / buffalo_l). No commercial-safe ArcFace-grade identity
stack exists today. The user explicitly opted into shipping a non-commercial
restore path (research / personal use; raiw.cc must NOT install the extra).
Architectural choice: InstantID over PhotoMaker-V2 as the default.
- PhotoMaker-V2 (CLIP+ArcFace dual encoder, txt2img only): documented upstream
identity drift on Asian male faces, visually confirmed in our cert sweep
(tatsunari rendered as a generic woman; group photo collapsed into a
patchwork).
- InstantID (ArcFace cross-attention + landmark ControlNet): semantic
identity branch + spatial weak landmark control, decoupled. Per InstantID
paper (arXiv:2401.07519) and the research report, stronger identity fidelity
on single portraits. Critically: NO original face pixels enter the diffusion
(ArcFace embedding is semantic, landmark stick figure is pure geometry), so
SynthID is not transported.
Implementation:
- New `src/remove_ai_watermarks/instantid_restore.py` mirrors the
`photomaker_restore.py` shape (lazy singletons for pipeline + FaceAnalysis,
per-face crop + _composite_faces from photomaker_restore). Loads the
InstantID community pipeline via `DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained(
custom_pipeline="pipeline_stable_diffusion_xl_instantid")` -- no upstream
Python package needed; diffusers fetches the file from its community
examples.
- New `instantid` extra in pyproject (insightface + onnxruntime +
huggingface-hub). NON-COMMERCIAL block in the comment explains why.
- CLI: `--restore-faces-method [instantid|photomaker]`, default `instantid`.
Both methods explicitly labeled NON-COMMERCIAL in the help text.
- Engine: dispatch on `restore_faces_method` to either
`_restore_faces_instantid` or `_restore_faces_photomaker`.
- 9 control-flow tests for InstantID without model download (mirror the
photomaker_restore.py test pattern + draw_kps helper checks). 587/587 pass.
Diffusers-0.38 compat verified by upstream code inspection: the InstantID
pipeline inherits from `StableDiffusionXLControlNetPipeline`, uses only
public diffusers APIs (`encode_prompt`, `prepare_image`, `prepare_latents`,
`get_guidance_scale_embedding`), uses legacy attention processor API which
diffusers preserves for backward compat. No PhotoMaker-V1-style internal
text_encoder access. End-to-end execution will be validated by the Modal
cert sweep in the next step.
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>
