The auto backend now resolves best-first: LaMa (highest quality, recovers the
textured/structured backgrounds the classical fill smears) > MI-GAN > cv2. Both
learned backends share the same onnxruntime availability check, so auto cannot
tell them apart and always prefers the better one; a memory-tight deployment
that cannot afford LaMa's ~4.7 GB peak pins MI-GAN explicitly via
`--backend migan` / `backend="migan"` (the deployment's call, not the library's).
cv2 stays the no-deps floor and now emits a one-time quality warning when auto
falls back to it, since it smears texture/structure.
Motivated by a v0.12.1 reverse-alpha vs 0.14 localize->fill head-to-head:
reverse-alpha recovered structured backgrounds more cleanly than any inpaint;
LaMa closes most of that gap, MI-GAN can ghost/hallucinate, cv2 is weakest.
doubao/jimeng removal is identical between versions; gemini strict coverage is
4pp lower (all recovered via assume_ai) with cleaner clearance and no
outside-box damage.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Candidate carries only the fields the arbiter reads (key, label,
detected_strict, detected_relaxed, features); location/region/confidence were
vestigial from the removed best_auto_mark max-by-confidence path.
- resolve_backend returns preferred_inpaint_backend() directly (typed Literal)
instead of an identity ternary.
- colour/normalise/behaviour -> US spelling across code comments and docs.
No behavior change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Resolve 10 code-review findings on the v0.14.0 localize->fill path, several
release-blocking:
- gemini: build the removal mask from the decision's provenance-aware region
instead of a strict internal re-detect. A relaxed/assume_ai sparkle was
re-demoted by the FP gate into a None mask and reported removed while left in
the image; this also drops the redundant double-detect.
- registry: report a mark removed only when a fill actually happened (remove()
returns a None region for an empty mask), so a no-op is never claimed.
- api/cli: add write_noop so the CLI `visible` no-mark path writes nothing and
cannot clobber a pre-existing -o file (was write-then-unlink -> data loss);
create output.parent; skip the same-file copy (SameFileError on in-place).
- cli: catch the missing migan/lama backend RuntimeError on the visible/all
paths (matches `erase`); route the single-mark relaxation through the shared
resolve_relax instead of an inline copy.
- metadata: keep_standard=False no longer takes the AI-only lossless JPEG
short-circuit (it left standard metadata); defer a malformed-marker JPEG to
the PIL fallback instead of reporting a partial strip as complete.
- invisible: register the HEIF opener before Image.open (HEIC --force) and
RGB-convert before the PNG temp (CMYK JPEG).
- pill: normalize via to_bgr so a 4-channel BGRA array cannot crash cvtColor.
Regression tests for each; docs synced (resolve_relax, write_noop,
best_auto_mark -> detect_marks).
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>
Verified 0.13.0 pill removal on a 32k real-upload corpus. The metadata-OR-wordmark
gate was only ~1/3 precise: TC260 metadata confirms Jimeng-class provenance, not pill
presence, so the weak edge-NCC detector's false fires (textured ceilings/walls, where
inpaint visibly smears) were admitted whenever metadata was present.
Split into two arms (_keep_pill): the reliable bottom-right wordmark (~94% precise,
survives metadata stripping) removes the pill unrestricted; the metadata-only arm
removes it ONLY when the top-left footprint is flat enough for an invisible inpaint
(PillEngine.footprint_is_flat, median-Sobel <= _FLAT_TEXTURE_MAX). Keeps real
flat-scene pills and harmless flat false fires; leaves the damaging textured false
fires untouched. Corpus: 270 -> 118 removals, ~90 true preserved, damaging FP -> ~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>
Regenerating pixels removes SynthID / open watermarks but degrades a real
photo, so running it on a clean image is the dominant paid score-0 cause on
no-watermark uploads. Gate invisible/all/batch on identify.has_invisible_target:
when no invisible AI signal is locally detectable and --force is unset, skip the
regeneration. Per-command semantics:
- invisible: write no output, exit EXIT_NO_INVISIBLE_SIGNAL (2)
- all: skip step 2 but keep visible-removed pixels + strip metadata, exit 0
- batch: skip the scrub; copy the input through in invisible mode
A skip never claims the image is clean (a pixel SynthID is undetectable once its
metadata proxy is gone); the message says so and routes to --force. The gate
fails safe (a detector error runs the removal).
has_invisible_target wraps identify(check_visible=False, check_invisible=True)
and returns the new ProvenanceReport.ai_from_metadata field (the confidence==high
union), so the raiw.cc worker can reuse the same gate. Gate placed before engine
construction so the skip path is cheap; shared via cli._should_skip_invisible_scrub.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- watermark_remover: _build_qwen_kwargs now passes explicit height/width (via
_qwen_target_size, floored to /16). Without it QwenImageImg2ImgPipeline defaults to
1024x1024 and silently squishes non-square inputs, distorting the scene and garbling text.
- watermark_profiles: resolve_strength gains a `pipeline` arg + a Qwen strength ladder
(_QWEN_VENDOR_STRENGTH, Gemini 0.25), so `--pipeline qwen` gets its certified floor
automatically; retires the manual "pass --strength 0.25 for Gemini on qwen" workaround.
- fidelity_metrics: replace per-face nearest matching (collided on multi-face images when a
variant dropped a face, corrupting the identity metric) with a collision-free one-to-one
assignment (assign_faces_one_to_one). lapvar/LPIPS were always bbox-anchored and immune.
Regression-guarded by tests/test_fidelity_matching.py.
- docs: record the measured outcomes of the qwen-improvement arc. The Qwen ControlNet
face-fix is CLOSED (no permissive Qwen detail/tile ControlNet exists; canny carries edges,
not skin grain). The `--pipeline auto` router + faces+text mixed dual-pass were prototyped
and DROPPED (controlnet wins faces AND display text: abba CER 0.114 vs qwen 0.379).
Z-Image-Turbo was tried and dropped (same regeneration limits). qwen stays a manual opt-in;
controlnet is the default for everything.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Retained-corpus mining (2026-06-20) surfaced three provenance gaps; all are
oracle-free and regression-guarded.
- C2PA vendor coverage (roadmap): register Volcano Engine under its Chinese
legal entity 北京火山引擎科技有限公司 (the latin "volcengine" needle misses
those certs) -> normalizes to the same ByteDance platform; register ElevenLabs
("Eleven Labs Inc.", pure generative-AI) as a generator. Document the
deliberate exclusion of TikTok Inc. and PixelBin.io/"Fynd" (provenance/transform
signers, not generators) so they are not re-added.
- AI-generated vs AI-enhanced (roadmap): ProvenanceReport.ai_source_kind splits
the C2PA digital-source-type into "generated" (trainedAlgorithmicMedia) vs
"enhanced" (compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia) so a caller branches a
full-frame scrub from a region-targeted clean. Parsed once in
noai.c2pa._populate_registry_fields (PNG + any c2pa-python-readable container),
with a raw head-scan fallback in identify for the non-PNG raw-blob path. CLI
verdict reads "AI-generated (fully synthetic)" vs "AI-enhanced (real content
with an AI-composited region)"; surfaced in --json.
- Detect-vs-remove threshold desync (P0#7): identify's sparkle threshold and the
removal arbitration gate were two independent 0.5 constants. Unify them into the
single GEMINI_SPARKLE_TRUST_CONF (identify imports it) so they can never drift.
Lowering the gate to recover faint sub-0.5 sparkles was evaluated and REJECTED:
a real Doubao text mark scores ~0.40-0.42 as a gemini match with a higher
core-ring brightness margin than a genuine faint sparkle, so neither confidence
nor the brightness gate separates them in [0.35, 0.5) -- lowering would trade a
rare miss for false-positive removals on clean images. Regression-guarded by
TestSparkleDetectRemoveAlignment (real demo sparkle at borderline opacities;
identify and best_auto_mark must agree on either side of the line).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A third diffusion pipeline alongside sdxl/controlnet: Qwen-Image (20B MMDiT,
Apache-2.0 code AND weights) img2img. The scrub still comes from the img2img
strength; Qwen preserves text (incl. CJK) and structure markedly better than
SDXL at the scrub floor, so it over-regenerates real photos far less (directly
targets the controlnet over-regeneration that degrades real uploads).
- watermark_profiles: QWEN_MODEL_ID, normalize_profile accepts "qwen".
- WatermarkRemover: _load_qwen_pipeline (bf16, loads Qwen base unless --model
overridden, clear ImportError if diffusers lacks the class), _run_qwen (no
MPS fallback -- 20B is CUDA/cloud-class), dispatch in _generate_one/preload,
pure _build_qwen_kwargs (true_cfg_scale, not guidance_scale).
- Shared _base_load_kwargs() across all three loaders (dtype + token).
- CLI --pipeline gains "qwen"; invisible_engine threads it through.
- scripts/qwen_scrub_prototype.py: standalone PEP 723 GPU experiment.
Prototype oracle floors (Modal A100-80GB, single seed, controls SynthID-positive,
PENDING seed-repeat cert): OpenAI clears at strength ~0.10, Gemini at ~0.30 (0.20
still detected), with CJK text + faces faithful where controlnet plasticizes. The
Gemini floor is higher than the shared default ladder, so pass an explicit
--strength for Gemini on this pipeline until a Qwen-specific ladder is certified.
The model-running path is CUDA-only (untestable locally); unit tests cover the
pure call-shape (_build_qwen_kwargs) and profile normalization without torch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a lossless alternative to the --max-resolution downscale for large
images that OOM on MPS/GPU: regenerate in overlapping, feather-blended
tiles at native resolution.
- noai/tiling.py: pure plan_tiles (uniform tiles, last flush to edge) +
feather_weights (strictly-positive separable taper -> partition-of-unity
blend) + run_tiled (per-tile generate callable, decoupled from the
pipeline). Unit-tested without the model.
- WatermarkRemover.remove_watermark: refactor _generate into _generate_one
+ a tiled branch that engages only when --tile is set and the long side
exceeds tile_size (ControlNet canny is rebuilt per tile).
- Thread tile/tile_size/tile_overlap through InvisibleEngine and the
invisible/all/batch CLI commands via a shared _tile_options decorator.
Verified end-to-end on the real SDXL pipeline (forced 2x2 tiling on a
1024px sample, MPS): non-degenerate output, no gross seam at tile borders.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The 'no signal' branch of the visible no-mark path claimed 'No AI provenance
signal found either', which reads as 'the image is clean'. A missing metadata
proxy is not proof an invisible pixel watermark (SynthID) is absent: it cannot
be detected once metadata is gone and may have been stripped upstream. The
message now preserves that uncertainty and routes to both 'all' (regenerate
pixels) and 'erase'. Regression-guarded by the SynthID/all asserts in
test_cli.py. CLAUDE.md visible-command note updated to match.
Also adds a 'Scope and non-goals' section (CLAUDE.md + README): removing
AI-provenance marks on the user's own content is in scope; stripping
stock/paid-content watermarks (Shutterstock/Getty/iStock, classifieds) is out
of scope by principle, not by difficulty.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
When `visible --mark auto` (or an explicit `--mark` with detection on) found
no registered mark, it exited 0 without writing output -- which a wrapping
service reads as success and re-serves the unchanged input. ~74% of real
uploads carry no registered visible mark, so this was the dominant "it didn't
work" / NPS score-0 failure mode.
Now it runs a cheap metadata-only identify, prints actionable guidance (route
to `all` for an invisible/metadata mark, or `erase` for an arbitrary logo),
writes no output file, and exits EXIT_NO_VISIBLE_MARK (2) -- distinct from
success (0) and a hard error (1) so the caller can surface the message.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Step 2 (invisible/SynthID) was skipped with a quiet inline warning and the
run still exited 0, so a missing [gpu] extra was mistaken for a clean result
(recurring #14/#47). Add a prominent end-of-run banner and a non-zero exit.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Nine findings from a high-effort project-wide review, fixed and verified
(571 passed, ruff/pyright clean):
Correctness:
- all/batch now remove Doubao/Jimeng/Samsung visible text marks: the visible
step routes through the registry (new cli._remove_visible_auto) instead of a
hardcoded GeminiEngine, so they no longer leave the wordmark intact.
- batch always reads the original source (dropped the out_path-reuse that
re-processed already-cleaned outputs on a re-run).
- img2img_runner only retries the diffusion call on the deprecated-callback
TypeError; any other TypeError now propagates instead of double-running.
- gemini detect/remove and the reverse-alpha engines normalize channels via a
new image_io.to_bgr, fixing a grayscale/BGRA crash in the FP-gate path.
- _png_late_metadata advances its cursor by the clamped length, so a malformed
chunk length no longer aborts the late AI-label scan.
Cleanup / efficiency:
- Consolidate the ~90%-identical Doubao/Jimeng/Samsung engines into a shared
config-driven _text_mark_engine.TextMarkEngine base; each engine is now a thin
subclass (TextMarkConfig + test shims). Behavior is byte-exact (the three
engine test suites pass unchanged). Registry adapters collapse to one
_text_mark(...) row each. Gemini stays a separate engine.
- scan_head is memoized per (path, size, mtime), so identify() reads the file
head once instead of ~8 times.
- invisible_engine post-processing decodes/encodes the output once (chained in
memory) instead of 2-4 times across stages.
- Remove the orphaned get_model_id_for_profile (+ CONTROLNET_PROFILE); derive
the --strength help from the strength constants (strength_default_help) so it
cannot drift; share the --pipeline/--strength click options; simplify the
retired --auto resolver.
Net -835 lines. Tests added for the registry-routed visible pass, to_bgr,
the polish/model/guidance wiring, and strength_default_help. CLAUDE.md updated
for the new base module, the engine/registry changes, image_io.to_bgr, and the
scan_head cache.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Overhaul the diffusion-removal surface around a single robust default and a
complete, consistent CLI.
Pipeline + strength:
- controlnet is now the DEFAULT pipeline (CLI --pipeline + both engine ctors).
With the certified higher strength it clears both photoreal and flat-graphic
content, whereas plain SDXL left SynthID on flat graphics.
- Rename the plain-SDXL profile default -> sdxl; "default" stays as a back-compat
alias (normalize_profile + a click callback that warns).
- Unify the strength ladder: resolve_strength applies ONE vendor-adaptive ladder
(the certified controlnet floors OpenAI 0.20 / Google 0.30 / unknown 0.30) to
both pipelines. sdxl is the weaker remover on its own hard case (flat fills),
so the certified floor is the right floor for it too.
CLI completeness:
- Add --model (HF model id) to invisible + batch (was only on all) and
--guidance-scale (CFG) to all three diffusion commands; both were library
knobs the CLI did not expose.
- Flip --adaptive-polish to ON by default (it self-gates to a no-op where there
is no detail deficit, so default-on is safe).
- Share --pipeline / --strength / --model / --guidance-scale as single
decorators so invisible/all/batch keep an identical surface; the --strength
help is derived from the strength constants (strength_default_help) so it can
never drift from the ladder.
Removals:
- Delete the auto_config content-detection planner + its YuNet/DBNet assets
(~2.6 MB): with controlnet always the pipeline and the polish self-gating, the
face/text/edge detection no longer changed behavior. --auto is now a deprecated
no-op that only warns (the polish it enabled is the default).
Docs (README, CLAUDE.md, docs/synthid.md) updated throughout; added an
InvisibleEngine Python API example. Tests cover the alias warnings, the
polish default, and the --model/--guidance-scale wiring.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The face-restore family was removed in 20d7eda, but the auto_config
module docstring still claimed "PhotoMaker face restoration is enabled
when a face is present" and the --auto help text (CLI + README example)
listed "face restore" as something --auto picks. A detected face now
only routes to the controlnet pipeline (canny preserves face STRUCTURE,
not identity); there is no identity restoration. Comments/docstrings/help
only, no code behavior change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
Adds the second face-restore mechanism, selectable via the new CLI option
`--restore-faces-method=photomaker`. Unlike the existing GFPGAN path (which runs on
the watermarked ORIGINAL and was oracle-confirmed to re-introduce SynthID by partial
pixel blending), PhotoMaker carries identity in a SynthID-invariant OpenCLIP
embedding and regenerates fresh face pixels conditioned on it — the pixels in the
output are diffusion-fresh, so the watermark cannot be transported.
The load-bearing assumption (embedding invariance to SynthID-magnitude pixel noise)
was empirically validated in the prior commit (smoke test): cosine drift 0.002
under a ±2 LSB low-freq carrier, an order of magnitude less than JPEG90 drift
which SynthID survives at >=99% TPR.
End-to-end commercial-safe:
- PhotoMaker-V2 weights: Apache-2.0 (TencentARC)
- ID encoder: OpenCLIP-ViT-H/14 (MIT)
- SDXL base: shared with the main pipeline
- NO InsightFace (the non-commercial blocker for IP-Adapter FaceID / InstantID /
PuLID / Arc2Face)
Two-pass architecture (PhotoMaker has no ControlNetImg2img class in diffusers):
1) main controlnet/default removal pass cleans SynthID + drifts faces
2) PhotoMaker txt2img regenerates each face from its embedding, feather-composited
back into the cleaned image
New module `photomaker_restore.py` mirrors `face_restore.py`: lazy pipeline
singleton (double-checked lock), `is_available()` gate, pure `_face_crop_square` and
`_composite_faces` helpers, all unit-tested without the model (9 new tests). New
`InvisibleEngine._restore_faces_photomaker` runs after the diffusion pass, mirroring
`_restore_faces`. CLI flag `--restore-faces-method=[gfpgan|photomaker]` threaded
through `cmd_invisible`/`cmd_all`/`cmd_batch` + `_process_batch_image`.
New optional `photomaker` extra (Apache-2.0 + Apache-2.0/MIT deps, no basicsr).
`[tool.hatch.metadata] allow-direct-references = true` is required because the
upstream PhotoMaker package lives only on GitHub.
The next step (separate work) is oracle validation: run a 6-image cert sweep
through the new pipeline (default/controlnet at the certified strength +
--restore-faces-method=photomaker) and confirm SynthID stays clean while face
identity is recovered. The required infrastructure (`raiw-app/modal_cert.py`) is
already in place.
ruff + strict pyright(src/) clean; 586 tests pass (+ 9 new in
tests/test_photomaker_restore.py).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three content-quality features for the invisible/all/batch pipeline.
DBNet text detector (auto_config): replace the MSER text heuristic with
PP-OCRv3 differentiable-binarization via cv2.dnn.TextDetectionModel_DB,
using a bundled 2.4 MB Apache-2.0 model (en/cn detection nets are
byte-identical, so it ships language-neutral). cv2.dnn is core OpenCV, so
no new pip dep. MSER stays as the fallback when the model can't load.
Validated on real images: matches MSER everywhere and additionally catches
the Doubao CJK mark MSER missed; routing decisions unchanged otherwise.
Real-ESRGAN upscaler (new upscaler.py, esrgan extra): optional
pre-diffusion super-resolution for the min-resolution floor upscale, loaded
via spandrel (MIT, no basicsr) with BSD-3-Clause weights downloaded on
first use. New --upscaler {lanczos,esrgan} on invisible/all/batch; default
stays lanczos and the engine falls back to lanczos when the extra is absent
or the model errors (never breaks removal). It is a manual opt-in knob (the
auto plan never selects it) -- as a generic GAN it sharpens photo/texture
content strongly but can degrade faces (the diffusion pass regenerates
them) and thin text, documented accordingly.
batch --auto: wire the content-adaptive --auto (+ --adaptive-polish) into
cmd_batch. The plan is recomputed per image and the invisible engine is
cached per resolved pipeline (default/controlnet), so a mixed directory
builds at most one engine of each kind. Verified end-to-end: 3 mixed
images routed correctly with only 2 pipeline loads (controlnet reused).
ruff + strict pyright(src/) clean; 558 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Brings in commit 5cf68a6 (single C2PA_AI_VENDORS registry, erase_lama
grayscale/BGRA support, batch device-cache clearing + --controlnet-scale,
uv publish via OIDC, hatchling pin <1.31). Auto-merged with no conflicts;
ruff/pytest(544)/pyright all clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The fixed mild auto polish (unsharp 0.5 / grain 2.0) under-corrected soft
photo/face output (gemini_3 stayed at lap-var 84 vs its 592 original) and its
grain speckled small text. Replace it with humanizer.adaptive_polish: target the
input's Laplacian variance with a capped unsharp scaled to the deficit + edge-
masked grain (smooth regions only), calibrated by a short sigma search. Self-
limiting on text/graphics -- already high-frequency, so almost no polish lands
and text edges are masked out. Validated on the spaces corpus (gemini_3 84 -> 334
end-to-end; openai_1 text near-untouched).
Interface: every --auto decision is now independently overridable -- add
--adaptive-polish/--no-adaptive-polish (matching --restore-faces; works without
--auto too) so the polish can be disabled or used manually. _apply_auto overrides
exactly the three content-adaptive modes (pipeline, restore-faces, adaptive-
polish); --unsharp/--humanize stay independent fixed filters.
cv2-only, no new deps. Threaded through invisible/all (not batch).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three P2 cleanups from a library-wide review.
Detection -- single C2PA_AI_VENDORS registry (noai/constants.py):
- C2PA_ISSUERS, SYNTHID_C2PA_ISSUERS, and identify._ISSUER_PLATFORM now derive
from one C2paAiVendor table, so adding a C2PA vendor is one entry instead of
edits in three places across two files. Behavior-identical (262 detection
tests pass; the kept `needle` field is load-bearing -- it differs from `org`
for Google and ByteDance, with no mechanical derivation).
Code-health:
- region_eraser.erase_lama now accepts grayscale/BGRA like erase_cv2 (it
crashed on grayscale and silently dropped alpha on BGRA). +2 regression tests.
- batch frees the device cache between images via a shared try_empty_device_cache
helper (generalized from the MPS-only _try_clear_mps_cache, now reused by both
the MPS->CPU fallback and the batch loop).
- batch gained --controlnet-scale (parity with invisible/all).
CI / packaging:
- publish.yml uploads via `uv publish` (PyPI trusted publishing over OIDC),
replacing pypa/gh-action-pypi-publish so uploads no longer depend on that
action's bundled twine accepting the Metadata-Version. Workflow filename +
pypi environment unchanged, so PyPI's trusted-publisher entry still matches.
- hatchling pin relaxed <1.28 -> <1.31 (verified against hatch's changelog:
1.30.0 made Metadata 2.5 the default, 1.30.1 reverted to 2.4; 1.27-1.29 were
always 2.4). Kept as belt-and-suspenders so the first uv-publish release ships
2.4, isolating the uploader swap from the metadata-version bump.
Docs (CLAUDE.md, pyproject) synced; corrected the inaccurate "hatchling 1.28+
emits 2.5" note.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add `auto_config.plan(image_path) -> AutoConfig`, the first step of the
invisible/all pipeline: it inspects the input image (before the diffusion model
loads) and picks the quality modes so the run adapts to content. Quality-priority
routing -- ControlNet (text/face-structure preservation) is the default, skipped for
plain SDXL only on a clearly structure-less image; GFPGAN face restore when a face is
present; a mild sharpen + grain polish when a smoothing pass ran. Exposed as `--auto`
on `all`/`invisible` (`_apply_auto`; explicit flags override via click's parameter
source). Not wired into batch (its engine is cached per-mode).
Detection is cv2-only and torch-free (~100 MB peak RSS, a few ms): OpenCV YuNet
(`cv2.FaceDetectorYN`, MIT, 232 KB model bundled in assets/) for faces, a Canny
edge-density + MSER heuristic for text/structure (a rough Phase-1 placeholder; DBNet
via cv2.dnn is the planned upgrade). ZERO new pip deps. Designed to run wherever the
pipeline runs -- the raiw.cc Modal GPU worker -- never on the 512 MB web host.
Real-ESRGAN-via-Spandrel upscaling (a new `esrgan` extra) and an adaptive
Laplacian-variance polish are deferred to later phases.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two quality knobs for the SDXL invisible pass:
- min_resolution floor (default 1024, --min-resolution): small inputs are
upscaled to a 1024px long-side floor before diffusion, since SDXL img2img
distorts on a tiny latent (a 381x512 portrait wrecks at native). The output
is restored to the original input size, so it is a transparent quality boost;
it adds time/memory on small inputs. 0 disables. Extends the pure _target_size
helper (now cap-or-floor-or-native, min skipped on a min>max misconfig),
unit-tested without a model.
- unsharp post-filter (humanizer.unsharp_mask, --unsharp, opt-in default 0):
applied LAST, after the GFPGAN face pass (a pre-GFPGAN sharpen would be
smoothed back over), to counter the soft/over-smoothed look that diffusion +
restoration leave behind (an AI tell). Pairs with --humanize (grain).
Both threaded through invisible/all/batch + the module-level helper. Verified
end-to-end on a 381x512 portrait: upscaled to 1024, sharpened, restored to
381x512.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Both content-preservation features are now flagged EXPERIMENTAL and opt-in.
--pipeline controlnet was already opt-in (default=default); --restore-faces
flips from on-by-default to OFF by default, matching the repo's prior pattern
for experimental preservation passes (the removed protect_text/protect_faces).
- cli.py: --restore-faces/--no-restore-faces default False; EXPERIMENTAL in the
--restore-faces / --controlnet-scale / --pipeline help; batch default False.
- invisible_engine.py: remove_watermark restore_faces default False + docstring.
- CLAUDE.md / README.md / docs/synthid.md: label both experimental/opt-in.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add an optional, commercial-safe face-restoration post-pass that recovers
face identity the diffusion removal pass drifts (canny holds structure, not
likeness) while still scrubbing the pixel watermark in the face regions.
- face_restore.py: GFPGANer singleton (CPU unless CUDA), the basicsr
torchvision.transforms.functional_tensor shim, and the pure feather
_composite_faces helper (unit-tested without the model). GFPGAN
re-synthesizes each face from a StyleGAN2 prior, so composited face pixels
are GAN-generated (no watermark, no pixel-copy) -- oracle-clean at weight 0.5
with identity preserved.
- InvisibleEngine.remove_watermark: restore_faces / restore_faces_weight,
best-effort, auto-skips when the extra is absent or no face is detected.
- CLI --restore-faces/--no-restore-faces + --restore-faces-weight on
invisible/all/batch (on by default).
- restore extra (gfpgan/facexlib/basicsr), numpy<2-pinned (scipy<1.18,
numba<0.60) and kept out of `all`; basicsr needs Python <3.13 + setuptools<69
to build, so pin .python-version 3.12.
Commercial-safe: GFPGAN Apache-2.0, RetinaFace MIT. The CodeFormer alternative
is non-commercial and is not shipped. The earlier IP-Adapter FaceID layer was
removed (footgun: needs high strength, corrupts faces at the low removal
strength).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <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>
The default img2img strength is now chosen from the detected SynthID vendor
(C2PA issuer) instead of a single fixed 0.30: OpenAI gpt-image -> 0.10, Google
Gemini -> 0.15, unknown source -> 0.15. Explicit --strength always wins.
Basis: an oracle-verified June 2026 controlled study (clean v0.8.6, text/face
protection OFF, per-image openai.com/verify or Gemini-app verdict). OpenAI's
SynthID clears at 0.05 across 1024-1600 px (n=4, resolution-independent);
Google's is ~3x more robust and needs 0.15 on the capped-1536 path (n=4). The
dominant factor is the VENDOR, not resolution. The earlier single 0.30 default
and the "resolution dependence" lore came from contaminated tests run with the
protect-text bug ON (issue #14) -- re-running those same 1600x1600 images clean
removes SynthID at 0.05.
`vendor_for_strength(path)` reads metadata.synthid_source on the ORIGINAL input
and is threaded through cli (invisible/all/batch) -> invisible_engine ->
watermark_remover -> resolve_strength(strength, profile, vendor), so display and
execution use the same vendor (the engine sees a temp path whose C2PA the visible
pass already stripped, so detection must happen in the CLI on the pristine
source). Caveat: Google's 0.15 was validated only on --max-resolution 1536;
native 2816 Gemini was not locally measurable (OOM on Apple Silicon) and is
pending GPU validation on raiw.cc.
Docs: docs/synthid.md sections 2.2/4.4/5.2 corrected (the contaminated
resolution-dependence findings replaced with the clean oracle-verified table);
README and CLAUDE.md updated; CLI --strength help reflects the adaptive default.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Both text and face protection were shielding SynthID from removal. The
text-protection high-res re-scrub regenerates pixels at an upscaled resolution
where the per-region pass may not be strong enough to re-destroy the SynthID
payload, allowing it to survive in text areas. Face protection has an even more
direct mechanism: it pastes back the original (pre-diffusion, watermarked) face
pixels after the global pass, guaranteeing SynthID survives in face regions
regardless of strength.
Both --protect-text and --protect-faces are now off by default and opt-in.
Rename from --no-protect-text / --no-protect-faces to --protect-text /
--protect-faces. Extract shared click.option decorators to module-level
constants (_protect_text_option, _protect_faces_option) to eliminate
copy-paste between cmd_invisible and cmd_all.
Add docs/synthid.md: primary-source-cited technical reference for SynthID-Image
covering mechanism (post-hoc encoder/decoder, 136-bit payload, pixel-space, no
model-weight modification), robustness numbers (arXiv:2510.09263: ~99.98% TPR
at 0.1% FPR across 30 transforms), removal attacks and forensic detectability
(arXiv:2605.09203: all 6 attacks detectable >98% TPR@1%FPR), detectability
limits, oracle scope, adoption landscape, and practical implications including
the protect-text/faces SynthID-preservation finding.
Verified June 2026 on gpt-image 1600x1600 via openai.com/verify: with
--protect-text SynthID detected; without, SynthID removed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
An oracle-verified GPU strength study (Modal A100, native res, Gemini-app
'Verify with SynthID', n=3 fresh Gemini images, protect_text/faces off) found the
current Google SynthID survives strength 0.10/0.15/0.2 and is removed only at 0.3.
The previous 0.10 default (set from an n=1 result) no longer clears it -- Google
hardened SynthID and the threshold has climbed 0.05 -> 0.10 -> ~0.3. Bump
DEFAULT_STRENGTH to 0.30; OpenAI/ChatGPT carry C2PA not SynthID, so 0.10 is plenty
there (pass --strength 0.10). Note protect_text shields the text regions SynthID
hides in (use --no-protect-text for full removal on text-heavy images).
The same study found ctrlregen at clean-noise strength DESTROYS real images
(hallucinated micro-text in smooth regions), with no usable middle setting, so the
literature's 'clean-noise is the lever' did not hold empirically. Flag ctrlregen
EXPERIMENTAL in the CLI --pipeline help, README, and watermark_profiles; SDXL
img2img at ~0.3 stays the shippable path.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Mirrors --no-protect-text: when the image has no people, skip loading and
running the YOLO face detector entirely. The heavy extract+blend already only
ran when a face was found, but the detector itself always loaded+inferred to
decide; this flag lets callers skip that fixed cost.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cli.py now emits plain ASCII through a small click.echo shim
(_Console / _Table / _Progress) instead of rich: no colors, markup tags,
panels, progress bar, or Unicode glyphs (Warning: / -> / ... and dropped
checkmark/cross marks). identify and metadata tables render as indented
plain lines.
- drop rich from dependencies (pyproject.toml + uv.lock)
- __init__: set TRANSFORMERS_VERBOSITY=error (setdefault) plus a warnings
filter so the transformers Siglip2ImageProcessorFast deprecation no
longer prints at CLI startup (it fires from the eager noai import)
- TestGpuHintMarkup: the [gpu] hint is now printed verbatim; docstring updated
- CLAUDE.md: replace the obsolete rich-markup lesson, note the verbosity fix
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Visible-watermark work across all three corner-mark engines plus a committed,
reproducible alpha-build pipeline (scripts/visible_alpha_solve.py) fed by committed
solid black/gray/white captures.
- jimeng: new "即梦AI" wordmark remover (reverse-alpha + thin residual inpaint,
always NCC-aligned -- the mark re-rasterizes/jitters per image). Detect via glyph
silhouette NCC (0.45 threshold; does not cross-fire with Doubao). Registered in the
visible-mark catalog; `visible --mark jimeng` / `--mark auto`.
- doubao: fix a real production defect -- the shipped remover left a READABLE
"豆包AI生成" outline on real samples while detect() returned conf 0.0 (fooled by a
thin outline), so the test passed and the "56/56 clean" claim was detector-measured,
not visual. Root cause: under-estimated alpha + fixed-geometry-no-inpaint + tight
locate box. Rebuilt alpha (careful gray-self solve), always-align, thin inpaint,
widened locate box -> readable outline becomes faint texture-level traces.
- gemini: rebuild gemini_bg_{96,48} from our own controlled captures (validated NCC
0.9998 vs the prior third-party asset); removal re-verified clean, no behaviour change.
- tests: add textured-shift regression to both engines (guards the align-on-shift path
the Doubao defect exposed; lesson: a detector-only removal test is insufficient,
assert visual residual).
- docs: CLAUDE.md, README, capture READMEs and docstrings synced; stale
"exact/pixel-exact/56-clean" claims removed.
Also includes a SynthID label-wording clarification in identify.py/cli.py
("SynthID pixel watermark" -> "SynthID watermark, inferred from C2PA metadata").
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Apply fixes from a full-repo review (code, tests, docs).
Security / correctness:
- Clamp attacker-controlled PNG/caBX chunk lengths to the remaining file
size in metadata.py and noai/c2pa.py (a malformed length no longer drives
a multi-GB read); skipped chunks seek instead of read.
- noai/isobmff.strip_c2pa_boxes is now fail-safe on a malformed box: return
the original bytes with a warning instead of silently truncating the tail,
so metadata --remove can no longer emit a corrupt file.
- doubao_engine._fixed_alpha_map clamps the glyph box to the image (no crash
on degenerate width-vs-height).
- watermark_remover._run_region_hires gates the phaseCorrelate offset on
response and magnitude (a spurious shift no longer garbles text) and drops
the generator after a CPU fallback (no MPS/CPU device mismatch).
Robustness:
- gemini_engine, doubao_engine, region_eraser normalize grayscale and RGBA
inputs to BGR at the engine entry points.
- image_io.imwrite returns False on an unwritable path (matches cv2).
- invisible_engine guards a None imread result before use.
- trustmark_detector._decoder uses a double-checked threading lock.
- ctrlregen.tiling.tile_positions raises on overlap >= tile.
- humanizer chromatic shift no longer wraps opposite-edge pixels.
- identify OpenAI caveat keyed on the normalized vendor, not a substring.
- Remove the dead "visible --detect-threshold" CLI option.
- publish.yml verifies the release tag matches the package version.
Docs:
- README strength 0.05 to 0.10; .env.example HF_TOKEN marked optional;
doubao_capture README updated to reverse-alpha-only; CLAUDE.md synced with
the new behaviors and the batch command.
Tests: new test_security_clamp.py for the read clamp and isobmff fail-safe;
erase CLI coverage; integrity-clash rule 2 end-to-end; multi-tag EXIF
survival and cross-format strip guards; channel/size, tiling, humanizer, and
imwrite regressions. Full suite 493 passed, 2 skipped; ruff and pyright src/
clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The `metadata` command handles more than images: `remove_ai_metadata` strips
C2PA / AIGC provenance from MP4/MOV/M4V/M4A and from WebM/MP3/WAV/FLAC/OGG via
ffmpeg. But the help said "from images" and the shared `_validate_image` call
printed "Warning: .mp4 may not be supported" on exactly those supported
containers. The argument's `exists=True` already enforces the file exists, so
the validation call only added the wrong warning here.
Update the docstring to list the real format coverage and drop the
image-only validation from this command. The image commands keep it.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Raise default SynthID-removal strength 0.05 -> 0.10 (current Google SynthID)
The old default (0.04/0.05) no longer removes the CURRENT Google SynthID (Nano
Banana / Gemini 3): verified 2026-05-30 via the Gemini 'Verify with SynthID'
oracle on a real image -- 0.05 still detected, 0.10 not detected (OpenAI's was
already cleared at 0.05). Add DEFAULT_STRENGTH=0.10 in watermark_profiles, route
the engine + CLI defaults to it. At 0.10 small text deforms more, which is why
text protection (_run_region_hires) runs by default. CLAUDE.md SynthID note
corrected. CAVEAT: n=1 Google + n=1 OpenAI; broad corpus oracle validation
pending (task tracked).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Drop unused LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH strength profiles; CLI --strength defaults to DEFAULT_STRENGTH
The fixed strength presets (and get_recommended_strength) were dead -- nothing in
the pipeline used them, only tests. One knob now: DEFAULT_STRENGTH (0.10),
overridable per-call via the CLI --strength flag, which now defaults to that
constant (single source of truth). Removed the WatermarkRemover.LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH
class attrs and the get_recommended_strength tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
On RGBA inputs the CLI forced the watermark bbox alpha to 0 on save, so the
removed-sparkle area became a transparent hole that renders as a solid white
box on any non-transparent viewer. The Gemini app exports opaque RGBA, so
every user hit it. Reverse-alpha already recovers the real pixels there (and
`erase` inpaints them), so there is no artifact to hide -- the hole was the
bug, introduced as an over-correction in d091b9f.
`_write_bgr_with_alpha` now rejoins the input alpha plane unchanged (drops the
`clear_region`/`pad` params); the `visible` / `erase` / `all` / `batch` call
sites drop the cleared-region argument and the orphaned region bookkeeping.
The registry `remove()` still returns the mark bbox (used for inpaint_residual
positioning); the CLI just no longer clears alpha with it.
Inverts the test that locked in the old behavior into a #30 regression guard
(watermark-region alpha stays opaque, no pixel forced transparent). Verified
end-to-end on a real Gemini RGBA export: sparkle gone, zero transparent
pixels, clean over a white background.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(trustmark): gate detection on re-encode durability to kill false positives
TrustMark's wm_present flag is a BCH validity check that spuriously
validates on a content-correlated fraction of un-watermarked images
(AI textures trip it more than camera photos). On a 1343-image set all
20 raw detections were false, several on Gemini/OpenAI/Doubao output that
cannot carry Adobe's watermark, with random-bytes secrets.
A genuine TrustMark is a durable soft binding that survives re-encoding,
so detect_trustmark now re-decodes after a mild JPEG round-trip and
requires the same schema both times. Every observed false positive
collapsed under this gate; the second decode runs only on the rare hit.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(identify): Samsung Galaxy AI, FLUX, ByteDance C2PA; fix C2PA substring FP
Detection extensions verified on real signed files (2026-05-29):
- Samsung Galaxy AI: signer attribution via a new _SIGNER_C2PA_PLATFORM
(Samsung Galaxy / ASUS Gallery) kept separate from the capture-camera
_DEVICE_C2PA_PLATFORM so a Galaxy AI edit (device cert + AI source type)
does not trip the camera-vs-AI integrity clash. Plus metadata.samsung_genai:
the proprietary genAIType marker in PhotoEditor_Re_Edit_Data, a medium-
confidence AI-editing signal (samsung_only branch).
- Black Forest Labs (FLUX) and ByteDance Volcano Engine (Doubao/Jimeng)
added as C2PA issuers + issuer->platform mappings.
- fix: C2PA presence required only the bare 4-byte 'c2pa' substring, which
false-positives on compressed pixel data (a recompressed PNG IDAT re-flagged
C2PA after its manifest was correctly stripped). New c2pa_marker_in() requires
the JUMBF wrapper (jumb+c2pa) or the C2PA uuid box; applied in identify +
metadata. Verified: all 535 real C2PA files carry jumb.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(doubao): gate detection on text structure to cut ~95% of false positives (#23)
Coverage alone over-fired: any textured bottom-right corner cleared the
threshold, so the detector false-positived on ~28% of arbitrary images.
The real '豆包AI生成' mark is six glyphs in one row, so detect now also
requires the text-structure signature (_glyph_structure): many connected
components, no single dominant blob, concentration in a thin horizontal
band. False positives dropped 343 -> 17 across the corpus while keeping
real-mark recall and the doubao-1.png sample. Also accept a no-op force
kwarg for remover-interface symmetry.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(samsung): add Samsung Galaxy AI visible-badge remover
New samsung_engine.py removes the bottom-left sparkle + localized
'AI-generated content' badge that Galaxy AI tools stamp. Mirrors the
Doubao locate->mask->inpaint pattern but bottom-left, with a dual-polarity
top-hat mask (the badge is light-on-dark or dark-on-light). Detection gates
on a band + left-anchor signature (the Doubao CJK-component gate does not
transfer: Latin badge letters connect into few blobs). Explicit-only --
tuned on few real badges with a ~4% FP floor, so it is not used in auto.
Synthetic byte-blob fixtures (real badges are user content, not shipped).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(visible): unified known-watermark registry + LaMa inpaint backend
watermark_registry.py is a single catalog of known visible marks, each
tying {usual location, in_auto flag, recovery strategy, detect adapter,
remove adapter}: gemini (reverse-alpha, exact), doubao, samsung. cmd_visible
is now registry-driven (best_auto_mark for --mark auto; mark_keys() feeds the
CLI choices) -- the per-mark _run_doubao/_run_samsung helper branches are gone.
Cross-engine confidences are not comparable, so the gemini adapter applies the
corpus-validated 0.5 sparkle threshold for auto arbitration (its engine flag is
loose and weakly fired ~0.36 on Doubao text, hijacking auto).
--backend auto|cv2|lama chooses background reconstruction for the mask-based
marks; auto = LaMa when onnxruntime is present, else cv2. For LaMa the mask is
the FILLED glyph bounding box (sparse glyph masks leave anti-aliased edges
behind). cv2 stays the zero-dependency fallback.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* docs: watermark registry, Samsung/FLUX/ByteDance detection, LaMa backend, trustmark gate
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(doubao): exact reverse-alpha removal from captured alpha map
The Doubao '豆包AI生成' mark is a fixed semi-transparent white overlay, so
given its alpha map the original pixels are recovered exactly:
original = (wm - a*logo)/(1-a) -- no inpaint hallucination.
The alpha map + logo colour were solved from real black+gray Doubao captures
on a controlled background: on black captured = a*logo, and the black/gray pair
solves a per-pixel without assuming the logo colour (a_max~0.65, logo near-white);
the white capture cross-validates (mark vanishes to a flat fill). Bundled as
assets/doubao_alpha.png + geometry constants.
remove_watermark_reverse_alpha applies it scaled to image width; exact at the
captured width, so the registry routes doubao through it only when
reverse_alpha_available (width within the calibrated band) and the mark is
detected, falling back to mask inpaint (cv2/LaMa) otherwise. A light residual
inpaint cleans the sub-pixel rescaling error. Add captures at more resolutions
to widen exact coverage.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* refactor(visible): reverse-alpha only -- drop inpaint removal + heuristic detection
Per the principle that we only remove/detect what we can do exactly, the
visible-mark path is now reverse-alpha only:
- Doubao detect is reverse-alpha-consistent: match the bundled alpha glyph
silhouette against the corner via TM_CCOEFF_NORMED (DETECT_NCC_THRESHOLD 0.4)
-- keys on the '豆包AI生成' SHAPE, not coverage/structure heuristics. FP
7/1243 (0.6%). Removes the cv2 inpaint path + the _glyph_structure gate.
- Registry is reverse-alpha only: dropped the cv2/LaMa backend (_glyph_remove,
_lama_box_inpaint, default_backend, --backend) and the Samsung entry. Doubao
outside the alpha resolution band is skipped, never inpainted.
- Removed samsung_engine.py + tests + --mark samsung (no alpha map captured;
Samsung C2PA/genAIType metadata detection in identify is unaffected).
- The universal erase --region (cv2/LaMa) is unchanged -- arbitrary-region
inpainting stays a user-directed tool, separate from the known-mark registry.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(doubao): NCC sub-pixel alignment -> reverse-alpha at any resolution
A pure width-scale of the captured alpha map is only sub-pixel-accurate at the
captured width and leaves a faint ghost elsewhere. remove_watermark_reverse_alpha
now registers the alpha glyph to the actual mark via a TM_CCOEFF_NORMED
scale+position search (_aligned_alpha_map) before inverting the blend, so the
single 2048 capture works at any resolution -- verified clean on the 1773x2364
(3:4) corpus size, the biggest coverage gap (23 files).
reverse_alpha_available is now just 'asset present' (no width band); the registry
still gates removal on detect so a clean corner is never touched. Drops the
_ALPHA_WIDTH_TOLERANCE gate.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(doubao): keep native recovery exact -- fixed geometry at captured width
Integer-pixel NCC alignment landed ~1px off at the captured width, degrading the
otherwise-exact native reverse-alpha (synthetic recovery error 0.94 -> 1.39).
remove_watermark_reverse_alpha now uses exact width-relative geometry within
_ALPHA_NATIVE_BAND of the captured width and the NCC search only off it -- best
of both: native back to 0.94, other resolutions still aligned.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(doubao): harden alignment -- try fixed+aligned, keep least residual (56/56)
On a faint/busy-background mark the NCC alignment peak can wander a few px off
the true mark and leave a residual (2/56 real corpus files). Off the captured
width, remove_watermark_reverse_alpha now builds BOTH the fixed-geometry and the
NCC-aligned alpha map, applies each, and keeps whichever leaves the least
residual mark (re-detect confidence on the bare reverse-alpha) -- geometry wins
on faint marks, alignment on clear ones, no magic threshold. Real-file round-trip
now removes 56/56 detected Doubao clean across every corpus resolution (was 54).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* perf(doubao): skip residual inpaint at native width for exact recovery
At the captured width the fixed-geometry reverse-alpha is pixel-exact, so
inpainting over it only replaced exactly-recovered interior pixels with a
cv2 hallucination -- measured worse on a textured background (native error
vs true bg 1.6 reverse-alpha-only vs 2.6 with the old always-on
full-footprint inpaint). Native now returns the bare recovery untouched;
off-native, where NCC alignment is only sub-pixel-approximate, the footprint
inpaint stays to clean the seam. Real round-trip still 56/56 across all
corpus resolutions; negatives 0/60, Gemini unaffected.
Add test_native_returns_exact_reverse_alpha_no_inpaint as the regression
guard. Sync CLAUDE.md + README (the table cell and prose described the
pre-NCC "skipped off native / cv2-LaMa" behavior, now stale). Gitignore the
session scheduled_tasks.lock, and add the text-protection research note.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(device): support xpu backend
* Fall back to CPU seed generator when device RNG unsupported (xpu)
Some torch-xpu builds have no device-side RNG, so torch.Generator(device="xpu")
raises when --seed is used. _make_seed_generator tries the device generator and
falls back to a backend-agnostic CPU generator. Adds a fallback unit test.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Victor Kuznetsov <kuznetsov.va@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
A bare "unknown" verdict reads as the tool being broken. Print a one-line note
right under the verdict explaining that no locally-readable AI signal was found,
that this is not the same as clean (metadata is often stripped), and that
SynthID-class pixel watermarks have no local detector. The why was previously
only in the caveats section below.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Make `pyright src/` strict-clean via a hybrid: pure-logic files are fully typed
(piexif gets a local typings/ stub; PIL info-dict loops guard isinstance(key, str);
progress returns Callable[..., None]; availability checks use importlib.util.find_spec
instead of unused imports), while the irreducibly-untyped cv2/torch/diffusers boundary
files carry a documented per-file `# pyright:` relax pragma (or a ctrlregen
executionEnvironment) that disables only the unknown-type rules. Public ndarray-returning
signatures on the relaxed engines are annotated NDArray[Any] so strict consumers (cli.py)
stay clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Mirror protect_faces: protect_text defaults to True in invisible_engine and
watermark_remover, so the SDXL pipeline detects text per image and switches to
Differential Diffusion only when glyphs are found. Text-free inputs fall back to
plain img2img with no differential-pipeline load, so the autonomy is free. The
CLI now exposes a single off-switch --no-protect-text instead of the positive
flag, keeping the interface minimal.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Victor Kuznetsov