remove-ai-watermarks/docs/supported-signals.md

Supported signals

This page describes the current support boundary. A check mark means that the repository contains a corresponding code path. It does not guarantee detection or removal on every future vendor version.

Visible marks

The visible command registers these mark keys:

Key	Mark	Expected area	Important limit
gemini	Google Gemini sparkle	Usually bottom right	Detection includes a false positive gate.
doubao	豆包AI生成	Bottom right	Vendor specific text detector.
jimeng	★ 即梦AI	Bottom right	Vendor specific text detector.
qwen	千问AI生成	Bottom right	Strict visual gate.
kling	可灵AI 3.0	Bottom right	Only calibrated variants are covered.
yuanbao	元宝 over AI生成	Bottom right	Standard two-line variant only.
samsung	✦ Contenuti generati dall'AI	Bottom left	Calibrated for the Italian text variant.
runninghub	RunningHub AI生成	Top left	Strict visual and position gates.
baidu	百度 AI生成	Bottom right	Detector and extended removal footprint.
liblib	LibLibAI	Bottom center	Includes a minimum image size gate.
jimeng_pill	AI生成 pill	Top left	Weak detector with additional product and background gates.

--mark auto evaluates all registered marks and removes every selected match. Known marks are localized to a mask, then the selected fill backend reconstructs the masked area.

Marks from other vendors are not detected automatically. Use erase --region when you can select the affected area yourself.

Visible video marks

Key	Mark	Motion	Important limit
sora	Sora 2 mascot and wordmark	Moves among frame positions	Requires a temporally recurring visual match; the older Sora Turbo corner swirl is a different unsupported mark.
veo	Current four-point diamond and legacy Veo text	Fixed bottom-right corner	Uses separate silhouettes and requires a recurring match; learned fill is preferable on structured backgrounds.
seedance	Boxed AI label	Fixed bottom-right corner	Requires an anchored recurring match; the full localized box is filled because a thinner synthetic shape mask leaves the real translucent rim behind.
dola	Dola AI text	Fixed bottom-right corner	Requires an anchored recurring match; ByteDance or BytePlus provenance can relax only an existing visual run.
hailuo	MINIMAX | hailuo AI composite label	Fixed lower edge	Uses a synthetic waveform, text, separator, and ring silhouette; the complete recurring label box is filled. A TC260 label naming MiniMax as producer can relax only an existing stable run.
kling	Kling swirl, KLING AI, version, and optional PRO suffix	Fixed bottom-right edge	Combines a synthetic logo rescue with font variants, an edge gate, a white-label gate, and anchored temporal recurrence.

video identify, video visible, and video all share this registry and the same temporal arbiter. It is separate from the image registry because selection is made over a sequence rather than one raster. The default auto mode scans all six entries in one decode pass and selects the first temporally stable match in table order; an explicit mark restricts the scan to that row. Accepted fills are motion-aligned across adjacent frames by default. The prior fill contributes only where its warped mask covers the current removal mask and nearby source context agrees. Scene cuts or disjoint marks retain the independent frame fill.

Fill backends

Backend	Install	Behavior
cv2	remove-ai-watermarks[visible]	Classical OpenCV inpainting
migan	remove-ai-watermarks[migan]	MI-GAN through ONNX Runtime; practical learned CPU video tier
lama	remove-ai-watermarks[lama]	big-LaMa through ONNX Runtime; offline video quality tier
auto	Depends on installed extras	Selects LaMa, then MI-GAN, then OpenCV

The learned backends download model files on first use.

Metadata and provenance

The inspection and stripping code handles signals in these groups:

• C2PA Content Credentials and supported cloud manifest references;
• EXIF and XMP generator fields;
• exact app-export provenance and AIGC disclosures from supported ByteDance-family products, with product-only provenance excluded from the generated-image verdict;
• IPTC AI disclosure fields;
• PNG text chunks and embedded generation parameters;
• China TC260 AIGC labels in supported image placements and the normative MP4/MOV moov.udta.meta.keys/ilst, MKV/WebM Segment.Tags.Tag.SimpleTag, AVI LIST/INFO/AIGC, and FLV script.onMetaData.AIGC placements;
• xAI and Grok EXIF signature fields;
• Samsung AI editing markers;
• Hugging Face job metadata;
• open Stable Diffusion style DWT-DCT watermarks with the detect extra;
• Adobe TrustMark Variant P schemas 0-2 with the trustmark extra. Variant Q needs a different model, while schema 3 is deliberately rejected because it produced persistent false positives on unrelated generators.

identify combines detected signals into a ProvenanceReport. It reports unknown when evidence is absent. It never treats missing metadata as proof that an image is human made. C2PA presence alone is not a verified identity: the report distinguishes asset binding, claim signature, signer trust, and signer validity. High-confidence C2PA attribution requires an intact asset binding and claim signature; signer trust and certificate expiry are reported as their own dimensions and as caveats, since no trust anchor list ships to evaluate them. Fallback claims, which validate nothing, remain medium-confidence, while a failed binding or signature or a revoked credential contributes no origin verdict.

File and container formats

Pixel based image commands discover these extensions:

• PNG;
• JPEG;
• WebP;
• HEIC and HEIF;
• AVIF.

HEIC, HEIF, and AVIF pixel decoding requires the independent heif extra in addition to the selected pixel feature. Metadata scanning does not.

Metadata inspection and removal additionally have container paths for:

• JPEG XL metadata;
• MP4, MOV, M4V, and M4A;
• WebM, MKV, MKA, AVI, FLV, MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, OGA, Opus, and AAC when ffmpeg is available.

JPEG image metadata stripping removes targeted metadata segments without re-encoding the entropy coded image scan. PNG and WebP removal preserves pixel values through lossless output paths. HEIC, HEIF, AVIF, and other containers use their format specific paths.

Invisible watermarks

The invisible command uses diffusion regeneration. It targets watermark patterns by changing the image rather than decoding and deleting a known payload.

Current pipeline values, both CUDA-only:

• qwen-zimage, the default;
• sdxl-zimage, the same recipe and the same face stage on an SDXL global pass.

The controlnet, sdxl, qwen and default values were removed. A retired name is rejected at parse time rather than remapped onto a surviving profile.

SynthID does not have a public local pixel decoder in this project. The tool recognizes presence from supported provenance: Google AI C2PA under Google's all-media watermark policy, and current OpenAI C2PA carrying an explicit c2pa.watermarked.* action. Legacy OpenAI C2PA without that action does not assert SynthID. After provenance metadata is removed, a local negative result is still inconclusive.

Microsoft Paint can name com.microsoft.invismark.1 in a C2PA soft-binding assertion. Inspection reports both that exact algorithm and its signed value, which Paint uses as the identifier carried by the pixel watermark, and emits an additive invismark signal so callers can select pixel removal without parsing the generic soft_binding detail. Photos uses a parallel local writer path. Metadata stripping removes only the embedded manifest; invisible and all guarantee the supported InvisMark removal contract by regenerating the pixel layer as well. The project has no validated local InvisMark decoder, so local inspection cannot independently verify the output. Microsoft's official Content Provenance Detection API is the external oracle: it reports pixel Watermark and embedded C2PA results separately; a control-positive, output-negative pair is the available per-file verification path.

Meta Muse Image stamps every output with Content Seal, a proprietary invisible pixel watermark, and ships no visible mark (the legacy Imagined with AI corner mark belongs to the pre-2026 Imagine pipeline and is not registered). This project has no local Content Seal decoder. Meta Model API outputs and Meta CDN copies carry an XMP iptcExt:DigitalSourceType = trainedAlgorithmicMedia companion tag, which identify reports through the existing Made-with-AI path; that IPTC code is a standard, not a Meta-exclusive signal, so it cannot key a strength cohort the way the C2PA issuer does. The external oracle is https://meta.ai/identification: anonymous, no login, accepts image, video, and audio, enforces an unspecified daily identification limit, and answers with model attribution (Muse Image 1 - Meta) plus a per-generation ID and creation timestamp read from the watermark payload. No identification endpoint exists in the Meta Model API itself (the reference at dev.meta.ai documents only generation and edits for images), and the official documentation never mentions the seal. The default qwen-zimage profile clears Content Seal at the default resolution-adaptive strength (oracle-verified on 2.56 MP generations); measured strength boundaries are recorded in data/contentseal/manifest.csv and module internals (derived Meta floor 0.1 by the standard spread method, not shipped as a constant because no provenance signal can route Muse output onto a vendor cohort). The seal survives resizing, JPEG recompression, and metadata stripping; it dies to center crops of a third to a half, matching the Reuters 2026-07-11 finding that Meta's detector missed 55% of cropped Muse images.

For MP4, MOV, and M4V, video invisible or the explicit video all --invisible option can regenerate the video through a VAE and strip source metadata. The shipped profile is oracle-certified, but it is not a local decoder. A fresh source-positive, output-negative pair from Gemini's built-in SynthID verifier is an optional per-file audit. A normal Gemini answer may instead infer from a visible logo or metadata; asking it to reinterpret a completed verifier result is not a second oracle run.

The optional detect extra is different: it provides a local decoder for the open DWT-DCT watermark used by some Stable Diffusion, SDXL, and FLUX workflows. That signal is carrier and transformation sensitive, so a negative is still not a universal clean verdict.

Provider overview

Provider or family	Visible	Invisible path	Metadata or provenance
Google Gemini	Sparkle	Diffusion regeneration for SynthID	C2PA and related source signals
Google Veo video	Veo diamond and legacy text	Oracle-certified VAE removal for SynthID	C2PA and related source signals
OpenAI image generators	None registered	Diffusion regeneration for supported invisible signals	C2PA and generator provenance
Meta Muse Image	None on Muse output (legacy Imagined with AI unregistered)	Diffusion regeneration for Content Seal, oracle-verified on the default profile	XMP IPTC trainedAlgorithmicMedia companion tag; no local Content Seal decoder
Microsoft Paint and Photos	None registered	External Microsoft oracle for InvisMark; no validated local decoder	Paint C2PA soft-binding algorithm and identifier
Stable Diffusion and SDXL	None registered	Diffusion regeneration; optional open decoder	Embedded parameters and text metadata
FLUX	None registered	Diffusion regeneration; optional open decoder	C2PA for supported sources
Adobe Firefly	None registered	Optional TrustMark Variant P decoder	C2PA
Midjourney	None registered	No registered pixel decoder	EXIF, XMP, and IPTC signals
Luma AI	None registered	No registered pixel decoder	PNG text generator tags (Uni-1)
ByteDance generators	Doubao and Jimeng marks	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC, supported C2PA, and exact app-export AIGC disclosures
Qwen	Qwen mark	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC
Kling	Kling image and video marks	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC
Hailuo / MiniMax video	Hailuo composite video label	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC where present
Baidu	Baidu mark	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC
LibLibAI	LibLibAI mark	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC
RunningHub	RunningHub mark	No registered pixel decoder	TC260 AIGC
Samsung Galaxy AI	One locale specific mark	No registered pixel decoder	C2PA and Samsung markers

For detector thresholds, measured limits, and incident history, see module internals and known limitations.