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Image Metadata Glossary

Short, plain-English definitions of the terms you'll meet when looking at what's inside an image file.

AI generation record

Any metadata stating that an image was created or changed with an AI tool, such as a Content Credentials assertion or an IPTC source type.

Assertion

A statement inside a C2PA manifest, such as which tool made an edit.

C2PA

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, which publishes the open standard behind Content Credentials.

Content Credentials

The consumer name for C2PA provenance information attached to a piece of content.

Digital Source Type

An IPTC property describing how an image originated. The value trainedAlgorithmicMedia indicates content created by a generative model.

EXIF

Exchangeable Image File Format. Technical details stored by cameras, including settings, time, and sometimes GPS location.

Geotag

Location coordinates attached to a photo, usually through GPS fields in EXIF.

HEIC

The image format iPhones use by default. It stores photos efficiently and can also hold metadata.

ICC profile

Color information that tells software how to display an image accurately. It does not identify you.

IPTC

A metadata standard used by publishers for captions, credits, copyright, and keywords.

JUMBF

A container format used to store data such as C2PA manifests inside image files.

Manifest

The signed C2PA record listing a file's origin and edits.

Metadata

Information stored with a file that describes it, separate from the visible content.

Provenance

The documented history of where a piece of content came from and how it changed.

Re-encoding

Saving an image again in a compressed format. It can cause very small changes to the pixels.

sRGB

The standard color range used by most screens and the web.

SynthID

A Google technology that embeds an invisible watermark in AI-generated content. It lives in the image itself, not in the metadata.

Watermark

A mark added to an image to show its origin, either visible or hidden within the pixels.

XMP

Extensible Metadata Platform, an Adobe-created format often used by editing software to store details about a file.

Want more detail? Read what EXIF data is or how C2PA works.