An “Apple Photos Clean Up” label appears in the Credit field of a photo’s EXIF metadata but isn’t retained when sharing an image with apps.
The third beta of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 add a Clean Up feature that lets you remove objects from the background in Photos by circling them, with Apple Intelligence replacing the missing parts. Using it to touch up an image automatically marks up the metadata to indicate AI was used in the editing process by adding “Modified with Clean Up” to the EXIF Credits field.
The label is retained when you share an image via iMessage or AirDrop, whether sending it in its original file format or using the AirDrop feature to transcode shared images into JPEG. However, the label is lost when sharing to a third-party app like WhatsApp, which is standard behavior for all social media apps.
Apple’s Photos app marks up images with AI edits
You can see this label on any image that has been touched up by the Clean Up tool like you would capture date-time, location and other metadata—by swiping up to reveal additional information. The person you’ve shared the photo with via iMessage or AirDrop must save the image to their Photos app and repeat the above step to see the label. Otherwise, they could download special software to reveal EXIF metadata.
There’s no industry-accepted standard for labeling images generated or edited using AI. Apple’s idea of using the Credits field to mark up pictures modified with Clean Up is a good start, but the label’s low visibility restricts its usefulness. A simple “CLEAN UP” label overlaid on a photo’s corner would solve this in one fell swoop (Apple uses similar labels to mark Portrait Mode images, Live Photos, etc.).
What about images created with Image Playground?
Apple Intelligence will also mark up the metadata of any images created with Image Playground, Apple’s software engineering boss Craig Federighi told Daring Fireball’s John Gruber during this year’s The Talk Show Live interview.
The first Apple Intelligence features will arrive alongside iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, including AI writing tools and the new Siri animation. Other features like better Siri and ChatGPT integration are due later in 2024 and 2025.