Content Credentials attach cryptographic attribution, edit histories, and ingredient provenance to your exports. While valuable for attribution and verifying authenticity, you may need to disable them to preserve client privacy, prevent disclosure of proprietary layer workflows, or minimize file bloat. However, opting out is not always permitted: whenever you utilize Adobe Firefly generative AI tools, Adobe’s Trust and Safety policy enforces non-negotiable provenance metadata that cannot be disabled.
Fast Fix
Open Photoshop and navigate to Preferences > Content Credentials. Set the toggle to Disabled. For open projects, open Window > Content Credentials and toggle the switch to Off. If the toggle is locked, generative AI assets are present on your canvas and must be flattened, removed, or exported via legacy routines.
Quick Status Snapshot
| Condition | Opt-Out Availability | Required Action |
|---|---|---|
| Pure Manual Edits (Brushes, Retouching) | Always Permitted | Disable via Preferences or the Panel toggle |
| Generative Fill / Generative Expand Used | Blocked by Policy | Remove AI layers or export via legacy pipelines |
| Enterprise Managed System | Policy-Dependent | Requires Admin Console permission changes |
| Standard Photo Exports (.JPG, .PNG) | Always Permitted | Disable embedding in the Export As dialog |
What This Means: The Firefly Exception
Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative is built on transparency. Under Adobe’s platform policies, any asset generated or modified using Adobe Firefly features—such as Generative Fill, Generative Expand, or Text to Image—automatically receives an immutable Content Credential asserting that generative AI was used.
Even if you disable Content Credentials globally in your desktop preferences, using a generative tool automatically reactivates the credential generator for that specific document. To understand why these tags persist across workflows, see Why “Generative AI” is Tagged Even After Manual Edits.
Document Edits
│
├─► Manual Edits Only ──► Content Credentials Toggle: [UNLOCKED] ──► Can Opt Out
│
└─► Firefly / GenAI Used ─► Content Credentials Toggle: [LOCKED] ──► Opt-Out Blocked
Step-by-Step: Disabling Content Credentials
Method 1: Turn Off Global Document Credentials (Photoshop)
This stops Photoshop from enabling Content Credentials by default on newly created projects:
- On Windows, go to Edit > Preferences > Content Credentials. On macOS, go to Photoshop > Settings > Content Credentials.
- Under Document Set-Up, toggle the switch to Disabled.
- Click OK and restart Photoshop.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Preferences: Content Credentials |
| |
| Enable for new and existing documents: |
| [ ] Enable Content Credentials (Toggle to OFF) |
| |
| Default Storage: |
| ( ) Attach to files |
| ( ) Cloud storage |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Method 2: Turn Off Credentials on an Active Canvas
If an existing document already has tracking enabled:
- Open the document in Photoshop.
- Go to Window > Content Credentials to open the panel.
- In the top-right corner of the panel, toggle the switch from On to Off.
- When prompted, select Don’t Include to confirm the removal of accumulated session data.
Note: If the switch is greyed out with an information icon, the document contains layers produced by Firefly. Proceed to Method 4.
Method 3: Strip Metadata on Export for Clean Files
If you want to maintain credentials during your working session for internal audits but deliver a clean asset to a client:
- Go to File > Export > Export As…
- In the export settings sidebar, scroll down to the Content Credentials section.
- Change the dropdown menu from Attach to files or Cloud to None (or uncheck Include Content Credentials).
- Complete the export. The resulting file will contain no C2PA JUMBF containers, reducing file size. To review file size impacts, see Why Content Credentials Increase Your File Size.
Method 4: Bypassing Forced Credentials on Generative Documents
When generative tools lock the opt-out toggle, use an unmanaged export pipeline to produce an untagged output:
- Open your document containing generative elements.
- Select all layers and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E (Windows) or Cmd+Opt+Shift+E (macOS) to create a merged stamp layer at the top of your stack.
- Select the merged layer, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A), and press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C) to copy the raw pixels to your clipboard.
- Go to File > New, choose the clipboard preset, and paste the pixels (Ctrl+V / Cmd+V).
- Verify in Window > Content Credentials that the new document is set to Disabled.
- Export using File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy). The legacy export pipeline does not support C2PA metadata blocks and strips them automatically upon generation.
Managing Corporate Restrictions
If you work on an enterprise machine where the Content Credentials panel shows a lock icon stating “Managed by Administrator”:
- Your enterprise plan has enforced digital watermarking or provenance logging.
- Local preference files (
Adobe Photoshop 2026 Prefs.psp) cannot override cloud-managed policies pushed via the Adobe Admin Console. - For enterprise permission troubleshooting, see Fixing “Permissions Denied” for Content Authenticity Settings.