Visible Watermark Restoration: Authorized-Asset Contract¶
This page concerns restoration of a visible overlay only when the operator owns the asset or has explicit authority to modify it: for example, correcting an accidental overlay on an in-house export or preparing an authorized derivative. The AAAI visible-watermark research describes separation of overlay localization from background restoration; a restored area remains a reconstruction, not recovered evidence of what was originally hidden.
Do not use this workflow to remove marks from third-party previews, licensed stock, platform-delivered media, or any asset whose terms prohibit alteration. It also does not cover evading invisible watermarks or deleting provenance controls. C2PA Content Credentials are a separate provenance system and require their own policy-aware handling.
Establish authorization and scope¶
Before processing, retain:
- source-asset digest, owner, license/contract or written authorization, authorized purpose, destination, retention/deletion policy, and reviewer;
- overlay classification and placement record: own export mark, approved publisher mark, accidental compositing artifact, or another explicitly permitted case;
- an explicit protected-region list for people, identity, text, products, safety labels, factual records, legal notices, and content that must not be reconstructed or changed; and
- a refusal record for unknown-origin assets, third-party previews, or any request that would remove ownership/provenance evidence without authority.
Permission to view, download, or edit a copy is not permission to remove a visible ownership mark. When authority is unclear, obtain it or use the original clean asset instead.
Bind restoration and disclosure¶
For each authorized attempt, record the detector/mask source and revision, mask coordinate system and reviewer correction, restoration model or tool release, input preprocessing, output artifact digest, and every transformed region. Preserve the original asset and mask with the result. Do not present a generated fill as recovered pixels, an authentic product record, or an unchanged original.
Evaluate mask coverage separately from restoration quality. Inspect boundaries, semi-transparent overlay edges, text, repeated patterns, fine factual detail, lighting, reflection, and surrounding geometry. If training is involved, keep source assets and derivatives group-disjoint across train, validation, and review sets, and evaluate on authorized held-out data.
Publish only after a reviewer confirms the authorization, protected-region handling, output disclosure, and intended use. Record whether provenance metadata or Content Credentials must be retained, regenerated, or marked invalid under the applicable asset policy; this is not generic metadata cleanup.
Gotchas¶
- Issue: A licensed preview is treated as an editable source because it is publicly visible -> Fix: require the original asset or explicit written authority before any restoration attempt.
- Issue: A plausible fill is represented as recovered original content -> Fix: label it as a restoration/reconstruction, retain the source and mask, and prohibit factual or evidentiary use without independent support.
- Issue: Overlay removal changes provenance expectations while only pixels are reviewed -> Fix: review the applicable provenance/Content Credentials policy and preserve a visible transformation record.
Failure boundary¶
If ownership/authorization, source provenance, allowed overlay scope, protected-region review, restoration release, or final disclosure is missing, do not process or publish the result. Escalate to the asset owner or request a clean authorized source; do not silently erase, crop around, or bypass the mark.