Photoshop will get a ‘Prepare as NFT’ option by month’s end

Adobe’s Chief Product Officer, Scott Belsky, confirmed to the Verge, on their Decoder Podcast, that Photoshop will preview a ‘Prepare as NFT’ system by the end of the month. The objective is to prevent imposters from minting non-fungible token (NFT) art on a blockchain that they didn’t create in the first place. It helps prove that a person selling an NFT actually made it.

With what Adobe is calling Content Credentials, creators will be able to link their Adobe ID with their crypto wallet and mint their work with participating NFT marketplaces. The software company says the feature should be compatible with popular NFT marketplaces including OpenSea, KnownOrigin, SuperRare, and Rarible. A ‘verified certificate’ that comes with minting an NFT with Photoshop’s Content Credentials will prove that the source of the art is authentic.

How does it work? Belsky told the Verge that NFTs created with Content Credentials will have attribution data that will live on an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). IPFS is a decentralized method for hosting files. A group of individuals is responsible for protecting data that lives on an IPFS, and making it available to the public, as opposed to a single corporation or entity having control.

Content Credentials is part of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative. It was first created two years ago and has evolved to help artists authenticate their work. Belsky is a huge fan of NFTs, though he predicts some inevitable crashes along the way in the future. He acknowledges that there are far too many examples of people minting art that doesn’t belong to them. Because it’s on a blockchain, it can seem authentic if you’re unfamiliar with the origin of the work.

Probably the most well-known example of an NFT scam came in the form of an imposter pretending to be famous street artist Banksy. Said scammer was able to command $336,000 worth of Ethereum for an NFT of an image that appeared on the artist’s website. The buyer, oddly known as Pranksy, was duped but ultimately refunded. Not all of these false transactions have a happy ending, however, and buyers can find themselves ripped off after purchasing a fake.

What ‘Content Credentials’ will be able to give artists is the ability to mint NFTs directly in Photoshop to prove that they made it. Currently there isn’t any enforcement for someone minting content they didn’t create on a blockchain. This is why Belsky believes Content Credentials will help in a way that it proves artwork wasn’t stolen. Even if it can’t fully prevent theft at all times, it can make a counterfeit or duplicate NFT less attractive to potential buyers.

How valuable this system in Photoshop will be, especially in the NFT marketplaces where it is compatible, will remain to be seen. Adobe is also making it easier for the public to view Content Credentials with its new Verify site.

Image credits: Head image made using The Verge’s Decode podcast art and a 2014 photograph of Belsky at a The Next Web USA 2014 used under CC BY-SA 2.0.