TTG.photos: Welcome FAQ

Welcome FAQ

13 questions and answers for newcomers

1. What does the TTG label actually mean?

When you see the TTG label in a context that you fully trust...

. . . it means that the photographer is publicly making the Trust Test Guarantee — i.e., they are personally vouching that the photo has all 9 characteristics that are shared by trusted photographs around the world.
2. What about when I see the TTG label in a setting I don't trust?

Then you should disregard the label.

In fact, if for any reason you have suspicions — perhaps you don't trust the setting, or the photographer is not identified, or the photo looks “fake” and there's no explanation to convince you to trust it — then you should disregard the TTG label.
3. How do people sign up for TTG? How much does it cost?

There is never any signing up and never any cost.

Like the “Nonfiction” label on books, TTG is a principle, not a product.

That means that there is never any cost, registration, licensing, or permission involved in using any aspect of TTG — not for anyone, anywhere, anytime.
4. Who can attach the TTG label to a photo?

Anyone, at any level, anywhere in the world can make the Trust Test Guarantee by attaching the TTG label to their own photograph(s).

Because it reflects a personal guarantee, photographers can credibly attach the label only to their own photos — never to someone else's — and viewers should disregard the label if the photographer is not identified.

When anyone other than the photographer — say, a newspaper — publishes a TTG-labeled photograph, they simply publish the name of the photographer who is staking his or her reputation on the guarantee.
5. Won't it hurt TTG when lots of people on social media attach the TTG label to non-TTG-qualified photos?

No, not at all. Any misuse of the TTG label that prompts viewers to say, “That is a place where I would not trust the TTG label”...

. . . only advances TTG's goal of helping the public evaluate image sources.
6. Is it hard to make photos that qualify for the TTG label?

It couldn't be easier! Literally billions of them are made every day.

Just put your smartphone on “Photo,” avoid any special effects, take a normal photo of something using the away-facing camera, and then leave the photo exactly as is.

See the “Making” page for details.
7. Why have a label that applies to billions of photos?

Because when one of those billions of photos looks impressive, the TTG label is the easiest way to tell viewers that the photo is undoctored and contains no AI-fabricated material.

The TTG label is also helpful anytime an image provider wants to reassure viewers that no photos in a specific setting contain AI-fabricated elements (as a news provider might want to tell its audience).

All of the TTG-qualified images in that setting would wear the TTG label, regardless of how unimpressive any individual photo may look.
8. What kinds of photos is the TTG label useful for?

The TTG label is useful in any context where viewers wonder whether they are seeing an undoctored photograph, no matter what the subject.

Thus the TTG label is well-suited not just for news photos but for many different kinds of “non-news” subjects, from nature and wildlife to landscapes and cityscapes to adventure and travel to sports to documentary to street photos.
9. What kinds of photos is the TTG label not suited for?

TTG isn't well suited to any kinds of photographs that are typically doctored — or augmented with AI — before being put before viewers.

Some of the largest categories of photos generally unsuited to TTG include advertising and marketing photos; many types of images on social media; stock and studio photography (from food to fashion to products to {portraits}); {panoramic} photos; and architectural and interior photos.
10. What does the TTG label look like?

The TTG label doesn’t have a single “look.”

As with the “Nonfiction” label for books, the letters “TTG” can be in any font, color, size, and location...

. . . except “on” the photo (TTG photographers cannot put anything in the image area that the camera did not see at the time of exposure).
11. What if I don't think any photograph can ever equal “reality”?

Join the club! TTG never equates any photograph with “reality,” because no photograph can ever equal a three-dimensional real-world scene.

Instead, TTG is solely about identifying trustworthy “records.”

• Every picture that looks like a photograph either is or is not an undoctored record of what the camera saw at the time of exposure. (That's what viewers want to know when they see a remarkable image.)

• Only a photo that is an undoctored record can qualify for the TTG label.
12. What about when a photo is undoctored but is deceptive, like a photo of a zoo animal that is implied to be in the wild?

TTG makes it easy to avoid deception, by alerting viewers to any “inapparent circumstances” that viewers would want to know about.

In such cases the photographer is required to attach an “IC” to the TTG label (with an * added when needed to point to additional explanation).

Anytime viewers see “TTG/IC”, it means that the photographer is declaring that the photo is undoctored / but also that the photo does not depict what it appears to depict because of “inapparent circumstances.”
13. Why not label AI-fabricated pictures instead of non-AI ones?

Because millions of images with AI-fabricated elements are already online without labels, with billions more to come. It would be difficult to enforce a labeling requirement for even a tiny fraction of them.

Images are not constrained by national borders, and the most dangerous images coming from other countries are unlikely to come with warning labels.

The only realistic defense against the coming deluge of deceptive images is having the public continually identify which image sources are the most trustworthy. That is exactly what TTG is designed to help with.