Start with the right question
A useful rights review starts with the making of the image. Preserve the layers and editing history that show which expressive choices a person made. A flattened final file may hide the distinction between generated content, licensed source material, and later human changes.
Work through the checks
Preserve the creation sequence
Save source images, generated candidates, selected outputs, and editable project files. Record which elements were created, arranged, or changed by a person. Avoid claiming every pixel was human-authored when that is not accurate.
Identify outside material
List reference photos, logos, stock assets, and recognizable people. Record their origin and permissions. A tool's permission to use an output does not by itself resolve rights in material or likenesses appearing within it.
Keep the applicable terms
Save the terms for the account and feature used at the time of creation. Separate contractual permission to use a service's output from the question of copyright protection or infringement.
Describe the actual contribution
Write a factual account of selection, arrangement, retouching, and compositing. Do not inflate ordinary prompting into a description of work you did not perform. Give a reviewer the editable evidence behind the account.
A record you can use
- Tool, feature, and creation date
- Human-created layers
- Generated elements
- Third-party assets and permissions
- Proposed use and unresolved rights
Keep this record locally. Use document references rather than publishing account numbers or other people's personal details. An empty field means the information is still missing; it should not be filled with an AI guess.
Worked example
A fictional designer generates a background, photographs a product, and manually creates the typography and layout. The record separates those contributions and retains the layered file. The designer does not describe the whole image as entirely hand-created or assume that a paid tool account settles every copyright question.
This example is fictional and illustrates the method, not a real case result.
Limits and next steps
The Copyright Office's AI materials distinguish human authorship from machine-generated expression. Protection, infringement, publicity rights, and contract permission are separate issues; a commercial license is not a universal legal clearance.
Use the creation record when seeking advice or preparing a registration application. Follow current Copyright Office instructions and disclose relevant AI-generated material accurately rather than relying on a vendor's marketing language.