Photo Metadata (how do you record info about your pics ?)

KStaford

I'd love to throw this out for discussion. How and where do you record / store info about your pics ?

I have a lot of pics, some on the web, loads on external disks, some on pix.ie etc. On my own website I use gallery2 to store photos, titles, comments, descriptions etc. But twice in the past I had to move that script to a new host and it was a nightmare. I have a lot of scans of very old family photos also and a very important aspect of these is the descriptions, dates, places etc.

I know jpeg can store all sorts of metadata including title, description etc so is there an app that makes this a user friendly option? It would be nice to be able to store all the info about a pic within the pic itself, then no matter where you move it to, it retains that info...

any thoughts / comments / advice ?

oshead

I usually save the pp info into the pst file back in lightroom. Handy for trying to achieve a the same look a few month down the road.

nilhg

There's a good overview of working with metadata in Lightroom here, even if the OP doesn't use LR I'm sure the basic principles in other software will be exactly the same.

One thing to be conscious of, is the need to explicitly write the metadata to the actual file, most software just stores it in its database and writes it to exported files, which is fine as long as you always use the same software to export for all uses but if you copy a file through explorer then it won't have the metadata included, it's covered in P4 of the linked document.

KarmaGarda

I just use windows explorer (I have vista but I believe windows XP could do this too).

Right click the file -> properties
In vista go to the details tab. You can edit all the jpg info there.
In XP I believe it was summary -> advanced?

I don't believe any of the photoshop/lightroom applications are any more user friendly to be honest. Unless you find an app that was written specifically for this purpose.

Of course if you use a non-ms operating system it may be different again

Anouilh

I've only recently started to formulate a system. Pictomio is useful for adding captions quickly and this is a clear explanation for anybody interested in Metadata and Exif:

http://www.updig.org/guidelines/ir_metadata.html

Anouilh

Adobe Lightroom offers a 30 day trial and is very logical to use:

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/template

nilhg

KarmaGarda wrote: »

I just use windows explorer (I have vista but I believe windows XP could do this too).

Right click the file -> properties
In vista go to the details tab. You can edit all the jpg info there.
In XP I believe it was summary -> advanced?

I don't believe any of the photoshop/lightroom applications are any more user friendly to be honest. Unless you find an app that was written specifically for this purpose.

Of course if you use a non-ms operating system it may be different again

Doing it your way is fine for a small number of shots, but imagine trying to do it for hundreds, Lightroom allows you to apply the basic info to all your shots as you import and quickly sync more detailed info to selected shots with two or three mouse clicks.

Anouilh

It depends on how one perceives the final usage of photos, perhaps.

The question of standardization is now increasingly important, as millions of photos are being posted in public forums daily and ambiguity concerning copyright and ownership will, in time, become time consuming and possibly a nuisance. "Orphan" files are under scrutiny by intellectual property lawyers and experts.

Lightroom is pleasant to use, but for the hobbyist it is possibly not essential.

AnCatDubh

nilhg wrote: »

Doing it your way is fine for a small number of shots, but imagine trying to do it for hundreds, Lightroom allows you to apply the basic info to all your shots as you import and quickly sync more detailed info to selected shots with two or three mouse clicks.

In Vista you can select multiple files, right click, go to properties and insert an exif tag such as copyright notice which will then be replicated to all of the images selected. So it may be useful for non lightroom peeps.

Anouilh

Some tips on how to organise metadata (and what it actually is):


http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/LR/About+metadata+and+XMP+-+Basics

http://blogs.oreilly.com/lightroom/2008/06/a-metadata-example.html

padocon

If you have photoshop or photoshop elements its under file, file info

KStaford

I have been researching this for a while now as I am thinking of developing an aplication that makes it very easy for us to add comments / descriptions etc to pics.

There are three formats of metadata believe it or not.
1. EXIF, not very stable and poorly defined. Different manufacturers implement different specification etc.
2. IPTC,Used by professionals and people in the media.
3. XMP (Extensible metadata platform) which is the new standard being pushed by Microsoft. It basically embeds xml into the file (as plain text). If you use Vista or Windows 7 and add comments to a pic in explorer, you are using XMP. As it's xml based it is future proof, it is already part of Microsoft's new HD image spec definition etc.

I am thinking of developing an application that will allow a user to load a photo(s) or a directory of photos. From there they could view/edit the metadata. I would incorporate bulk updating and handy features such as "start all descriptions for the selected files with a specified piece of text", easy and intuitive clipboard copying etc.

Would anyone be interested in such an app ?

Anouilh

Yes.

Anything that would make tagging and embedding metadata quick and reliable would be very welcome. The fact that different systems read it differently is truly exhausting.

Speechless after too much time making sense of this subject...

earthboundlight.com/phototips/copyright-symbol.htm

(I have stopped this from being a live link... it gives clear details on how to make a copyright symbol.)

Anouilh

There is a Giveawayoftheday that inserts watermarks and exif data into images. Worth a try?

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/watermark-express-1-0/#comments

Anouilh

The advantage with a quick Watermark Maker is that one does not get distracted by possible changes to colour and levels, as can happen with more sophisticated programs.

Also, since Flickr strips metadata from smaller sized images, a copyright notice on the image is more useful as it remains intact.