Metadata for Photographers

Adding Information to Identify and Classify Your Photo Images

Apr 18, 2008 Paul Lightfoot

Knowing how to handle metadata effectively is a valuable skill for the modern digital photographer.

Image files contain not just pictures but also information about those pictures. The often neglected but potentially invaluable “metadata” can help in identifying, tracking and classifying your pictures and for recalling the details of how you took each shot.

Types of Metadata

The metadata within a digital image file can include three kinds of information:

The camera settings when the picture was taken. The camera embeds details like shutter speed, aperture, ISO value and so on into the file when you take each picture. Comparing the quality of similar shots with different settings can be a great learning aid as you hone your photographic skills.
The identity of the photographer, including copyright and contact details. Most software packages allow you to add this information as a preset or template when you transfer the file from the camera to your computer. This information can help you retain your rights to your pictures if you share them
Descriptive information about the shot, including title, caption and keywords, all of which can be immensely useful both for organising your collections for your own use and for any image libraries or publishers that you send the pictures to. You can add these details manually, though presets and templates can help reduce the amount of typing that you will need to do.

Recording Metadata within an Image File

Different software packages include different ways of streamlining the process of recording metadata within each file and it is worth learning how your favourite program works in this respect.

For example Adobe Lightroom allows you to add your own customized information templates as you upload each group of files. Then in Library mode you can create a named “keyword set” including several keywords likely to apply to several pictures, select a group of pictures and click on each keyword that you want to embed in each picture file. Other programs like Aperture and Photoshop have similar capabilities.

If you want to share your images with their metadata intact and available for other people to use you need to be aware of the international standard formats in common use. You will find several templates within Photoshop’s "File Info" panels, each containing your image’s metadata but in slightly different arrangements.

Metadata Formats

Camera Data 1 for example includes the camera settings and corresponds to the Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) standard. The Description and IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) panels include copyright and descriptive information, mostly but not completely overlapping and in slightly different arrangements.

If you send pictures to a library whose software uses information from, say, the IPTC Headline field rather than the more widely used Title field, you should make sure your templates comply in order to avoid some additional typing. Or you might need to embed the IPTC’s standard subject codes, which are available from the IPTC website.

The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) recently proposed a new Photoshop File Info panel for consolidating the most commonly used copyright, licensing and descriptive metadata, available for download here.

Saving for the Web

Once embedded, metadata will normally stay with the file throughout its life, but it can be removed or changed. Photoshop’s “Save for Web” function is commonly used to minimise the size of a file; but Save for Web strips out most of the metadata. Your copyright notice will be retained, but while this provides some protection you should be aware that deleting or changing it is not difficult.

So your metadata are not infallible. But they can add value to your rapidly growing collection of digital images. The time you take getting to know how metadata work within your workflow will be time well spent.

The copyright of the article Metadata for Photographers in Photography is owned by Paul Lightfoot. Permission to republish Metadata for Photographers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.