Metadata Working Group Releases Verification Test Files

The Metadata Working Group (MWG) offers a new set of tools and Test Files for download to help developers verify whether their applications meet The Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata. Having these files available for testing purposes is critical for developers that provide applications or services which handle photo metadata, especially if they trying to make field values interoperable between IIM-IPTC, Exif, and XMP metadata.

The specification, tools and test files are the result of the past years collaboration among Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony — the current members of the MWG.

Many current tools are lacking when it comes to writing metadata in ways which uphold the third guiding principle of the Metadata Manifesto, namely that "Metadata must be written in formats that are understood by all."

The need for interoperable metadata is growing just as quickly as the use and sharing of digital images. Being able to add captions or keywords in one application and have that information travel along with the digital image, as it moves from camera (or camera phone) to imaging application, to business or personal website, as well as social media / sharing services is essential today.

For those involved in the commercial distribution of images, it's important that the other two guiding principles of the Metadata Manifesto also be followed, which establish that "Metadata is essential to identify and track digital images" and that "Ownership metadata must never be removed."

From a business standpoint it is vital that copyright and rights usage information be preserved, as an image moves through a workflow, regardless of whether that information was originally stored in the Exif, IPTC, or XMP container of an image file. These test files make it possible for developers to follow the MWG specifications, which is a valuable service.

MWG updates "Guidelines For Handling Image Metadata" to version 1.01

The Metadata Working Group recently updated their specifications guidance pdf ("Guidelines For Handling Image Metadata") to version 1.01. The original version was release last October.

Go to the Metadata Working Groups specification page to download the latest version.

New Bridge Scripts restore GPS metadata in TIFFs

It was reported on the Controlled Vocabulary forum last fall, that there were issues with GPS data being lost when saving files in the TIFF format using any version of Photoshop. Fortunately, this issue is only with the TIFF file format, and does not affect files being saved in the PSD or JPEG formats (saving TIFF files from Lightroom does not suffer from this same issue.

Just recently, David Franzen posted some scripts that can be used with Adobe Bridge to automate the copying of GPS data from PSD files so that it does appear properly in TIFF files. See the the full blog post titled, "Copy GPS Metadata Back into Photoshop TIFFs with Bridge Scripting" on the Adobe site for details.

This should be something that is corrected by the time that Photoshop CS5 ships. However, these scripting options are needed for all of those still using CS4 or earlier versions of Photoshop.

Metadata Working Group releases Guidelines for Interoperability and Preservation of Metadata

A group going by the name of the "Metadata Working Group" made a major announcement at Photokina today and released a document that is designed to help developers by providing best practices on how to create, read and modify a set of core metadata values within digital images that use Exif, IPTC-IIM and XMP. The groups involved in this initiative include a number of long-standing digital imaging and metadata advocates such as Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., and Microsoft Corp.; as well as a few you might not expect: Canon Inc., Nokia Corp. and Sony Corp.

The primary thrust of the Metadata Working group is to reveal issues regarding how metadata is exchanged and preserved as it moves between applications and processes (devices, platforms and services), file formats and metadata standards. This document, titled, "Guidelines for Handling Metadata" was released this morning (September 24th), and discusses the use of a small number of current metadata fields using existing standards to deal with what they feel are the key questions that most consumers have about images:

-Who is involved with this image (who took it, who owns it, who’s in it)?
-What is interesting about this image?
-Where is this image from?
-When was this image created or modified?

The goal of the Metadata Working Group is to provide best practices specifically for these nine critical data fields (Keywords, Description, Date/Time, Orientation, Rating, Copyright, Creator, Location [created], and Location [shown]), with the intent of solving interoperability issues for consumers.

Their model divides applications using metadata into three groups of "Actors": Creators, Changers and Consumers. This roughly mirrors the vision that the Stock Artists Alliance put out in their Metadata Manifesto in which they talked about Image Creators, Image Distributors and Image Users. However, the Metadata Working group paper takes this a step further and defines the roles each device or application play when interacting with metadata.

They also discuss best practices for how, when and where metadata should be changed in popular consumer still image file formats using existing industry metadata standards. Wide scale adoption of these best practices should solve many current problems that plague the photo community.

While this initial effort targets consumer still-imaging metadata, rather than those of the professional; they do plan to expand their efforts. In fact, Josh Weisberg, chairman and founder of the Metadata Working Group and director of Microsoft's Rich Media Group said that, "We've chosen to address the most common issues photographers face as we feel this will make the biggest impact for the average photographer," noting that "Down the road, we will expand our work to include other metadata issues relevant to photographers."

Details will be available from their http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org website once that is launched.

Revised IPTC Core & Extensions released

The IPTC has approved a new specification of their Photo Metadata Standard.

This includes the the slightly updated IPTC Core 1.1 Schema, and the the brand new IPTC Extension 1.0 Schema which complements and extends the set of IPTC Core metadata properties. Download the new IPTC specification to see the new options available, including a set of PLUS fields that are shared with the IPTC.

The IPTC photo metadata working group will be working over the summer to develop an updated version of the User's Guide. After reviewing the specifications you are welcome to send comments and views to the IPTC Photo Metadata Yahoo group.

Free PHP scripts preserve metadata for server-side image resizing processes that use GD

Laura Cotterman has discovered that resizing images on your website using the popular server-side application GD can inadvertently remove metadata from your image files. As there are many widely distributed PHP scripts for image galleries which resize (or watermark) images with GD, this would create a lot of potential "Orphan Works" and Cotterman decided to do something. She wrote a couple of simple functions that can be added to PHP scripts for applications using GD for image resizing so that the IPTC metadata is maintained, and built a website to give them away.

The ImageMetadata website has a full complement of resources, including a "Live Example" where you can test out the functions on one of your own images. These functions are available at no cost under the GNU license and can be downloaded at the ImageMeta website.

Orphan Works is back

On April 24, new draft versions of the Orphan Works Act of 2008 were introduced by both Houses of the U.S. Congress. The Stock Artists Alliance has published extensive commentary about Orphan Works, specifically noting the particular problems related to metadata and online distribution of images. They note that it is critical that copyright holder metadata be preserved to prevent images from becoming orphaned.

SAA offers specific recommendations for the legislation so that the needs of both image users and copyright holders are balanced. They also are conducting an extensive "MetaSurvey" of stock images, and their early findings indicate that most images being distributed in the marketplace have inadequate identifying information embedded in the image files.