An enlightening summation on the use of EXIF vs IPTC data and I appreciate your input. However, the purpose of my message was to enlighten the knowledge of the majority of list members to the feature that have access to in Windows, believing that they may not have been aware of its existence. This feature is instantly available with a few clicks without the need to resort to any third party application. This makes the task reasonably simple for the average home user. IPTC data requires a third party application to complete its data fields. Applications such as Photoshop, ACDSee Pro 2, ACDSee 10 Photo Manager, and others allow this. There are many applications which will display both EXIF and IPTC data, but will not allow it to be edited in anyway (Picasa2 and Ulead Photo Explorer comes to mind). Some of the major applications, like the first ones mentioned above, will allow "batch" editing of images to add both IPTC and EXIF data. IPTC data does not show by default the technical information saved from the camera in its EXIF file. It has to be added if needed. There would be many members of this list who do not have an application capable of adding IPTC data, but they can access Properties in Windows quite freely, to add to EXIF data already there. As most members of this list are users of one of the versions of Windows, and I am sure most of the people they exchange images with are also Windows users, the EXIF data will be available to those recipients. If they went to the trouble of adding just IPTC data to their images they email as attachments, there would be nothing to show for all their hard work when it is received. The IPTC standard is necessary for photographers and artists dealing with news organizations and is accepted as the standard in those industries. The average member of this list would not, in their lifetime, have dealings with media organizations, I am sure. Even in those organizations, there are different requirements for the IPTC fields. Newspapers may require different fields to say, magazines. Those dealing with news organizations would be well aware of the requirements needed by any they deal with regularly. So, in saying EXIF is "not recommended" (for members of this list I assume) that could be true if the members of this list were all Mac users; sending their attachments only to Mac users; or dealing with news organizations on a regular basis. But, in the world of the genealogist and home computer users who inhabit this list, EXIF data is a readily available way of adding information to their images without a lot of hassles (and no cost). Most would want to keep it that simple, I am sure. -----Original Message----- From: jgen@telus.net Sent: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:49:19 -0700 To: gen-comp-tips@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GEN-COMP-TIPS] Using Metadata to add info to images (was Labelling photos) File Properties, as described below, is a Windows-only feature, not IPTC, in other words it is not a standard way of labeling photos and therefore limited in its application. Also, there's no batch mode as there often is with IPTC, so it's tedious to enter data in large amount of photos. Also, it's not readable in software other than the Windows operating system and apparently Microsoft Word. Not recommended. JL

Yes, IPTC was originally developed for use in new organizations but it's commonly used in other ways now. There's a Windows IPTC add-on called Photo Info which is freely available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfo.mspx There are a variety of fields available. For simpler purposes, keywords, captions and copyright notices would be the most commonly used. EXIF is camera information that is automatically embedded in digital photos and shows in all applications that I've seen. The added info in Windows File Properties that you're suggesting do not. Sometimes people do use other editors and viewers and why be limited if you don't have to be? Neither is Windows File Properties importable into other software used in genealogy. For instance, Legacy Family Tree will import IPTC captions into it's photo fields when linking pictures. So will Passage Express. If you wanted the same result from Windows File Properties you'd have to copy and paste the descriptions one by one. Picasa2 is free and writes both IPTC keywords and captions to jpg's and uncompressed tiff's. Emailing photos with IPTC-info works just fine as long as you don't allow Windows to resize the photos before mailing. Just click the "Keep Original Sizes" box. If you're sending large batches, you can use something like a free YouSendIt account which allows files up to 100 MB at one time. JL JLog - simple computer technology for genealogists http://www3.telus.net/Jgen/jlog.html n.east wrote: > An enlightening summation on the use of EXIF vs IPTC data and I appreciate your input. > > However, the purpose of my message was to enlighten the knowledge of the majority of list members to the feature that have access to in Windows, believing that they may not have been aware of its existence. This feature is instantly available with a few clicks without the need to resort to any third party application. This makes the task reasonably simple for the average home user. > > IPTC data requires a third party application to complete its data fields. Applications such as Photoshop, ACDSee Pro 2, ACDSee 10 Photo Manager, and others allow this. There are many applications which will display both EXIF and IPTC data, but will not allow it to be edited in anyway (Picasa2 and Ulead Photo Explorer comes to mind). Some of the major applications, like the first ones mentioned above, will allow "batch" editing of images to add both IPTC and EXIF data. IPTC data does not show by default the technical information saved from the camera in its EXIF file. It has to be added if needed. There would be many members of this list who do not have an application capable of adding IPTC data, but they can access Properties in Windows quite freely, to add to EXIF data already there. > > As most members of this list are users of one of the versions of Windows, and I am sure most of the people they exchange images with are also Windows users, the EXIF data will be available to those recipients. If they went to the trouble of adding just IPTC data to their images they email as attachments, there would be nothing to show for all their hard work when it is received. > > The IPTC standard is necessary for photographers and artists dealing with news organizations and is accepted as the standard in those industries. The average member of this list would not, in their lifetime, have dealings with media organizations, I am sure. Even in those organizations, there are different requirements for the IPTC fields. Newspapers may require different fields to say, magazines. Those dealing with news organizations would be well aware of the requirements needed by any they deal with regularly. > > So, in saying EXIF is "not recommended" (for members of this list I assume) that could be true if the members of this list were all Mac users; sending their attachments only to Mac users; or dealing with news organizations on a regular basis. But, in the world of the genealogist and home computer users who inhabit this list, EXIF data is a readily available way of adding information to their images without a lot of hassles (and no cost). Most would want to keep it that simple, I am sure. > > -----Original Message----- > From: jgen@telus.net > Sent: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:49:19 -0700 > To: gen-comp-tips@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [GEN-COMP-TIPS] Using Metadata to add info to images (was > Labelling photos) > > File Properties, as described below, is a Windows-only feature, not > IPTC, in other words it is not a standard way of labeling photos and > therefore limited in its application. Also, there's no batch mode as > there often is with IPTC, so it's tedious to enter data in large amount > of photos. Also, it's not readable in software other than the Windows > operating system and apparently Microsoft Word. Not recommended. > > JL > > -------------------------------------- > Having trouble with your subscription? Contact the List Admin at gen-comp-tips-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GEN-COMP-TIPS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > >

> ... the purpose of my message was to enlighten the > knowledge of the majority of list members to the feature > that have access to in Windows, believing that they may > not have been aware of its existence. This feature is > instantly available with a few clicks without the need > to resort to any third party application. This makes > the task reasonably simple for the average home user. Thank you for this. While I knew that my Canon camera stored the settings used to capture the image, and that these were available to me when I view the image in Adobe's Photoshop application, I was not aware that they were also available from Windows. I was also not aware that one could add data such as title, author etc. Thank you for sharing this with me. Chris