IPTC: easily view and edit image metadata

From family pictures on your hard drive to pro­fes­sion­al shots by pho­to­graph­ers or databases for an image editor: over time, image archives can become confusing. IPTC metadata is useful when trying to locate specific photos. If you already save your images using the IPTC standard, you will be able to filter them by name, location, date, or heading later on. IPTC is content-related metadata which contains in­form­a­tion about media files and sim­pli­fies file exchanges. We will explain how these labels work and where the metadata can be found.

There are two competing standards for creating, dis­play­ing, and editing metadata in image files: EXIF metadata which conveys technical char­ac­ter­ist­ics such as camera model, shutter speed, and res­ol­u­tion, and IPTC data, which contains content-related in­form­a­tion such as location details, copyright notices, and contact details. EXIF data is generated auto­mat­ic­ally when creating JPEG image files. IPTC data, however, has to be entered into the metadata by the user af­ter­wards.

The full name of the standard is IPTC-IIM, and it was in­tro­duced in 1991 by the In­ter­na­tion­al Press Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Council (IPTC) as an In­form­a­tion In­ter­change Model (IIM). The in­ter­na­tion­al standard was meant to simplify the exchange of image files between news agencies, pho­to­journ­al­ists, and editors.

The IPTC standard is com­pat­ible with files saved in the JPEG, TIFF, and PNG image formats and offers the benefit of allowing detailed, content-related in­form­a­tion to be sent along with a media file. This makes sub­sequent searches through image archives easier and sim­pli­fies the task of sifting through and struc­tur­ing image sources and holding a photo com­pet­i­tion.

In 2004, Adobe’s XMP metadata format from 2001 was combined with the IPTC standard resulting in the “IPTC Core Schema for XMP.” IPTC Core supports both IPTC and XMP metadata in image editing programs and sometimes syn­chron­ises them into one metadata package.

Ori­gin­ally meant for the work of journ­al­ists, IPTC has now prevailed as a widely-used de­scrip­tion model for amateur and pro­fes­sion­al pho­to­graph­ers alike. It is also in­teg­rated into most image editing programs. IPTC-IIM is currently available in version 4.2.

Which and how much in­form­a­tion to include with an image depends on how the file will be used and with whom you want to share these details. IPTC fields offer a wide spectrum for content-related notes. They make searching for images easier and simplify the struc­tur­ing of databases. In­ter­na­tion­ally, these fields are known as IPTC tags.

In­form­a­tion that could be found in IPTC de­scrip­tion fields include:

• Keywords
• Copyright in­form­a­tion
• Location and time details
• The names of the people in the image
• Content-related de­scrip­tions/comments
• A heading

The content details are composed of one content field and a specific defin­i­tion or comment:

The number of IPTC tags depends on which image editing program is being used and what in­form­a­tion is important to include. Generally, IPTC fields can be divided into three cat­egor­ies.

• De­script­ive: Content-related details about the image content; in­form­a­tion about people, objects, companies, artwork, and more; keywords, headings and captions
• Legal: In­form­a­tion about copy­rights, creators, sources, licensing rights, and usage by third parties
• Ad­min­is­trat­ive: Details about location and time, pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions, in­struc­tions for third parties

IPTC metadata allows an image file to be un­der­stood more quickly and makes it possible to structure and search for images ef­fi­ciently thanks to stand­ard­ised IPTC tags. Moreover, images can be filtered using concrete IPTC details and image archives can be combed through more thor­oughly by using keywords. As such, main­tain­ing and or­gan­ising image archives or journ­al­ist­ic databases can be executed much more ef­fi­ciently.

IPTC data can be thought of as ac­com­pa­ny­ing text for image files. It has the ad­vant­ages of being included directly in the image and sent directly along with the file. One quick look provides in­form­a­tion about copy­rights, sources, content, and contact details. In addition, IPTC data also helps to answer journ­al­ists’ eight sacred questions very easily:

• Who is involved?
• What happened?
• Where did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• Why was it done this way?
• What is the source of the in­form­a­tion?
• Who is this in­form­a­tion meant to reach?

All digital images usually contain auto­mat­ic­ally generated EXIF metadata in their technical char­ac­ter­ist­ics. However, not all images contain IPTC data. It is quite easy to see whether IPTC data is available. When using Windows Explorer, you simply need to right-click on the image in order to find the image prop­er­ties and details.

With macOS Mojave, however, you have to click on “View” and then “Show preview” in the Finder. Then, choose a photo, look at the preview on the right-hand side, and find all metadata, including IPTC data, under “More.”

You can also conduct a search by using IPTC keywords in Windows Explorer and the Mac Finder.

Keep in mind that if you want to also edit IPTC data, not all image editing programs support the changing or creation of metadata.

There are many free programs that you can use to view and edit IPTC data. Here is an overview of free metadata software:

• IrfanView
• Exifer (Windows)
• XnView
• IPTCExt
• Im­ageQuery
• Mapivi

Most com­mer­cial programs for editing images and photos include an in­teg­rated metadata viewer which can be used to view and edit metadata. These include:

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Bridge
• Photoshop Elements
• Capture One
• Corel Aftershot
• CyberLink Pho­to­Dir­ect­or

One problem as­so­ci­ated with IPTC is a lack of data security. If you are not careful about removing private location in­form­a­tion, names, or shot details from the metadata, you run the risk of sharing this in­form­a­tion un­in­ten­tion­ally with third parties after uploading or sending the images. As such, it is always important to take note of the metadata that is included with an image. Erasing image in­form­a­tion can sometimes be just as important as adding it.

IPTC data is com­pat­ible with various image editing programs. Trans­fer­ring data is not a problem in most cases. However, in certain ap­plic­a­tions, IPTC fields may sometimes have different names which can be confusing. It is advisable to stick with only one software program or to check which software program the image files should best be used with.