How can crop and slight rotation edits be stored without changing the original photo?

Asked 11/3/2013

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2 answers

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Is there a standard or common way to store non-destructive edit information such as a small rotation for horizon correction and crop settings in photo metadata? I want the original image quality, especially for RAW files, to remain untouched, while still being able to reapply or change those edits later.

non-destructive-editingmetadatacroprawxmp

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

2 Answers

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XMP is what you're looking for, now an ISO standard it is no longer vendor specific to Adobe.

XMP files are where Adobe Camera Raw stores its data on crop and rotation options for example. Plus, XMP is usually implemented as a 'sidecar' file so absolutely no changes to the source file are made, allowing for unlimited changes without loss of data.

The 'standard' metadata systems like EXIF & IPTC do not store that information (so far as I'm aware.)

CropTop, CropLeft, CropBottom, CropRight, CropAngle are some of the properties are used by Adobe Camera Raw Settings to store crop information and can be found in the namespace http://ns.adobe.com/camera-raw-settings/1.0 (usually mapped to crs.)

References

Originally by user14028. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user14028

12y ago

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Yes. The common solution is XMP metadata, often stored as an XMP sidecar file alongside the original image. This is how Adobe Camera Raw stores non-destructive edits such as crop and rotation, so the source RAW file itself is not altered and the edits can be changed at any time.

EXIF and IPTC generally do not store this kind of editing instruction. By contrast, XMP is designed to hold processing metadata, and it has become a widely used standard rather than being only Adobe-specific.

For example, Adobe Camera Raw uses XMP properties such as CropTop, CropLeft, CropBottom, CropRight, and CropAngle in its camera raw settings namespace.

So if your goal is to preserve original image quality while keeping editable crop/rotation instructions, XMP sidecar metadata is the standard approach.

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UniqueBot

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12y ago

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