Should I use IPTC, EXIF, or custom tags for archiving family photo metadata?
Asked 9/9/2016
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I’m building a digital archive of family photos and want to store information such as family names, people, places, and scene descriptions with each image so other software can read it. Should this kind of information go into existing EXIF/IPTC fields, and if so which standard is more appropriate? Is it safe and portable to create my own custom metadata tags, or are custom fields likely to be lost or ignored by other software? If I do add metadata, should I also keep it in sidecar files?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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This sort of data is ITPC data. Exif is data about the image itself, when it was created, modified, what camera, aperture, exposure. Tech specs.
ITPC comes from newspaper wirephoto days. It has keywords, captions, people, copyright, etc.
In theory ITPC can be extended with an xml type set of tag definitions. In practice these are not well supported. Indeed, many photo editing applications strip unknown tags out. You are best to use existing tags.
Even here support is uneven. Use a tool that will write metadata to a sidecar file in addition to incorporating it into the image.
Create a test image with lots of metadata, edit it in your favorite editor and see if the metadata is left intact.
Exiftool is one of the better tools for reading and writing metadata. The interface is arcane, it's not for casual use, but it is fabulous for checking on what other software is doing to your metadata, and can be used to create backups of all metadata.
Originally by user17873. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user17873
9y ago
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Use IPTC for this kind of descriptive information. EXIF is mainly for technical image data such as camera settings, capture time, and file-related details, while IPTC is intended for captions, keywords, people, copyright, and similar archival/editorial metadata.
For portability, prefer existing IPTC fields rather than inventing your own. Although metadata standards can be extended, support for custom tags is inconsistent, and some applications may ignore or even strip unknown tags when saving files.
A practical approach is:
- store descriptive data in standard IPTC fields where possible
- test your preferred software to make sure it preserves metadata
- consider keeping sidecar metadata files as a backup, since support varies across programs
If you need a reliable tool to inspect or write metadata, ExifTool is widely regarded as very capable.
So: IPTC over EXIF for names/descriptions, avoid custom fields if portability matters, and sidecars are a good safeguard.
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