What are Image Description, User Comment, and Description metadata fields used for?
Asked 4/9/2021
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2 answers
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I’ve found several text metadata fields in JPEG files—such as EXIF ImageDescription, EXIF UserComment, and XMP/Description—and different tools show different subsets of them. Some services, like Google Photos, appear to display only one of these fields.
I’m not asking about how the fields are technically stored. I want to understand their intended purpose in practice: when would you use one field instead of another, and do photographers typically fill in just one, or duplicate the same text across multiple fields for compatibility?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
3
Here you can see the short description of specific EXIF tags. More detailed information is on official CIPA web site (200 pages PDF)
About usage - this is different story, you can use most of ASCII based tags for any text you want. If this make sense? I do not know. You do not need to fill all the tags with info. You may define your criteria what to fill by the purpose of the image, by the software you use to search/select image(s) by tag/tag value, etc.
Let me give you a example. I fill in Lightroom "Caption" tag just because GettyImages ignore "Title". And for me is more sample to copy and paste the content of "Caption" in "Title" (this is in Library, Metadata)
Originally by user34947. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user34947
5y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Their practical meaning depends on the metadata standard being used. There isn’t one universal rule across all software, because JPEGs can contain fields from different schemas (for example EXIF and XMP), and each application may read or display only some of them.
In general:
- image description is a descriptive text field
- user comment is a free-text comment field
- description may belong to another schema and be the one some services prefer to display
In practice, many photographers choose fields based on the software, DAM, agency, or website they need to work with. If a platform reads only one field, that becomes the useful one for that workflow.
So:
- use the field your software or delivery platform actually supports
- you do not need to fill every similar field
- duplicating key text into more than one field can be reasonable for compatibility, if you know different tools depend on different tags
There’s no single “correct” choice outside the relevant standard or workflow. The best approach is to define a consistent tagging strategy around the apps and services you use.
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