IPTC
(Back to the Main Page)
One of the greatest challenges - and the greatest potential benefits - of digital photography is the Image Catalog. Image files that are not cataloged with an eye to keyword-based retrieval are much more likely to end up in oblivion. Images that are properly cataloged can be taken to market faster and with less expense.
The File Info in Photoshop follows the conventions of the IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council), an information protocol for Image Data developed for wire services in the 70's. IPTC data is one of the most important tools a digital photographer has in managing and marketing his images.
Image data, such as photographer name, copyright holder, license information, and subject matter can all be easily inserted into actual image files (Jpegs, Tiffs, PSDs, they all have a place for File Info). The efficient cataloging of image data into a file can make images easy to find and edit through. It can also make image usage and licensing much easier to track.
On the Mac side, iView Media Pro is a leading program for the insertion and management of IPTC data, as well as the use and management of an IPTC-based catalog. (Those are two different things: one is the data itself, the other is how you use the data.)
Where to Enter Information:
IPTC fields were developed for wire services and newspapers, not for individual photography businesses. For File Information to be most useful, common practices need to be standardized as to which kind of File Information is stored in which field. Photographers seem to be using the following fields. Those at the top of the list are the less obvious ones, followed by a list of mostly self-explanitory ones:
Instructions (Insert License Information here)
Keywords (Insert other important data here, such as Subject, Client, Project,
Names of Those Photographed, Stock Keywords, Portfolio Image)
Photographer
Copyright
Copyrighted
Credit
City
State
Country
Date
Needed:
We are looking for a solution on the Windows side that works as well as iView does for the Mac. It needs to be able to read, write, and preserve embedded IPTC data into Raw Camera files, and be able to make catalogs based on IPTC entries. If anybody is able to get that going, please contact.
We will be posting the IPTC workflow via iView soon. Watch this space.
(Back to the Main Page)
All Text © Peter Krogh