Meta data,Exif Data, IPTC Data & Photoshop

Now you’ve read “meta data” in the title of this post, be honest; you’ve ‘switched off’ and are tempted to close the browser window aren’t you?  Feel free if you’re so inclined – but you know I’ve always got a reason for doing a post; and I don’t do ’em for my own bloody health and well-being!

Meta Data is the blanket term for EXIF plus IPTC data; and don’t forget, your COPYRIGHT data is indeed IPTC data, and therefore META DATA.

Exif Data (Exchange Image File Format) and IPTC Data (International Press Telecommunications Council) data are CRUCIAL to your images; especially the IPTC side of the equation.  Without it your images, if uploaded anywhere on the internet, are bobbing around like corks in the ocean – lost in a vast sea of other images, and with nothing anchoring them to ANY search term, image or data category.

Titles, keywords and captions are critical to an images ability to be found on the old interweb thingy.

“But Andy, I don’t want my images to be found, in case they get stolen by some unscrupulous neerdowell…”  Well sell your camera and take up golf…..

And if you want to make money from your images then Titles, Captions and Keywords are “de rigour” and no agency or PoD site will list your image in its database without said data.

“But I don’t want to make money out of my images Andy…..”  Bullshit! If I hear that one more time I’ll end up beating someone to death!  If someone is daft enough to offer you £500 or more for one of your images then OF COURSE you’ll sell it – “thank you for your kind offer but I won’t take money for my images – have it for free….” yeah, right!

Lightroom has for years given you access to a searchable image database, and keyword searches are brilliant for allowing you to find a handful of images from within a catalogue of thousands.

So, there you are then, multiple reasons why you should use the IPTC data fields attached to your images; and make that data stick to your images like glue in all their iterations.

You may be glad to know that this isn’t a “how to” post about key wording!  But it IS a post about Meta data integrity, and how Photoshop can destroy that integrity by stripping it from your images if you export JPGs.

Meta Data Stripping

Meta data stripping is something PARANOID people do!  The main object of their paranoia is the “geo-tag”. Take a shot with your phone or certain point-and-shoot cameras and the GPS position of the camera is embedded in the image meta data. The shot you just took of the wife relaxing in the new hot-tub you’ve had installed ends up on Facebook – replete with the GPS co-ordinates for your house!  Not good if your FB page contains evidence of the £35K worth of Canon or Nikon gear you have.

Now you can get an app for your phone that will remove this tag for you.  And Lightroom will allow you to find and delete any geo-tags, which are classed as EXIF data.

So we do not need to strip ALL meta data from an image in order to NOT give away an “X marks the spot” treasure map!

I had a guy come here for a 1to1 training day a couple of years ago who lived in the middle of Toxteth – he was a firm believer in stripping all meta data from his Flickr images; and yet he had “I am Nikon” stickers in his car window, and an “I am Nikon” tee-shirt and fleece on – go figure!

And don’t forget, most dSLR cameras are NOT GPS-capable without the purchase of a GPS “gizmo” the costs a fortune and plugs in to the side of the camera.

A sensible person completes all relevant IPTC data fields for the RAW file in Lightroom BEFORE they start spawning TIFFS and JPGs from it; that way you only have to do the tedious job once.  That data contains KEYWORDS, TITLE, CAPTION and your COPYRIGHT details.

If we export images directly from our Lightroom catalogue we can produce JPGs of any size that have all the necessary IPTC data (meta data) embedded in them:

Lightroom Export Dialogue showing meta data export options.

Even if we take the processed RAW file into Photoshop to enhance it further, once we save it in Photoshop the new image will appear back in our Lightroom catalogue, and we can follow the same export procedure.

HOWEVER: if we send the image from Lightroom to Photoshop AND make Photoshop create a new jpg – as per the EXPORT command:

Photoshop “Export As” option

Photoshop CC 2015 “Export As” dialogue – note default meta data removal.

The latest incarnation of Photoshop CC 2015 allows you to make multiple export iterations in various file formats and sizes ALL AT THE SAME TIME – which is brilliant – if only it wouldn’t strip the meta data!  Left set to the defaults you end up with images devoid of anything, even copyright details; or you can elect to keep “copyright & contact” data.  Either way, any and all keywords, titles and captions are removed on export together with all camera EXIF.

Just remember this folks – data needs to be clear, concise and consistent between various iterations of the same image – otherwise your image library will turn to rat shit in a heart beat.

The process is often referred to as Digital Asset Management or DAM for short – and your Lightroom catalogue is the embodiment of simple,clean and effective DAM.  And Photoshop is CRAP at DAM.  Using the ‘SAVE’ or ‘SAVE AS’ commands in Photoshop WILL preserve all your meta data; indeed the SAVE command is the standard workflow to put the image back into your Lightroom catalogue next to the RAW file it was spawned from.

Use your IPTC data options wisely, and irrespective of where you finish your image processing – Lightroom or Photoshop – always use Lightroom to export your images to the outside world.

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