All About Digital Photos - Labelling Digital Photos

Please note that visible captioning on this and the photo below were done by the author (manually with this one, automatically with Breezebrowser using the IPTC description data in the one at the bottom of the page). IPTC/XMP is digital labelling - the information is stored within the digital photo file

Since I started working with digital photos I've been looking for a good solution to labelling these photos. Unlike paper prints, there is no "back" to write on with a digital photo. Labelling is a good habit to get into, especially with family photos. I do a lot of genealogy and am constantly frustrated by collections of largely unlabeled photos.

Since I'm into genealogy and the concept of long term archiving, I'm dead against using some sort of proprietary labelling software - I want to make sure that what I do will be some sort of accepted standard in a digital future. The archival standard to follow is called IPTC which stands for "International Press Telecommunications Council". They have developed a standard for information that can be embedded into a digital photo. Adobe has used IPTC as the foundation for their Adobe XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) open standard. Microsoft has also adopted IPTC as the standard for labelling digital photos.

Bottom line is to label your digital photos using the IPTC/XMP open standard. If the program you're using doesn't support IPTC/XMP, or uses some sort of proprietary standard, then get rid of it and switch to something that does.

IPTC/XMP Caveat

1) Not all programs support IPTC/XMP. Those that don't support it will often strip out this data when saving a photo that had IPTC/XMP data in it. To test, write some IPTC/XMP data into a photo using an IPTC/XMP compliant program (i.e. Breezebrowser, Irfanview, Photoshop, Photo Info) then load this photo into your graphics program of choice and save it out as a regular JPEG file (with a new filename). For instance, Google's Picasa (as of v.2.7) only supports a limited implementation of IPTC in JPEG files, if you edit and save a photo from Picasa some IPTC data will be lost. If the IPTC/XMP data is gone when using your photo editor, then scrap it and write the manufacturer telling them to move into the 21st century and support IPTC/XMP metadata.

2) IPTC/XMP is usually only supported in JPEG and TIF digital photo files. So even with an IPTC/XMP compliant program, it might not support IPTC/XMP in file formats other than JPEG or TIF (and not all yet support TIF format). As with (1), check by saving out a file in various formats and see if the IPTC data is retained. Some programs are starting to add IPTC/XMP into other formats such as camera RAW files and Adobe DNG files.

Adding IPTC/XMP Digital Labelling

I'll outline the general procedure using examples from Breezebrowser, Adobe Photoshop, Irfanview and Microsoft Photo Info.

Breezebrowser:
The software I use for IPTC/XMP data entry is BreezeBrowser (www.breezesys.com ), one of the early adopters of the IPTC standard. The image below is the IPTC dialog box in BreezeBrowser. Note that in recent versions of Breezebrowser, the naming of the categories has followed the Adobe XMP standard. There are two main ways to get to this dialog.

1) In thumbnail view, select the images you want to add IPTC data to. Then RIGHT mouse click on any selected image and choose "Edit IPTC/XMP Data".

2) If you want to do a whole folder in one swoop, simply look at any image from that folder in detailed view, RIGHT click on it and choose "Edit IPTC/XMP Data" (note this is the same as doing a "Select All" in thumbnail view.

The nice thing now is that you can batch enter IPTC data. For instance you might want your name in the "Copyright" and "Author" fields for all the photos. Enter it and then choose "Apply to All" to write that IPTC/XMP data to all the selected photos. For individual entry (such as Caption data), simply use the "Prev" and "Next" buttons to cycle through the selected photos. You can also save your IPTC/XMP metadata as files for later use.

Breezebrowser - IPTC/XMP

For the full details of how to caption your photos using IPTC/XMP data in Breezebrowser, see the Captioning Photos using Breezebrowser page on my Digital Photos and Geneology website.

Adobe Photoshop:
Adobe is using their XMP standard which incorporates IPTC with a few name changes. The following is current as of Adobe Photoshop CS (v.8).

From the file menu, choose "File Info". IPTC data (as XMP) is in the "Description" and "Origin" categories. In XMP there are some name changes, for instance IPTC's "Caption" is XMP's "Description" and IPTC's "Byline" is XMP's "Author".

I haven't found an easy batch entry mode in Photoshop, if one exists, please let me know. It can be done by using the File > Browse option (file browser) and then using the "Metadata" dialog box (scroll down to the IPTC data category). It's not pretty but it works.

Adobe XMP data entry dialog box

Irfanview:
Irfanview has IPTC capabilities for JPEG but not as yet (v.3.97) for TIF. The data entry is a bit hidden:

1) For a single file select "Image > Information" and then click on the IPTC Info button at the bottom of the Information dialog. The data entry fields are standard IPTC naming convention. If there is no IPTC button in that dialog it means the file is not IPTC compatible to Irfanview.

2) Batch entry is really hidden. Use the "File > Thumbnails" option to view a folder of images. Select the images you wish IPTC data written to. Now choose "File > JPEG Lossless Operations > Set IPTC data to selected thumbs" Use the OPTIONS tab in that dialog to set the IPTC batch entry options.

Microsoft Photo Info:
This is a little freeware program offered by Microsoft for both Windows XP (with .NET v2 or above installed) and Windows Vista. When installed, "Photo Info" will appear in the context menu when you right-click on a photo or a group of photos. This will allow you to add/edit IPTC/XMP data to these photos. Of note, Microsoft Vista natively supports IPTC/XMP in digital photos - but Photo Info is a handy tool to install to help edit this data. See www.microsoft.com

iTag:
This is a little freeware program for both Windows XP (with .NET v3 or above installed) and Windows Vista. It's a program which allows basic IPTC/XMP data to be added to JPEG photos and also allows searches of IPTC/XMP data in JPEG photos. It doesn't come with a help file, so read the tips on the website. See www.itagsoftware.com

Why Use IPTC/XMP?
watermark-example.jpg - 25707 Bytes

The advantage of using IPTC/XMP data to label your photos is that the data is contained right inside the digital photo (it becomes part of the photo). It is an internationally recognized standard so your IPTC/XMP data will be viewable by someone 50 or 100 years from now. The same cannot be said for programs that use some proprietary labelling schemes (these are to be avoided).

Another advantage is that I can use IPTC/XMP data to "watermark" any of my photos using Breezebrowser. This makes for very fast batch processing of multiple images. A common use is to caption a photo for genealogical archiving or emailing. The photo on the right is an example of such a captioned photo. Breezebrowser has added the white caption space below the photo and written the IPTC caption data in that space. The photo caption is now part of the photo, anyone, using any image viewing software can now view the photo with its caption.

Such a caption can of course be added with any software that allows the changing of the paper/canvas size and the addition of text to a photo, but the Breezebrowser method is much faster for batch processing dozens or even hundreds of images. The IPTC/XMP data can also be used to create captioned HTML (web) photo galleries.

From a genealogical perspective, as I noted in the first paragraph, nothing is more frustrating that a photo album (or shoebox) filled with unlabelled family photos. Dozens of unamed faces stare out at you from these photos. So for family photos in particular, you owe it to your descendants to label them.

The Future
In the future you shouldn't have to worry about IPTC, XMP or other acronyms. You should be able to just click on a photo and add a description and other information which will automatically be stored in the IPTC/XMP standard. That day will come (hopefully sooner than later - Vista is getting close).

For more information about IPTC/XMP and for ideas and details about how to name digital files and add IPTC/XMP data, have a look at the : Controlled Vocabulary Website