Author Topic: Overview to modern Iptc fields  (Read 6720 times)

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hfremuth

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Overview to modern Iptc fields
« on: 2011-05-20 11:03:52 »
If you've had a boring morning, need to get your head spinning or just simply like to get confused beyond recovery: take a close look at the newly released overview chart of all commonly used metadata fields in professional environments:
[img=thumbnail]images/uploaded/201105201430284dd67b048395f.png[/img]

Now, in case you are a professional photographer, this is no horse play for you! There are a bunch of fields that are critical and should be filled, depending on what your role is. If you plan to sell your images to a stock agency, you should really fill all fields marked red (stage 1) shown in the following chart:
[img=thumbnail]images/uploaded/201105201434524dd67c0c6316b.png[/img]

Rules are different for news photography. If you want your pictures used in the news industry, you need to take a close look at the red and yellow fields here:
[img=thumbnail]images/uploaded/201105201436464dd67c7e18044.png[/img]

[img=right]images/uploaded/201105201503324dd682c496e3f.jpg[/img]If you don't sell your work, you can sit back and relax - you really don't need to worry about too many fields, but focus at least on these:

    [*]Creator - most likely the person behind the view finder
    [*]Location - where was it shot?
    [*]Description - meaningful account about what the picture is about
    [*]Keywords - single common words (i.e. persons shown, event type, location), avoid writing variations (ie. either singular or plural)
    [*]Date/Time - usually added by the camera (Exif)
    [*]Rating - your personal rating (helpful i.e. if you want to spare your audience to fall asleep due to a tsunami of pictures during a presentation)
    [*]Copyright - no copyright is a problem if you post them on public websites (Flickr, Facebook)
    [/list]

    ThumbsPlus 8 Info Panel
    In case you want to get your hands dirty, you can take a look at how ThumbsPlus 8 handles metadata fields by opening the file C:\Program Files\ThumbsPlus\Data\xmpnames.dat. All metatdata fields are addressed by their XMP field names, even if its corresponding values are actually stored inside an Exif or IIM  block (the older Iptc standard for storing descriptive metadata fields).

    DaFueg

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    Overview to modern Iptc fields
    « Reply #1 on: 2011-05-21 12:21:05 »
    This was very interseting.. thx for sharing.

    I do have a question about the Image Details box... I see how to add/remove fields and to move them... but if I want Keyword to appear at the top of the list.. it doesn't seem I can move it out of its "section"... this is very limiting and I would love to arrange these items and save them as profiles.

    In addition, we should be able to define our own XMP schemas for usage within the XMP file section... if I want to add latin family/genus info about a plant - I'd want to do this in a custom schema like I can do currently in Idimager.  Thoughts?

    Thx!

    hfremuth

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    Overview to modern Iptc fields
    « Reply #2 on: 2011-05-22 10:23:05 »
    > I do have a question about the Image Details box... I see how to add/remove fields and to move them... but if I want Keyword to appear at the top of the list.. it doesn't seem I can move it out of its "section"... this is very limiting and I would love to arrange these items and save them as profiles.
    This is pre-configured for common use. If you want to go this deep and customize the groupings, you need to edit the file xmpnames.dat.

    > In addition, we should be able to define our own XMP schemas for usage within the XMP file section... if I want to add latin family/genus info about a plant - I'd want to do this in a custom schema like I can do currently in Idimager.  Thoughts?
    Hmm...adding custom XMP fields is a big deal, if you want to actually 'own' them. This requires that you define a URI-compliant namespace and namespace prefix to be used inside the XMP packet. I assume Idimager simply "hacks" this and adds its own namespace to it (not really in the spirit of XMP).
    Long story short: you could do this much more elegant, but this requires a bit more XMP knowledge. The xmpnames.dat file that contains ThumbsPlus' XMP configuration could then be easily extended to fully detect and load these custom fields.

    DaFueg

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    Overview to modern Iptc fields
    « Reply #3 on: 2011-05-22 10:43:46 »
    > > I do have a question about the Image Details box... I see how to add/remove fields and to move them... but if I want Keyword to appear at the top of the list.. it doesn't seem I can move it out of its "section"... this is very limiting and I would love to arrange these items and save them as profiles.
    > This is pre-configured for common use. If you want to go this deep and customize the groupings, you need to edit the file xmpnames.dat.
    >

    Take a look at Idimager and ACDSee Pro 4 - both programs let you easily move around fields in the properties box - isolating those that you use often and eliminating those that don't matter to you without having to edit files externally.  This should be something that is included...

    > > In addition, we should be able to define our own XMP schemas for usage within the XMP file section... if I want to add latin family/genus info about a plant - I'd want to do this in a custom schema like I can do currently in Idimager.  Thoughts?
    > Hmm...adding custom XMP fields is a big deal, if you want to actually 'own' them. This requires that you define a URI-compliant namespace and namespace prefix to be used inside the XMP packet. I assume Idimager simply "hacks" this and adds its own namespace to it (not really in the spirit of XMP).
    > Long story short: you could do this much more elegant, but this requires a bit more XMP knowledge. The xmpnames.dat file that contains ThumbsPlus' XMP configuration could then be easily extended to fully detect and load these custom fields.

    When I say "OWN" them.. I just mean include the data in the XMP.  It doesn't have to be official... adding your own XMP schemas is a common practice - there is no big deal to this.. Lightroom does it... Idimager does it.. I do it.  Sure - other software won't be able to know what to do with it... but having this detail inside the file allows scripting access via the database.