The IPTC Specification
See also: AnnotatingImagesWithIptc, PersonalDataRepository, ./UpdateFromDavidRiecks
Example Usage of Tags
Here's an example of how I'd recommend you use
Name |
Usage |
Example |
Caption |
Description of what is going on in the image. |
Adam and Teresa getting crazy with friends at the Martinborough wine festival. |
Keywords |
List of words describing the image. |
Adam, Teresa, Martinborough, New Zealand, Wine, November, 2004 |
Credit |
Name of the photographer |
Adam Shand |
Copyright |
Copyright statement |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. |
City |
City the image was taken in. |
Martinborough |
Province/State |
Province or state the image was taken in. |
Wairarapa |
Country |
Country the image was taken in. |
New Zealand |
Special Instructions |
Instructions about how the image should (not) be used. |
|
Category |
What category the image belongs in. 1 |
2004 Martinborough Wine Festival |
Headline |
A short description of the image. |
Martinborough wine festival. |
Source |
The provider of the image. 2 |
The IptcSpecification describes a standard similar to EXIF which allows photographers to embed information in JPEG images. Where EXIF is for the physical properties of an image (shutter speed, aperture, etc) IPTC is for MetaData about the image its self (author, byline, copyright, categories, etc). Unfortunately for those of us who would like to use IPTC to markup their images but aren't in the business, some of the words that the IptcSpecification uses can be a little confusing.
Here's the tags, a usage example and some translations to how some applications represent them:
Tag |
Example |
Graphic Converter |
iView Media Pro |
Caption |
This is a foo bar baz. |
Caption |
Caption |
Caption Writer |
Adam Shand |
Caption Writer |
Writer |
Headline |
none |
Headline |
Title |
Special Instructions |
none |
Title |
Product |
Byline |
Adam Shand Copyright 2004 |
Author |
Author |
Byline Title |
Author/Photographer |
Author's position |
Author title |
Credit |
none |
Credit |
Credit |
Source |
Adam Shand |
Source |
Source |
Instructions |
?? |
Instructions |
Instructions |
Date Created |
20011012 |
Date created |
Date 3 |
City |
Wellington |
City |
City |
Province-State |
Oregon |
State |
State |
Country Name |
New Zealand |
Country |
Country |
Original Transmission Reference |
none |
Reference |
Transmission |
Copywrite |
© foo bar |
Copywrite notice |
Copywrite |
URL |
URL 4 |
URL 5 |
Lots more useful information on what the fields mean and how they should be used is available.
http://www.wireimagestock.com/Photog.aspx?cpy=metada
http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html
1 There are two types, categories and supplemental categories. Categories are a one or three letter ANPA Wire code to describe the type of image. Supplemental categories allow multiple longer category names. I don't recommend using categories, but I use supplemental categories for my album groupings.
2 Normally this is the name of the newspaper, I put my websites URL here because there isn't a well supported alternative for that.
3 Even though the tags match updating one doesn't seem to update the other.
4 According to the Graphic Converter GUI URL isn't a standard field and so it won't save it.
5 Even though the tags match updating one doesn't seem to update the other.
6 Deprecated from the standard, instead use the Subject Reference field.
7 Deprecated from the standard, instead use the Subject Reference field.