To demonstrate retaining digital Photos Metadata I’ve selected my own photo taken on my Android device. It’s a selection from my mobile photography located on Google Maps where I have achieved Level 9 with Local Guides My 5,963 images gained 21,910,698 views until January 2025. I’m adding visual information to places I discover on my travel trips to South Tyrol in Italy. These images are not copyrighted by me. They serve for free to help users navigate via Google Maps, reach their destination, read the specific information about a location and be prepared with the best travel plan. I have organised my imagery in a List I named South Tyrol Insider. Find below the “Obberegger Alm”‘s photo metadata.
- Title: Obberegger Alm
- Description: A scenic landscape featuring a rustic mountain cabin with a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and a blue sky with fluffy clouds.
- Keywords: Mountain cabin, mountains, landscape, scenery, nature, outdoor, travel, tourism, hiking, adventure, summer, blue sky, clouds
- Photo by Nina Trankova
- Time: Saturday, June 22, 2024, 1:22 PM
- EFIX data: Xiaomi M2007J17G, Photo ƒ/1.89, 1/1852, 5.43mm, ISO50, 9.6MP
4624 × 2080 px - Location: Italy
- Obberegger Alm © 2024 by Nina Trankova is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
As shown in this example Photos Metadata include technical details about a photo, such as the camera model, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, ISO, and image size. In addition to text and technical details, metadata can provide information about the copyright status of an image and the Creative Commons License associated with it. This information can help ensure that images are used legally and ethically.
Use this webpage to select the appropriate Creative Commons license. The copyright information includes your name and contact details. This helps protect your work and makes it easier to prove ownership if needed. If you are licensing your images, metadata can include information about usage rights, restrictions, and licensing fees.
Why are Photos Metadata Important ?
Photos Metadata are even more important in the AI era with AI’s image, voice and video generated content increasingly in use. By adding, editing and retaining Photos Metadata Creators are adhering to the professional standards on the Internet. While the legal regulations are a work in progress ( the first ever regulator EU AI Act ) digital creators in photography, journalism and science have to meet responsibilities in their daily work and educational tasks.
How is Photos Metadata Essential ? Basic SEO Hints.
When you upload images to platforms like Google Images, social media, or stock photo sites, metadata helps search engines understand what your image is about. This allows your images to rank higher in search results, making them more visible to potential viewers. By including relevant keywords in your metadata, you can attract viewers who are specifically searching for images related to your content. For example my photo of “Oberegger Alm” including keywords like “mountain cabin”, “mountains”, “landscape”, “scenery”, “nature”, “outdoor”, “travel”, “tourism”, “hiking”, “adventure”, “summer” will make it more likely to appear in searches for those terms.
Metadata acts as a digital filing system. With descriptive keywords and titles, you can easily find and retrieve specific images from your library. Imagine searching your entire collection for all photos taken in South Tyrol in 2024 – metadata makes that possible! When you have well-organized metadata, you can streamline your workflow. You can quickly select and export images for specific projects, create galleries, and manage your image library more efficiently.
Descriptive metadata, including alt text, makes your images more accessible to people with visual impairments who use screen readers. By using consistent metadata across your platforms, you establish a professional brand and make it easier for people to recognize your work.
How to Edit and Retain Metadata?
There are professional – grade software tools to help edit and retain Photos Metadata such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard, offering powerful editing tools and comprehensive metadata support. You can view, edit, and even add custom metadata fields. Adobe Lightroom is specifically designed for photo management and editing. Lightroom excels at batch processing, metadata organization, and non-destructive editing that preserves original data.
The Free and Open Source tools include GIMP, a versatile and free image editor with basic metadata support. You can view and edit some common metadata fields. Also Darktable, a powerful open-source photo editor focused on raw image development. It has good metadata support, allowing you to view and edit various fields.
The best Online Tools are Photosynth and Google Photos. Photosynth: (Microsoft) This online service allows you to upload photos, edit them, and manage metadata. It’s particularly well-suited for geotagging photos.Google Photos is a powerful tool for managing and editing photos, and it has excellent metadata handling capabilities. It’s a valuable for:
- Automatic Metadata Extraction: Google Photos automatically analyzes your photos and extracts metadata like location, date, and even objects within the image using machine learning.
- Face Recognition: It can recognize faces and group photos by people, making it easy to find and organize your images.
- Search Capabilities: You can search your photos by various criteria, including location, date, objects, and even text within the image, thanks to the rich metadata.
- Editing and Sharing: You can edit photos directly within Google Photos and easily share them with others, while retaining metadata
3 Tips for Retaining Metadata?
Save as: When saving edits, always choose a format like TIFF or PSD (Photoshop Document) to preserve layers and metadata. Export with Metadata: When exporting for web or other purposes, use formats like JPEG with metadata embedded.
Batch Editing: If you need to edit multiple images, use software with batch processing capabilities to efficiently apply changes and maintain metadata.
The specific metadata fields and editing options vary between software. Some metadata may be lost during certain editing operations or when saving in specific formats.
How to Retain Photos Metadata when Sharing on Social Media?
Some social media platforms may remove or modify metadata from uploaded images. This is often done to reduce file size, improve loading times, or protect user privacy. To retain metadata when sharing images on social media, you can try the following:
- Sharing images directly from your device’s photo library, rather than through the social media platform’s uploader.
- Using a third-party app or service that allows you to share images with metadata intact.
- Embedding metadata in the image file itself.
Resources
There are a lot of aspects in the Photos Metadata process of attribution. During the live streamed Tech Topic episode 54 for the OnEBoard podcast (08:36) our own crew member, wild life photographer Bob Danley presented a list of citations, resources and generated a tutorial about Photos Metadata. Listen to it ( 16 min)
How to Detect Photos Metadata?
Detect Metadata and check an entire webpage with multiple embedded photos using this tool Get IPTC Photo Metadata (2023.2) by The International Press Telecommunications Council: https://getpmd.iptc.org/getiptcpmd.html
The type of information in Metadata can be found in text and in technical details. Learn from the answers of the professional photographers on Quora.
Metadata is an important tool for organizing and managing digital assets. This can be particularly useful for photographers, journalists, and researchers.
For more information on the role of metadata in photography listen to a tutorial about photo metadata from wildlife photographer Bob Danley on the OnEBoard podcast.
