Adding Metadata Adds Value to Your Photographs
Metadata is the new term for the descriptive information that accompanies any digital file. With digital music recordings, for example, the metadata contains the name of the song, the artist, the album, and the genre of music. For photographers, metadata makes it easy to search through a huge library of images using tools like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Searching for a picture based on its metadata terms is far more efficient than scrolling along and looking at each and every picture in your computer until you find the right one.
The UPDIG Working Group, which was formed in 2004 as a joint effort by all of photography’s leading trade organizations, has this to say about metadata:
“A good photograph of an interesting subject has value. You multiply that intrinsic value by including within the file highly descriptive metadata that:
- makes the image easy to find in image databases;
- describes the context of the image — its location, time, etc;
- links the image to its creator, rights holder and, where applicable, licensor;
- describes the allowed usages of the image.”
Most photographers will see the most immediate benefits from the metadata field called keywords. I believe that meaningful keywords are the most essential ingredient in a well-organized image library and that they dramatically increase the market value of a good photograph. Think of keywords like the terms that you would use to search for a book at the library or a bookstore.
Before you begin creating hundreds of keywords, though, I suggest that you take out a piece of scrap paper and write down a brief description of your photographic work. Strategic thinking here will help you create a meaningful system of hierarchical terms. The idea is to limit your vocabulary to keywords that are truly useful.
I believe that every image needs at least two keywords. I suggest that you give each image at least one broad category type keyword and at least one far more specific descriptive term. Broad categories are things like “landscape, macro, portrait, or sports.” Specific terms are things like people’s proper names or the scientific name for a plant or flower.
I suggest visiting these websites for more information on the importance of good keywords:
- Metadata from the ASMP’s dpBestflow.org project
- Timothy Armes on What Metadata is All About
- Controlled Vocabulary.com: Keywording
- iStockphoto- Stock Photographer Training Manual: 6.0- Title, Descriptions, & Keywords
Click here for other articles we’ve written at TheLightroomLab.com about Keywording.
Filed Under: Featured • Organizing
About the Author: David’s sports and landscape images are often used on the web and in outdoor sports publications. He has an extensive knowledge of digital photography and is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. David is a talented instructor and his entertaining teaching style works for students of all skill levels.
In 2009, David Marx led digital photography programs for the 
Dear David,
Whilst its always good practice to use keywords, its sometimes difficult for those starting out to produce a set list so that everything is tagged in a similar and consistent manner. Because of this I developed a series of keyword list which I’ve also provided for free on my site:
http://www.nickpotter.net/keywords
In total there are now over 1,200 individual keywords in the collection and I occasionally add new categories when my own tagging means I’ve created a sufficiently large list.
Keep up the good posts!
Nick
Thanks, Nick. Those are very helpful lists
-Scott
Personally I wish people *wouldn’t* keyword/tag with location data unless this is intrinsic to the working of the photo. ‘Tower Bridge’ on a photo specifically of Tower Bridge, London, fine; adding this to a photo taken on / at TB isn’t really right – that’s what geo/location metadata is all about, and any number of programs include the ability to set this location data.
Again, personally I use a combination of Picasa and Lightroom: I geotag/place on Google maps my photos, then in LR I simply reverse-geoencode this data to pull in area/city/country to the photo. Far simpler than keywording 100s of images etc.
Anyway, just a personal preference- I don’t keyword as much as I should, but for me finding a photo of JKF airport, Niagara Falls, or someone’s wedding is easily done once I’ve geotagged images.
Dear David,
I am a big fan of geo-tags. I think that putting my photos into online mapping software is one of the most useful things I can do with metadata. For folks who are curious here is a link to my photo map at Flickr!
Your comment made me wonder though how you are getting the geo-tags and reverse geoencoded data back into Lightroom? I use Jeffery Freidl’s wonderful “GPS-Support: Geoencode Plug-in”. Do you have another method?
Thanks,
David
David,
I do actually export with location tags attached (via Friedl’s Flickr plugin) but do find as ‘keywords’ they’re in the wrong place – even though I seem to do it!
I use Friedl’s GPS magic too – http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/4052/54221276.jpg there’s a bulk option available-and the setting of neighbouring vicinity distances for the same places etc. It’s pretty fab – perhaps you updated without seeing the ‘What’s New’ update.
Hope this is of help to you and others!
David:
Keywords are important, if you want to find a specific image again. However, there are lots of other metadata fields that provide as much utility, such as the Caption/Description field, the geo-location fields (location, city, state, country, country code), as well as star ratings and color labels. The latter two are not supported as well between applications, but most applications support at least the binary form of the IPTC (Image Information Model/Image Resource Block) when reading/writing information.
Those that are interested in more details on the various types, forms and methods of storing image metadata should visit the Photo Metadata website (http://www.photometadata.org/) that the Stock Artists Alliance trade association put together with an award from the US Library of Congress. In addition to information about the various types of metadata and how they are stored in an image file, there are detailed tutorials on how to use these standards with various applications, like Photoshop, Bridge, Photo Mechanic, Expression Media and more.
David