My Digital Photo Organization: Principle 6 – Follow Metadata Standards

Intro: This post is #6 is a series I am writing about my digital photo/file organization processes. In previous posts, I covered 1) how I gather my photos into one place, 2) how I name my files, 3) how I backup my digital photos, 4) how I establish a structure for my files. and 5) how metadata helps improve your photo organization. Here, I share the principle of adding metadata to a digital photo in a way that follows best practice standards.

As I am building and organizing my digital photo collection, the metadata that I add has made it so easy for me to search and browse my photos and find exactly what I need and find it quickly!
When organizing my digital pictures, it is also important for me that as I add the metadata, I do it in a way that follows best practice standards/guidelines for digital photo metadata. Of course, each software program will decide how they implement the standards – therefore, it is often the result that there is much variability among programs; some programs implement the standards well, and some do not.

If I were to add metadata to my digital photos using a program that does not follow the standards well, then I would be increasing the risk that the information I meticulously add gets lost, as it may not get “attached” to the photo properly. When metadata is added to a photo in a way that follows standards, and that photo is then viewed/opened/accessed in another application that follows standards, my hard work to be descriptive will be retained. I might as well do it correctly, to begin with, right?

Let me share an example of metadata not getting appropriately “attached” to a photo. And, I am purposefully avoiding the use of technical terms. 😀
In the Windows operating system, metadata can be added to a picture by right-clicking the file name with your mouse, selecting “Properties,” and viewing the “Details” tab. Here, there are several fields that can have information added. When I add metadata, I primarily focus on just a few fields – namely, the date taken, the description, and adding keyword tags (I talked about those in a previous post).

Looking at the Details tab (Figure 1), where might I put these tidbits of info? Well, the “date taken” is straightforward – there is a field called “date taken.” For the description, it makes sense that I would put it in the “Comments” field right? Then, the keyword tags can go in the “tags” field.

Let’s pretend I then do that. For a picture of me as a young child on my 1st birthday, I may enter “Taneya Koonce celebrating 1st birthday in New York, New York” as the description, and tags I might apply could be “Taneya Koonce,” and “Birthdays.” (Figure 2)

Next comes the problem. Windows does not always “attach” the metadata to the photo following the standards. Here, I have input the description in the “Comments” field, but when I look at the photo in a program that does follow standards, while the tags show up, the description does not (Figure 3). Any information entered into the “subject” line also does not get applied to the picture as it should according to standards.
Instead of applying the metadata to the photo in a way that meets standards, Windows decided to do its own thing and when you add information to some fields, it can only be used by Windows. Therefore, I decided I would not use Windows for adding metadata. Some of the fields adhere to standards, and some don’t. Windows’ poor standards implementation is problematic for me.

In order to ensure my metadata is applied well from the start, I use photo organization software that follows standards. There are several free software to choose from that do, such as Adobe Bridge, digiKam, and XNViewMP. There are several paid programs that follow standards also, such as Adobe Lightroom, ACDSee, PhotoMechanic, and my personal photo organization software of choice, Forever Historian.

With so many photo management software platforms available, it can take some testing to know if the program in which you are interested follows standards; if you have questions about a particular one, contact me and I can provide some suggestions for helping you figure it out.

Long story short, I want to fully enjoy and maximize the advantages that adding metadata has for my digital photo collection, so I am making sure to use photo organization software that knows how to “play by the rules” and add metadata according to photo industry-accepted guidelines.