Lightroom: EXIF v XMP v IPTC

category: Lightroom • 1 min read

  • EXIF: Exchangeable image file format
  • XMP: Extensible Metadata Platform from Adobe
  • IPTC: International Press Telecommunications Council

Doesn’t this sound like alphabet soup?

I don’t know if you have experienced it, you’ve typed in your copyright, Lightroom and Adbobe Photoshop will show you one thing, and other software will show you something different, especially web galleries. “But I typed it in! It shows in Lightroom but not in…”

The main problem is due to the alphabet soup. There’s EXIF, there’s XMP, and then there’s IPTC core and IPTC extensions. Each one has its own copyright section. Same for the headline, the description…

The 3 main metadata formats used:

  • EXIF
  • IPTC-IIM
  • XMP

There are established conventions that say who has priority over who.

  1. Look inside the EXIF block of the image

  2. Look inside the XMP sidecar for

    • The Adobe XMP properties
    • The Dublin Core
    • The IPTC Core
    • The EXIF or TIFF properties inside the XMP sidecar

These are conventions. There’s no obligation to follow them! And many software, especially the web galleries do not follow them.

EXIF data

  • Copyright
  • Description
  • Creator
  • Date & Time
  • Orientation
  • GPS
  • Camera & Lens Info
  • …

XMP

  • Copyright
  • Description
  • Creator
  • Date & Time
  • Rating
  • Keywords
  • …

IPTC

  • Copyright
  • Description
  • Creator
  • Date & Time
  • Keywords
  • …

The three of them have the:

  • Copyright
  • Description
  • Creator
  • Date & Time

and they can be different! By the way, Dublin Core also carries that information…

Lightroom LR_Info