Lightroom: IPTC Common Entries

We are supposed to use the IPTC tags in Lightroom. Many stock photo libraries require it and will charge you for fill it in for you.

What’s IPTC?

IPTC: International Press Telecommunications Council. It was created for the wire services when news people used teleprinters and faxes in the late 70s and early 80s.

Please remember that the IPTC information and codes are to classify news for news organizations. This was not developed by fine art or for portrait studios.

Common IPTC tags and what they mean:

• ByLine: Name of the photographer that took the photo.
• ByLine Title: Title of the photographer that took the photo.
• Caption: The Who, the What, the When, the Where and the Why of the photo.
• Caption Writer: Who wrote the caption or who did the photoshoping.
• Category: News category.
• Creation Date: When the photo was originally made.
• City: Where the photo was originally made.
• County: Country where the photo was originally made: 3 characters.
• Credit: Any credit such as wire service…
• Headline: Keywords to categorize the photo, to simplify retrieval.
• Instructions: Special instructions such as: Correction, Embargo…
• Object Name: Common key to other related articles or photos.
• Source: The original provider of the photo such as AP, Reuters, Pool…