Lightroom: Metadata Fields Clarifications
category: Lightroom • 3 min read
Taking a photo today is easy. The real problem, especially with stock, is finding the photo or finding the “right” photo. Many organizations have tried, and done their own variation. Today the most popular system is the International Press Telecommunication Council, IPTC for short. All that data is called the metadata.
Since Lightroom 3, Adobe has expanded the IPTC supports and many other legacy software/standards. Here are some explanations and clarifications:
| Metadata | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Author | used for Creator |
| By-line | used for Creator |
| By-line Title | Author position or Creator’s Job Title |
| Caption | used for Description |
| Caption Writer | Who wrote the Description |
| Category | Deprecated, do not use anymore |
| City | Name of the city where the image was captured or use sub-location |
| Contact Info | Person or organization that created the image |
| Address (Contact info) | Copyright holder’s company or personal name |
| City (Contact info) | City of copyright holder |
| Country (Contact info) | Country of copyright holder |
| Email (Contact info) | Email of copyright holder. Multiple emails are separated with commas |
| Phone (Contact info) | Phone of copyright holder. Multiple phones are separated by commas. should include the international format: +{country code} ({regional code}) {phone number} - |
| Postal Code (Contact info) | Local postal code (such as ZIP code) of copyright holder |
| State/Province (Contact info) | State or Province of copyright holder, should spell out the name instead of the 2 letter abbreviation |
| Website(s) (Contact info) | Web address of copyright holder. Multiple addresses are separated with commas |
| Copyright Notice | Legal language, shows who owns the copyright. Should be in form appropriate for the country: in the US: ©2010 Artsi Fartsi… in Europe: Copyright 2010 Artsi Fartsi, all rights reserved |
| Copyright Status | Exists only as part of the Photoshop XMP Name space. Many programs do not recognize it |
| Copyright URL | Exists only as part of the Photoshop XMP Name space. Many programs do not recognize it |
| Country (legacy) | Full name of the country of the photo |
| Country Code (legacy) | Country Code of the country of the photo. Upper-case/3 letters |
| Creator | Name of the photographer or company |
| Creator — Job Title | Job title of the photographer |
| Credit Line | Acknowledge the supplying person(s) and/or organization(s) when publishing the image |
| Date Created | The date when the shutter was pressed - not the date when the photo was edited |
| Description | Often referred as Caption the who, the what… |
| Description writer | The name of the person writing, editing or correcting the description of the photo |
| Headline | Synopsis/Summary of the photo |
| Instructions | Instructions from the provider/creator to the receiver of the photo |
| IPTC Subject Code | The IPTC Subject News Code taxonomy |
| IPTC Scene | The IPTC “Scene/News Codes” |
| Job Identifier | Your tracking number |
| Keywords | Keyword terms separated by a delimiter, like as a comma. Some software allow semicolons and/or greater than sign > |
| Location | Replaced by sub-location |
| Object Name | Replaced by Title |
| Original Transmission Reference | Replaced by Job Identifier |
| Provider | Replaced by Credit Line |
| Special Instructions | Replaced by Instructions |
| Sub-location | Could be a specific area within a city (Manhattan), or the name of a well-known place (the Louvre in Paris) |
| Supplemental Categories | Deprecated, do not use anymore |
| Title | Shorthand reference for the photo. Used for identification |
| Transmission Reference | Alternative for Job Identifier |
| Urgency | Deprecated, do not use anymore |
| Writer/Editor | Replaced by Description Writer |
- Metadata: “Data that describes the data.” In our case, the metadata describes the photo. Actually it’s not a photo, but only a set of data that we interpret as a photo.