Hi all, Forwarded from another list with its author's permission, the ad hoc report below may be of interest to MCN-L subscribers concerned with developments in software developer/vendor support for image metadata.
cheers, Rob -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [updig] Metadata Working Group releases First Specification for Interoperability and Preservation of Metadata in Digital Photography Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:32:22 -0500 From: David Riecks <da...@riecks.com> > All: > > A group going by the name of the "Metadata Working group" made a major > announcement at Photokina today and released a document that is designed to > help developers by providing best practices on how to create, read and modify > a set of core metadata values within digital images that use Exif, IPTC-IIM > and XMP. The groups involved in this initiative include a number of > long-standing digital imaging and metadata advocates such as Adobe Systems > Inc., Apple Inc., and Microsoft Corp.; as well as a few you might not expect > : Canon Inc., Nokia Corp. and Sony Corp. > > The primary thrust of the Metadata Working group is to reveal issues > regarding how metadata is exchanged and preserved as it moves between > applications and processes (devices, platforms and services), file formats > and metadata standards. This document, titled, "Guidelines for Handling > Metadata" was released this morning (September 24th), and discusses the use > of a small number of current metadata fields using existing standards to deal > with what they feel are the key questions that most consumers have about > images: > > -Who is involved with this image (who took it, who owns it, who?s in it)? > -What is interesting about this image? > -Where is this image from? > -When was this image created or modified? > > The goal of the Metadata Working Group is to provide best practices > specifically for these nine critical data fields (Keywords, Description, > Date/Time, Orientation, Rating, Copyright, Creator, Location [created], and > Location [shown]), with the intent of solving interoperability issues for > consumers. > > Their model divides applications using metadata into three groups of > "Actors": Creators, Changers and Consumers. This roughly mirrors the vision > that the Stock Artists Alliance put out in their Metadata Manifesto in which > they talked about Image Creators, Image Distributors and Image Users. > However, the Metadata Working group paper takes this a step further and > defines the roles each device or application play when interacting with > metadata. > > They also discuss best practices for how, when and where metadata should be > changed in popular consumer still image file formats using existing industry > metadata standards. Wide scale adoption of these best practices should solve > many current problems that plague the photo community. > While this initial effort targets consumer still-imaging metadata, rather > than those of the professional; they do mention in their paper that "Future > releases of this initiative will both refine and expand the effort." In > fact, Josh Weisberg, chairman and founder of the Metadata Working Group and > director of Microsoft's Rich Media Group said that, "We've chosen to address > the most common issues photographers face as we feel this will make the > biggest impact for the average photographer," noting that "Down the road, we > will expand our work to include other metadata issues relevant to > photographers." > > So it does not appear to rule out the possibility that this may extend to the > professional workflow at some point. I will post a few comments in a follow > up to this post, but thought you might be interested to know about this > development. > > Details will be available from their website once that is launched. > http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org > > For now you can read more about this from the following releases: > > http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/sep08/09-24PhotokinaPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases > > http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/PRNEWS.20080924.AQW523/GIStory > > http://tinyurl.com/5xmj9z > > David > > -- > David Riecks (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent) > Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution > http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the > most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.
