Not everybody is a metadata expert. Feeling a bit insecure about Iptc/IIM blocks, XMP packets and multiple Exif header? Where does this leave you when you share your photos with others…?

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It has been a few weeks since we released our latest 0.6 beta of FileMind, the (soon to be) ultimate File Metadata manager. What keeps us so busy these days? If things like eggnog, cookies or other lures of the Holiday season sprint to your mind, you are misguided. It’s actually PDF and metadata editing!

The upcoming release will progress from 0.6 to 0.8, with most of the enhancements inside the code and framework. We are also adding a new dialog window that will change the way you can add new metadata fields to a file. This dialog is also going to be the base for more sophisticated features, such as creating metadata templates and applying them to one or more files in a single step.

The current PDF plug-in also gets a major overhaul, with added support for complex PDF files, encryption and more stability in regards to XMP extraction and writing.

So for now, it’s Happy New Year for everybody – and stay tuned for the new beta!

Hyper Smash

If you work under Windows Vista or 7, chances are you may have missed a very nice productivity feature: easily turning pictures that are sideways or on its head. You can do this with a single mouse click.

Just don’t expect your metadata to stay intact…

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Say Good-Bye, XMP...

If you download a photo from Flickr in a size other than the original upload, your metadata is only partially maintained.

Surgery successful. Patient dead.

Unlike in the past, Flickr no longer scrapes all of your embedded metadata out of your images. Only the most relevant ones: XMP and Exif. But at least you get to hang on to the legacy ITPC/IIM metadata.

Its an improvement over scraping all your metadata and involuntarily converting your images into the dark world of orphan works.

But seriously – maintaining the extra 5 kBytes of metadata is not that hard in the year 2009, and Flickr does have more than 3 talented software developers to fix this. Photographers work hard to create works of art, not potential orphan works.

After tinkering some time with Windows 7 and its metadata capabilities, I think its time to publish some of my findings:

• Good: Windows 7 handles XMP metadata better than Vista
• Bad: its still not right…
• Ugly: remains a Grim Reaper – may eat and hide your metadata

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When I first tested Windows Vista in Summer 2006, I was excited to see the new Details Pane located at the bottom of the Windows Explorer. At that time, I was working on a software product called MetaMiner which had a very similar user interface concept. Showing metadata for a selected file directly in the Explorer is a great idea, I thought.

Windows for Forgers

However, the pleasant feeling didn’t last too long. I am convinced the folks at Microsoft had the best intentions to make this new feature a valuable addition to the Explorer. But in my humble opinion, they missed the mark and also forgot to study the Exif specifications carefully… Read more…

The Grim Metadata Reaper

To kick off this blog, I am currently preparing a series of posts about how easy it is to render you precious metadata useless with common applications. A good contender for a first article is Windows Vista and its flawed handling of XMP and IPTC metadata. Stay tuned, please.