Monday, March 06, 2006

Digital Photography EXIF/IPTC Information

I never considered myself a Photography PRO, a mere enthusiast at most. And yet at this juncture in Digital Photography I find a critical flaw in the softwares' functionaity. While taking some images my camera date and time was misrepresented. I thought that should not be a cause of concern as I was not putting my date-time stamp on the pictures anyway. Little did I realise that the information is either ways stored in the picture header itself. This is called Exchangeable image file format or EXIF information.This information provides Extensive information like make of the camera, the aperture time, nature of flash, focal length, exposure time, date, time, ISO Speed Ratings and so on.
(The metadata tags defined in the Exif standard cover a broad spectrum including:
Date and time information. Digital cameras will record the current date and time and save this in the metadata.
Camera settings. This includes static information such as the camera model and make, and information that varies with each image such as orientation,
aperture, shutter speed, focal length, metering mode, and film speed information.
Location information, which could come from a
GPS receiver connected to the camera. As of 2004 only a few cameras support this, though. Some people therefore use a normal receiver to track their movements, and then post-process the images by matching the timestamps in the images with the log from the receiver and can so add the missing information to images.
Descriptions and copyright information. Again this is something which is most often done when post-processing the images, as only high-end camera models let the user choose a text for these fields
.)


So just in case the information is incorrect in this 'header' the images appear chrnologically disoriented in an image organizer like PICASA.
What was lacking in the market, was free software that could edit this information in batches so that any error while taking the images could be rectified. A Definite WINDOW of OPPORTUNITY for wannabe entrepreneurs. I am attaching such an image with incorrect EXIF information. To see the Exif Information :
In Windows XP, Exif information may be viewed by right clicking on an image file and clicking properties; from the properties dialog click the Summary tab.
On Mac OS X 10.4 and above, this information may be viewed in the Finder by doing Get Info on a file and expanding the More Info section.
Check it out for yourself to see how much 'hidden information' can your photos carry !! :D

(For International Press Telecommunications Council or IPTC information Check here )
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