Aside from the fact that it is not included in derivatives, Flickr, and other web services, do import and display some basic embedded metadata. This is a huge time saver. You can embed the metadata once then post images to many places without having to enter the metadata again.
Rather than bemoan the fact that some services and applications strip or ignore embedded metadata, we should pressure them to handle it properly. At the very least, copyright information should be respected.
It is not very hard for an average user to see photo metadata. In the Windows file browser, there is a metadata panel at the bottom. In the Mac Finder and Preview, there is an "i" button (or command+i).
Think of the days of 35mm slides. Would you let a slide out the door without a label on it? If you come across a slide or a print, aren't you glad to see some written information on it? Go to your institutions gift shop, grab a postcard and turn it over. Is there any descriptive and rights information there?
Greg Reser
UC San Diego
________________________________________
From: Museums Computer Group [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Frankie Roberto [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 5:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IPTC / EXIF
> It's just frustrating that although it uses embedded metadata in this way,
> and even displays all the rest on image pages, it then strips it out of all
> derivatives!
I think this question (of EXIF metadata in images) has come up on this list before.
Lots of tools to generate thumbnails or optimise images (like the ImageMagick library or this handy app: https://imageoptim.com <https://imageoptim.com/>) routinely strip metadata from images (as do social networks etc), mainly because they increase the filesize without adding much user-discernible benefit, given that the metadata is invisible in all web browsers (unless you install one of the extensions mentioned previously).
The amount of extra overhead to the filesize might be trivial (if there’s not much metadata and the images are high resolution) or quite a bit (if there’s lots of metadata, such as full IPTC, and the images are small thumbnails).
There’s a good discussion of this here: http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/blog/top-metadata-myths.html <http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/blog/top-metadata-myths.html> (the first example shows an image where the file size increases from 30KB to 40KB when all metadata is included).
Filesize might not seem like such a big deal when there’s 3G/4G and fibre-optic home broadband available relatively cheaply, but given that there’s also a lot of access via slow and flaky phone connections, it’s worth paying attention to – (even the difference between a webpage that loads in 2 seconds vs 4 seconds can count for a lot in terms of user experience).
So, whilst I’d certainly recommend embedding some of the most useful metadata in the big, downloadable versions of your images – for thumbnails I’m not so sure it’s worth the trade-off.
Cheers,
Frankie
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