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Hallo Zoullou,
IPTC Metadata can be included in images in a similar way to the more widely known EXIF data and provides a standardised way of recording information within the image file itself.
Once you've got the image on your computer you can use a program such as IrfranView or Photoshop to add this metadata to your images. It is extensively used in the press/media for carrying information about copyright, originator, location, date and - very important - categories / keywords.
But instead of trying to describe it myself, here are some links:
-
about the IPTC itself -
an overview about IPTC metadata.
I'm no expert, but I expect that some time the search engines will start to scan Images for IPTC data.
I have had problems however with incompatibility between IPTC 'versions'. When I tried to update the IPTC data in my old Photoshop 5.5, it changed the format of any IPTC data I'd previously entered with IrfranView to Adobe's XMP format, which my IrfranView could no longer read. (At that time Adobe didn't mention IPTC data in the Photoshop menus - it went under the name of 'Information'.) I've no idea how far these compatibility issues have been resolved with more up to date versions of Photoshop / IrfranView.
As I said in my previous post, I don't know in which direction the Gimp people are going - as far as I know, the current release of the Gimp still overwrites all IPTC information when saving a file.
I also remember having read somewhere that there's PHP functions or a module available for extracting IPTC data from an image, but as a non-programmer I'm completely out of my depth here.
I'm sorry to leave so many questions open but I need to work this weekend
Thanks for your interest.
Alan
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