Image metadata: importing or merging

Many image files contain not just the image itself, but also so-called metadata: information about the image, its file name, the camera settings when the image was made or descriptions of the photographed subject and the name of the photographer and such. It depends on the way in which an image was created and edited if, and which, metadata is present. There are different types of metadata, for instance image metadata such as EXIF and IPTC (contained in photos made with digital cameras), and Windows metadata that is available by default for all types of files and contains the file properties. IPTC metadata has no overlap with technical metadata (like EXIF) which is added to a photo automatically by the camera. The Windows metadata is very limited, but may be useful if images do not contain any EXIF or IPTC metadata. With some software, like Adlib, this metadata can be extracted from an image.

There are two ways of associating image metadata with media records in Adlib:

An image directory import

As mentioned above, using Axiell Designer you can import image metadata into a database (like Multimedia documentation) through an import job so that every image gets its own record. Enter at least the following two settings for any of the three indicated types of import (of images) in the import job:

Metadata tags (see paragraphs below) can now be used as source tags in the tag mapping in the import job, depending on whether the image files contain EXIF and/or IPTC metadata. As your target fields in the Adlib database, use any custom or standard fields you find appropriate but DO NOT use fields which names start with EXIF. or IPTC. because those fields are intended to dynamically retrieve the relevant metadata only when a media record is opened or processed so that those fields always display the actual metadata as it is currently present in the image file itself. So when you decide to import image metadata, you should probably only import metadata that can't be retrieved dynamically and you should find or create separate fields for that imported metadata.

EXIF metadata (Exchangeable Image File Format)

Most digital cameras save photos through the EXIF standard; for uncompressed images this means they are saved in the TIFF format, and that compressed images are saved in the JPEG format. Every individual photo file also contains technical metadata about the photo, such as its size, resolution, whether a flash was used, shutter speed, etc.; there may be over a hundred properties for any one photo. This metadata can be extracted through an Adlib import job (or when linking an image to a Multimedia documentation record manually) and loaded into the database if it suits the purpose.
See the EXIF standard definition on the internet for a detailed overview of all EXIF properties (although not all of these can be used in Adlib): http://www.cipa.jp/std/documents/e/DC-008-2012_E.pdf. See the table at the bottom of this Help page for a list of all EXIF properties usable in Adlib.

If the pdf file with the EXIF standard definition cannot be displayed, you may need to download and install software that supports Japanese characters in Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can find this file on:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrasianfontpack.html

Select the font pack for Japanese and the Windows operating system, before starting the download.

You can only use hexadecimal EXIF tags as source tags for an import job you define. (Designer knows that these are hexadecimal tags, so you must not precede such a tag by 0x.) For instance, the hexadecimal EXIF tag 11A that contains the width of the image resolution is entered as the source tag 011A in the tag mapping in a Designer import job. Note that hexadecimal EXIF tags must always be entered as a four-character tag, and that letters in the tag must be written in upper-case.

IPTC metadata (International Press Telecommunications Council)

IPTC is a relatively old metadata standard developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council, applied by Adobe Systems Inc. since the nineties of the last century to describe photos in metadata. So-called IPTC headers may occur in Photoshop, JPEG and TIFF image files. In 2001, Adobe introduced a new metadata framework named XMP (eXtensible Metadata Platform) in her products. The “IPTC Core” XMP schema, developed by the IPTC4XMP initiative since 2004, makes it possible to convert old IPTC headers to the XMP framework and vice versa.
Adlib cannot read XMP metadata, but it does use XMP property and field names to read IPTC metadata – in the specification, the relevant identifier type for contact information is called “field name” and for the other metadata “property name”. Via the XMP property/field names you create an implicit mapping to Adlib fields in Adlib. A specification of all XMP property/field names can be found in the “IPTC Core 1.0 specification document” which can be downloaded from http://www.iptc.org/.
This metadata can be extracted when linking an image to a Multimedia documentation record manually (not by means of an Adlib import job though) and loaded into the database if it suits the purpose.

Metadata in all Windows files

Every Windows file - irrespective of its type- contains metadata in the shape of file properties. The source fields that you can use in the tag pair mapping for importing are:

Setting up your databases and application

When linking an image to a Multimedia documentation record in Adlib, Adlib can read EXIF and IPTC metadata automatically. This will only happen for the metadata tags which have been “mapped” to Adlib tags in the PHOTO or MEDIA database structure in the proper manner. In this case, mapping means that Adlib tags must have been defined with field names according to a specific syntax (in which EXIF or IPTC property/field names are included). To show this metadata in your Adlib application, the relevant Adlib tags must have been added to screens as well. In Adlib model application 4.2 and higher, a selection of EXIF and IPTC metadata fields has already been implemented (on which you can expand of course), while in older applications you'll have to add the desired fields yourself. The implementation of IPTC metadata in Adlib is comparable to that of EXIF, just the syntax of the Adlib field names is different:

EXIF - You could add fields for EXIF metadata to the PHOTO or MEDIA database in Adlib: it makes sense if the description of images in the Multimedia documentation data source in your application would also contain EXIF metadata. From application version 4.2 a number of EXIF fields and an EXIF data screen are present by default in this database and data source.
In principle you can name these fields any way you want, but to enable Adlib to automatically merge-in EXIF metadata when the user links an image to a record in Multimedia documentation or opens an existing record in that data source, these field names have to comply to a certain syntax, namely: EXIF.PropertyTag<Adlib EXIF field name>, and have to be the same in all Adlib field name translations. See the table at the bottom of this page for a list of all available Adlib EXIF property field names. To show this metadata in your Adlib application, you’ll have to add the new Adlib field tags to existing or new screens.

IPTC - To enable Adlib to automatically merge-in IPTC metadata when the user links an image to a record in Multimedia documentation or opens an existing record in that data source, the target field names have to comply to a certain syntax, namely: IPTC.<IPTC property name or field name>. Replace <IPTC property name or field name> by an actual (case-sensitive) property/field name and leave out the brackets. For the “Copyright Notice” metadata for example: IPTC.CopyrightNotice, or IPTC.CiAdrExtadr for “Contact info: address.” Note that the full Adlib field name has to be the same (English) for all interface languages available in your application. Also, if you want all repetitions of any repeated IPTC tags (e.g. for keywords) to be copied to as many occurrences of a repeated Adlib tag, then the Adlib tag must be a repeated field in the data dictionary as well as on the screen.
To show this metadata in your Adlib application, you’ll have to add the new Adlib tags to existing or new screens.

Example

An example of a tag pair mapping for a PHOTO database in a 3.4 model application including both Windows metadata and EXIF metadata is the following:

A002 is the width of the photo, A003 is its height.

Since some information in the source tags may have a format different from what you would like to see in the destination tags, you can write an adapl and execute it during import by setting it on the Options tab of the import job, as the Storage adapl.
In this example, the metadata will be stored in the PHOTO database. The first two destination tags already existed in that database en are defined in the data dictionary, the last three are temporary tags. With an adapl we reformat the imported data in B1 and FN and we also reformat and/or concatenate the imported data from the temporary tags and put it in other (existing) PHOTO tags. The adapl which performs these conversions may look as follows:

* images.ada ( import adapl for image metadata, using
* JPEGs with EXIF tags)
* 2005.06.02  Initial coding

* convert URL to relative path
B1 = '..\images' + after$(1, B1, 'images')
FN = cvt$$(FN, 2) /* convert file name to lower case
FN = before$(1, FN, '.jpg') /* remove extension

* generate object number
* object number is reproduction ref. without subnumber
IN = before$(1, FN, '-')

* process reproduction date
BD = right$(%d, 4) + '-' + mid$(%d, 4, 2) + '-' + ~
    left$(%d, 2) /* ISO date

* process reproduction format
* enable the line below if no EXIF tags are available
* FM = FM + ' bytes'
 
* disable the line below if no EXIF tags are available
FM = %x + ' x ' + %y + ' Pixel'

* default fields
RP = 'JPG' /* reproduction type
ni = 'Conversion Axiell ALM Netherlands' /* input name
di = date$(8) /* input date

* remove temporary fields
%d = null
%x = null
%y = null

end

 

Full list of available Adlib EXIF field names and hexadecimal tags

For more information about the EXIF properties listed below, look up the relevant property in the EXIF standard definition (http://www.cipa.jp/std/documents/e/DC-008-2012_E.pdf) by using the indicated Hex tag preceded by 0x: the EXIF field names (the part behind EXIF.PropertyTag) used in Adlib EXIF properties may differ slightly from the official standard EXIF field names.