3.5. Add Metadata for the Record By now, you already have some idea of how useful metadata can be. It records the settings used by your camera to take the picture, so by looking at the image in the Browser and clicking the Metadata tab and scrolling down to Camera Data, you can see the f-stop and shutter speed, ISO setting, focal length of the lens at the time the photo was shot, the maximum aperture of that lens, the name of the photographer, the date it was shot, date downloaded, flash used, metering mode, orientation, camera make, and camera model. Imagine how useful all that informationwhich you didn't even have to input yourselfis going to be in three years when you own several camera and lens combinations and you have no idea how you captured that award-winning photo. NOTE To make the type larger in the Metadata panel, choose Increase Font Size from its menu. It would be nice if you could do this for the Keywords panel, too, but nah! But really, the usefulness of metadata starts with what the camera records. Camera Raw and Photoshop go on to record most everything they do, too. In fact, the image adjustments you make in Camera Raw only exist as metadata. The image processing program then takes the adjustment information in the metadata file and makes the adjustments to the thumbnails and to the image that opens in Photoshop according to those settings in the metadata. As we'll discover in the next section, when it comes time to rank and label your images, Bridge records your ranking metadata as you enter it. However, when you want to record your emotions, purpose, or the character of the image, you have to make the effort to enter that data yourself. You can even enter information regarding the client for the image. 3.5.1. Adding Copyright Info Adobe Bridge allows you to automatically add your personal metadata to any or all of the files that are currently open in a given folder in Bridge. Early on, while you're thinking about it, you should add your personal and copyright information to every photograph you've taken up until this moment. That information is needed for every image you shoot and can be made to "travel" with your image files. You then have at least some assurance that you will be able to prove ownership of that image should someone later publish it without permission. Adding personal metadata to your images is quite easy: Open Adobe Bridge. There's no need to open Photoshop at the same time, so more computing power will be available to Bridge. Create a new folder called Metadata Templates. Then open that folder. In Photoshop CS2, choose  New. The New dialog opens (see Figure 3-17). Since this files sole purpose is to hold text data, there is no point in reserving space for a large image. So use a low-resolution setting and very small pixel dimensions. The exact figures really don't matter. Figure 3-17. The New (file) dialog. Save the file as Yourname Copyright.psd in a new folder you've created in your Photos folder called Metadata. Open the file you just created in Bridge. Choose ViewMetadata. Scroll down to the IPTC Core heading. Enter the data for the following fields, but dont enter data for any other fields. You want to be sure you don't unintentionally overwrite any data later in this process. Here are the fields you should enter: Creator, Creator Job Title, Creator Address, Creator City, Creator State/Province, Creator Postal Code, Creator Country, Creator Phone(s), Creator Email(s), Creator Website(s), Copyright Notice, and Rights Usage Terms. Save the file. A dialog will ask if you want to apply the metadata to the file. Click the Apply button. Open the File Info dialog (see Figure 3-18) using Photoshop CS2. At the upper right, you will see the circled arrowhead that indicates a dialog menu. Click to drop down the menu, and choose Save Metadata Template. Name the template the same as the file, but there's no need for a file extension. Click Save. Figure 3-18. The File Info dialog box. Use the Bridge Folders tab to navigate to the folder where you just downloaded your files. Click the folder to open it. You will see the file thumbnails in the thumbnails window. Click in the Thumbnails window so that it's targeted and press Cmd/Ctrl-A to Select All. Choose ToolsAppend Metadata from the Bridge menu. A menu will fly out and you can choose the name of the file to which you saved the metadata. Next, a dialog will pop up asking if you want to append metadata to all the files. Click Yes. Choose BridgeEdit PreferencesMetadata or from the Metadata tab, click the Metadata menu (small arrow in upper-right corner), and choose Preferences. Click OK.
3.5.3. Adding IPTC Core Metadata You can manually add or change the metadata in an image at any time, so long as the metadata is assigned to the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) Core. The IPTC Core is the portion of the prescribed keywords used in Photoshop XML; many other image management and digital darkroom programs have adopted these keywords. To see or change the metadata, click the Metadata tab and scroll down to IPTC Core (see Figure 3-20). Click on any of the category titles that show a pencil icon on the right and a field will open where you can enter the data by hand. Again, be sure to collect a list for what could go into these fields so you don't enter similar keywords for the same thing. Figure 3-20. The categories for the IPTC core. You can enter these by hand if you like or you can apply them to numerous files automatically through a template. NOTE It's a good idea to enter a title for any image you plan to use in a portfolio or web gallery. A good many programs that make web galleries, including Photoshop, can automatically label the image with its title. 3.5.4. Creating a Metadata Template Metadata is added to whole groups of files in the same way personal and copyright metadata is added. The only difference is that you want to make a different template for each shoot. However, you'll probably never use exactly the same set of metadata again and you don't really want to have hundreds or thousands of templates. So after you've done a shoot that is typical of one of your categories, duplicate it using your computer's operating system (Finder or Explorer) and give the duplicate a generic name. Next time you do a similar shoot you can use the generic template that suits that type of shoot. Now all you have to do is enter the data that's changed in this particular shoot, such as keywords. Here's the step-by-step procedure for adding metadata to files after the copyright and personal metadata has been added: Open Photoshop and one of the images to which you applied the template for adding copyright metadata. As soon as the file is open, choose FileFile Info. From the File Info dialogs menu, choose Save Metadata Template (see Figure 3-21). This time, save the template to a different filename that specifies the category of shoot that the new metadata will be added to. Make sure it's named after one of the major categories in your list for ranking images. Figure 3-21. The Save Metadata Template and the dialog for naming the saved metadata. Use a different set of metadata for each shooting category so you can use the set of templates over and over. Add the metadata you feel is important to add to this category of images. Do not add any metadata that is peculiar to only a single imageit should pertain to the entire category. The idea is to enter as much data at one time as possible for as large a category of images as possible. You will want to add the following information for each of the primary categories in your list:
Description Document title: The complete, unabbreviated title under the image when it appears in a slide show or in print. It is likely that several slight variations of the same image will have the same title. Author: The name of the person who wrote the title. Author title: Probably you, but could be an assistant, editor, etc. Description: This should be just enough for an explanatory caption. Description writer: The name of the person who wrote the description above. Keywords: Terms from your category list that pertain to this image. You can add new words, but if you do that you should also add them to your list. Then you will be able to reuse the same word for similar types of objects. Copyright status (menu): Choose from Unknown, Copyrighted, or Public Domain. Copyright notice: Type the copyright symbol and year (e.g., © 2005) into Word, copy that to the clipboard and paste it into the proper field. This is a workaround since you cannot type a symbol in Photoshop. Copyright info URL: The URL for the author's web site, e.g., www.kenmilburn.com.
Camera Data 1 All this data is automatically entered by your camera and cannot be modified.
Camera Data 2 All this data is automatically entered by your camera and cannot be modified.
Categories Category: Don't enter. These fields are no longer used in current IPTC core. Supplemental categories: Don't enter. These fields are no longer used in current IPTC core.
History Big blank page that you can fill with a descriptive paragraph or two.
IPTC contact Creator: Your name, not that other guy's. Creator's job title: Photographer, assistant photographer, whatever. Address: Your business address. City: Your town or village. State/province: Just what it says. Postal code: The zip code. Country: Not the planet, silly. Phone(s): As many phone numbers as you care to list. Email(s): As many email addresses as you care to list. Web site(s): As many of your web sites as you care to list.
IPTC content Headline: Could be the same as title, but should be descriptive rather than emotional. Description: Should be the same as the caption, or an alternative caption. Keywords (be sure to separate each with a comma or semicolon): For consistency, these should be the same as the keywords in the Description above and come from your list. IPTC subject code: These must be the official IPTC-sanctioned codes. (See list at www.newscodes.org.) Description writer: Whoever wrote the descriptionyou, an assistant, or the agency exec.
IPTC image Date created: The date the information on this page was created. Intellectual genre: These are meant for the IPTC listings at www.newscodes.org. IPTC scene: These should be taken from the official IPTC listing of scene codes, found at www.newscodes.org. Location: The one where you took the picture. City: The one where you took the picture. State/province: The one where you took the picture. Country: The one where you took the picture. ISO country code (menu): Codes are listed from all countries. Just choose the one where you took the picture.
IPTC status Title: Same as the other title. Job identifier: Codes that you invent for a particular job. Be sure to keep a listing of them, both printed out and on your computer(s). Instructions: Notes on how the image should be processed, delivered, etc. Provider: Person or organization who provided the image. If it's your photo, you're the provider. If it was a stock agency or someone else, make note here. Source: Owner of the original copyright on this image. Copyright notice: Create copyright symbol using these commands: Opt/Alt-Cmd/Ctrl-C (e.g., © 2005, Ken Milburn). Rights usage terms: Where, how, and how many times the image can be published by this specific client (named here).
Adobe Stock Photos This information should come with the photo when you purchase it.
Origin Date created: When the photo was taken. City: Where the photo was taken. State/Province: Where the photo was taken. Credit: Who's providing this image (probably you). Source: Original copyright holder. Headline: Short description of what's going on here. Instructions: How to transmit or transport the photo to its destination, as well as any additional rights or usage info. Transmission reference: Codes for identifying the job. Urgency (menu): Ratings from 19: 1 is High, 5 is Normal, 8 is Low, and 9 is None.
Advanced You have to take a graduate course for these.
3.5.5. Using Bridge to Find Images by Metadata Fields The power of Bridge's Find command is a well-kept secret that is seldom even mentioned in other books. There's a reason for this: the location and name of the command make it look as though there's no difference between it and the Photoshop Find command. Ha! Wait 'til you see Figure 3-22the dialog that appears when you choose EditFind from the Bridge main menu. Figure 3-22. The Bridge Find dialog is reminiscent of the Batch Rename menu and features an amazingly powerful selection of options. Although it's unlikely you'll ever search all the criteria shown, you can search on any combination of them. Note that you can search an entire drive if you check the Include All Subfolders box. Maybe someday you'll even be able to search multiple drives. After you've entered your search criteria in the Find dialog above and clicked OK, you'll eventually see a new window that contains just those images (see Figure 3-23). It may be that you want to save that particular set of images as a collection so that you can quickly find the whole group. Then you can send them to the client, turn them into a slide show, or use the Image Processor to convert them to TIF, JPEG, or resized PSD for a different purpose or to turn them over to someone else, such as a publisher, client, or fine-art printer. Figure 3-23. The Save As Collection opens as a new Bridge Window. Once you've saved what your search has gathered, the button changes to Edit Collection, and you can add criteria to your search or change the folders you're searching. NOTE Any time you add a keyword(s) that was also used to create the search, that image will automatically be added to the collection. No need to repeat the Find command or to use the Edit Collection button unless you want to add more keywords to the search criteria for that collection. 3.5.6. Entering Keywords You can sort and search on metadata fields much more quickly than you can search through the thumbnails. One of the most useful things to search and group are descriptive keywords that you can add to the metadata by hand: To add keywords, make sure the Keywords panel is open by clicking its tab. If the tab isn't available in your current choice of workspaces, just check the Keywords panel in the View menu. You can see the Keywords panel in Figure 3-24. Figure 3-24. The Keywords panel, with the keywords that have already been assigned. NOTE You can add keywords when you group and rank your files in Bridge or any time you think it might be helpful to add keywords to an image or a group. To add keywords to a pre-existing category: Click the Category you want the keyword to appear under. Choose New Keyword from the Keywords panel menu (click the little arrow at the top-right of the panel). Or Ctrl/right-click the Category heading. Or click the New Keywords icon at the bottom of the Keywords panel. Enter keyword in the new Keyword field that appears right under the category heading. Its name is Untitled Key, but it's highlighted so you can just enter any name you want. For consistencies sake, it's a good idea to use the IPTC list and your own lists that you made in Chapter 1 as the source for keywords. If you have to use a new word, be sure to add it to the list you typed on your computer.
To add a new Keyword Set, follow the same options as above, but choose Keyword Set from whichever menu you pop up. Once again, use your existing list of categories and be sure to add to that list when you must create an entirely new name. NOTE You may wonder why I haven't suggested that you premake a list and then add the whole list to your Keywords panel. It's very important not to overcrowd your list, because you may end up adding a lot of keywords that aren't applicable to any images in your collection. When you try to sort for that keyword, you'll just be wasting time. Worse, you'll have to search through all the keywords you never use before you find the ones you do use. To add Keywords to a group of files: Preselect the files you want to add the same keyword to. Presumably, since you are supposed to do what I tell you to do, you have already dragged files within a given category so that they're adjacent to one another. So all those files should have a number of their keywords in common. Because it's a lot faster to add keywords to all the files that will have them in common (as long as they're in the same folder), press Shift while clicking the first image's thumbnail, then go to the last image, press Shift again, and click on the last image. Scroll to other images that need the same keywords you're about to enter and press Cmd/Ctrl Click on each of the individual images. They will be selected discontiguously. Click the Keywords panel tab. Check any of the existing keywords that apply. Follow the instruction for adding keywords in the section above if you have new keywords that need to be added to these images. Be sure to check your keywords list and make sure to choose keywords from that list unless you've discovered a new category that simply can't be described by anything in your existing list. Then add it to both your existing list and to the new keywords.
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