Hi Thomas

First a general note: international standards have to cover use cases in
different regions of the world and also for different providers and
business cases. From that the IPTC has learned that it is impossible to
create a single standard which fits exactly the requirements of only one
country or business without either providing too many or to few metadata
fields, or even creating some ambiguity.

Secondly a note on XMP and Photoshop/Bridge: XMP is a technical standard
to store metadata, it is used by many Adobe products - not only by
Photoshop or Bridge ! - but it is also implemented by a growing number of
other software vendors. On the other hand the File Info panels of
Photoshop / Bridge are specific to Adobe products as they are solely a
user interface to manage values provided by the XMP structures. And other
system vendors have created different solutions for their user interface.
Hence we have to be very careful not to mix these two different issues:
the metadata storage and a user interface.

The IPTC provides a set of custom panels for Adobe's FileInfo interface
for the IPTC Core standard and the IPTC can not take any responsibility
for values managed by other panels! Hence if somebody wants to use
metadata from the IPTC Core she or he should only fill in the IPTC_xxx
panels!


See my comments to your inquiry inline below:

On 1 Nov 2006 at 11:11 Thomas Wiewandt wrote:
> 1. DOCUMENT TITLE: A modest number of new and less confusing fields are
> needed to satisfy image-makers with agency representation. One of my
> agents, for example, strips the photographer’s photo ID info from the
> Document Title field and replaces it with his own file identification
> number. So his ID number ends up in the Title field on the IPTC STATUS
> page, leaving no field for my ID number. He tells me to put my ID
> elsewhere, as in the Description Writer field, which I find unacceptable.
> Two Photo ID fields are needed, one for the photographer and one for the
> agent, perhaps named Photographer’s (or Maker's) File ID and Agent’s
> (or
> Rep's) File ID. I’m sure this is a feature that most photographers and
> agents would appreciate.

I try to keep my reply short, could start writing pages about issues with
ids:

The "title" should be a shorthand reference to the picture - hence I feel
there could and should only be one. Therefore you and your agent have to
agree which one to put there. I feel any customer would not be happy to
have there a couple of identifiers and he has to guess which one is for a
certain purpose.

If the IPTC Core allows for more than one "title" (identifier) then it
would be required to add a qualifier telling where this id applies to (the
creator's system, the agent's system ...). This may be confusing - but ok,
let's think about it.

The note in the IPTC Core specs says that a technical identifier is
maintained by the XMP technology - and this may be considered as a
reference back to the origin of a picture.


> 2. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: My agent is using the following format for this
> field, even though inappropriate: Copyright 2006 Photographer/Agency.
> None of my images were created under a work-for-hire agreement, and all
> photos are registered with the Copyright Office in my name. I suspect
> that my agent has tacked on his name because he wants to be certain that
> his preferred “Credit Line” will appear on the opening page of the
> File
> Info menu, i.e. the DESCRIPTION page, the first to be seen by
> buyers/users.

The IPTC Core defines only this Copyright Notice field for asserting
ownership for a photo. I guess you have to discuss with your agent what
should be shown there.

> To keep everyone happy, I suggest creating a new field for “Credit
> Line”
> on the Description page that would be linked to the "Provider" field on
> the IPTC STATUS page. And to clarify things for all users, the
> “Provider” field should be re-named “Credit Line.” Forcing users
> to study
> and remember terminology as defined in a set of User Guidelines is
> impractical – call a "cow" a cow, not a "bovine beast" -- the word
> "Provider" is
> ambiguous.

The Provider field of the IPTC Core is linked to the Credit field that is
shown elsewhere. As said in my initial notes what information is provided
by a copyright notice or by a credit notice is not common on a global
level. At the time of the creation of the IPTC Core we agreed that any
information regarding a provider should go into the "provider" field. If
your provider uses the Copyright notice overwriting your information I can
only advise to discuss this with him and not to hold the IPTC responsible.

>
> I realize that the DESCRIPTION page is not part of the IPTC core, but
> exactly what/whose URL should appear in the “Copyright Info URL”
> field on
> this opening page? This is one field that I believe could be deleted
> altogether. Copyright has been adequately addressed
> elsewhere.
>

See my introductory notes: the IPTC can not take any responsibility for
File Info panels except the IPTC_* panels!

> 3. SOURCE/PROVIDER: These terms are too similar; and not surprisingly,
> my agent has reversed their intended function as described in your IPTC
> Users Guidelines. See my comments above (#2). What is to be entered in
> any field should be clearly indicated by the name given that field. If
> “Source” means “Copyright Holder” of the photo, then please label
> it
> "Copyright
> Holder."

The Source identifies - as the notes in the standard document say - the
original *owner* of the content in terms of copyright and from what you
said I understand this is you. Hence nobody is allowed to change the
content, and we aim at an improvement in metadata technology that allows
such a field to be "write once - read only after".

On the other hand the Provider field identfies the entity which provides
content to the public. I understand this is your agent in your case.

> 4. PHONE NUMBERS: Does it matter whether written +1 (520) 7434551 or
> +1(520)7434551? How does one distinguish between home/work/cellular/fax
>
> numbers?
>

The format of the phone number does not matter, this is not a machine
processable information.

There is no explicit distinction between these different kinds of phone
numbers as in this case we would have three "contact info" panels. (We
discussed this issue at the time of the creation of the IPTC Core and we
agreed on keeping the set slim.) We propose to add notes to the numbers if
more than one is given like "+1 (520) 7434551 (office) +1 (520) 1234 567
(mobile)"

> 5. DATE CREATED: Based on recent comments on the CV forum, I'm sure you
> are all well aware of problems here. This field should accommodate
> day/month/year, month/year, or simply year. Those of us with photo
> archives pre-dating digital capture may only know the year or month/year
> of creation, information that is often important to that visual record.

I agree the date format for Date Created is a true problem. The technical
issue behind is that the XML technlogy which is used by XMP allows only a
single format for a field and the one chosen for most XMP fields is a full
date with optional time = year + month + day. Hence we are caught by this
technology.

> Thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide this input. I hope
> these suggestions will help to make the next version of the IPTC core
> more
> useful and user-friendly for
> all.

Thank you for your input, we will consider it.

Best regards

Michael

==================================================
Sent by:
Michael Steidl
Managing Director of the IPTC <mdirector@...>
International Press Telecommunications Council
"Information Technology for News"
Visit us on the web at http://www.iptc.org