IPTC Information Interchange Model
Encyclopedia
The Information Interchange Model (IIM) is a file structure and set of metadata
attributes that can be applied to text, image
s and other media types. It was developed in the early 1990s by the International Press Telecommunications Council
(IPTC) to expedite the international exchange of news among newspapers and news agencies.
The full IIM specification includes a complex data structure and a set of metadata definitions.
Although IIM was intended for use with all types of news items — including simple text articles — a subset found broad worldwide acceptance as the standard embedded metadata used by news and commercial photographers. Information such as the name of the photographer, copyright information and the caption or other description can be embedded either manually or automatically.
IIM metadata embedded in images are often referred to as "IPTC headers", and can be easily encoded and decoded by most popular photo editing software.
The Extensible Metadata Platform
(XMP) has largely superseded IIM's file structure, but the IIM image attributes are defined in the IPTC Core schema
for XMP and most image manipulation programs keep the XMP and non-XMP IPTC attributes synchronized.
Because of its nearly universal acceptance among photographers — even amateurs — this is by far IPTC's most widely used standard. On the other hand, the use of IIM structure and metadata for text and graphics is mainly limited to European news agencies.
(Exif), a specification for the image file format
used by digital camera
s.
IIM metadata can be embedded into JPEG
/Exif or TIFF formatted image files. Other file formats such as JPEG2000, Portable Network Graphics and GIF
do not support IIM.
IIM's file structure technology has largely been overtaken by the Extensible Metadata Platform
(XMP), but the IIM attribute definitions are the basis for the IPTC Core schema
for XMP.
, bridged the eras of teleprinters and computers.
In the late 1980s development began on a standard (the Information Interchange Model) that would be designed to best work with computerized news editing systems.
In particular, the IPTC defined a set of IIM metadata
attributes that can be applied to images. These were defined originally in 1979, and revised significantly in 1991 to be part of the IIM, but the concept really advanced in 1994 when Adobe Systems
defined a specification for actually embedding the metadata into digital image files — yielding "IPTC headers."
(Adobe adopted the IPTC IIM metadata
definitions, but not the overall IIM data structure. Photos that contain IPTC Headers appear in all other respects to be normal JPEG or TIFF images; software that does not recognize IPTC Headers will simply ignore the metadata
.)
In 2001, Adobe introduced "Extensible Metadata Platform
" (XMP), which is an XML
schema for the same types of metadata
as IPTC, but is based on XML/RDF
, and is therefore inherently extensible. The effort spawned a collaboration with the IPTC, eventually producing the "IPTC Core Schema for XMP", which merges the two approaches to embedded metadata. The XMP specification describes techniques for embedding metadata in JPEG, TIFF, JPEG2000, GIF
, PNG, HTML
, PostScript
, PDF, SVG, Adobe Illustrator, and DNG files. Recent versions of all the main Adobe software products, (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Framemaker, etc.) support XMP, as do an increasing number of third-party tools.
In June 2007, IPTC in cooperation with Ifra
held the First International Photo Metadata conference, titled "Working towards a seamless photo workflow" to a standing room only crowd (over 130 attendees), prior to the CEPIC Congress, in Florence, Italy. A similar conference was held in Malta in June 2008.
The IPTC Photo Metadata working group released a white paper, which figured prominently at this event. The conference keynote was given by Andreas Trampe, head of the photo desk of Stern
. Other speakers included photographers such as David Riecks and Peter Krogh, photo and news agencies such as Reuters
; representatives of standards bodies such as PLUS, IPTC, and IFRA; as well as spokespersons from the photo metadata implementers side, such as Adobe Systems
, Apple Inc., Canon Inc., FotoWare, Hasselblad
, and Microsoft
.
The electronic presentations given by most of the speakers are available online from the Photo Metadata Conference website including a link to a report on each of the speakers' talks
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
attributes that can be applied to text, image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s and other media types. It was developed in the early 1990s by the International Press Telecommunications Council
International Press Telecommunications Council
The International Press Telecommunications Council, based in London, United Kingdom, is a consortium of the world's major news agencies and news industry vendors...
(IPTC) to expedite the international exchange of news among newspapers and news agencies.
The full IIM specification includes a complex data structure and a set of metadata definitions.
Although IIM was intended for use with all types of news items — including simple text articles — a subset found broad worldwide acceptance as the standard embedded metadata used by news and commercial photographers. Information such as the name of the photographer, copyright information and the caption or other description can be embedded either manually or automatically.
IIM metadata embedded in images are often referred to as "IPTC headers", and can be easily encoded and decoded by most popular photo editing software.
The Extensible Metadata Platform
Extensible Metadata Platform
The Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform is a standard, created by Adobe Systems Inc., for processing and storing standardized and proprietary information relating to the contents of a file....
(XMP) has largely superseded IIM's file structure, but the IIM image attributes are defined in the IPTC Core schema
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself...
for XMP and most image manipulation programs keep the XMP and non-XMP IPTC attributes synchronized.
Because of its nearly universal acceptance among photographers — even amateurs — this is by far IPTC's most widely used standard. On the other hand, the use of IIM structure and metadata for text and graphics is mainly limited to European news agencies.
Overview
IIM attributes are widely used and supported by many image creation and manipulation programs. Almost all the IIM attributes are supported by the Exchangeable image file formatExchangeable image file format
Exchangeable image file format is a standard that specifies the formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras , scanners and other systems handling image and sound files recorded by digital cameras...
(Exif), a specification for the image file format
File format
A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
used by digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
s.
IIM metadata can be embedded into JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
/Exif or TIFF formatted image files. Other file formats such as JPEG2000, Portable Network Graphics and GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
do not support IIM.
IIM's file structure technology has largely been overtaken by the Extensible Metadata Platform
Extensible Metadata Platform
The Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform is a standard, created by Adobe Systems Inc., for processing and storing standardized and proprietary information relating to the contents of a file....
(XMP), but the IIM attribute definitions are the basis for the IPTC Core schema
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself...
for XMP.
History
Since the late 1970s the IPTC’s activities have primarily focused on developing and publishing industry standards for the interchange of news. The first standard, IPTC 7901IPTC 7901
IPTC 7901 is a news service text markup specification published by the International Press Telecommunications Council that was designed to standardize the content and structure of text news articles...
, bridged the eras of teleprinters and computers.
In the late 1980s development began on a standard (the Information Interchange Model) that would be designed to best work with computerized news editing systems.
In particular, the IPTC defined a set of IIM metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
attributes that can be applied to images. These were defined originally in 1979, and revised significantly in 1991 to be part of the IIM, but the concept really advanced in 1994 when Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
defined a specification for actually embedding the metadata into digital image files — yielding "IPTC headers."
(Adobe adopted the IPTC IIM metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
definitions, but not the overall IIM data structure. Photos that contain IPTC Headers appear in all other respects to be normal JPEG or TIFF images; software that does not recognize IPTC Headers will simply ignore the metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
.)
In 2001, Adobe introduced "Extensible Metadata Platform
Extensible Metadata Platform
The Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform is a standard, created by Adobe Systems Inc., for processing and storing standardized and proprietary information relating to the contents of a file....
" (XMP), which is an XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
schema for the same types of metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
as IPTC, but is based on XML/RDF
RDF Schema
RDF Schema is a set of classes with certain properties using the RDF extensible knowledge representation language, providing basic elements for the description of ontologies, otherwise called RDF vocabularies, intended to structure RDF resources...
, and is therefore inherently extensible. The effort spawned a collaboration with the IPTC, eventually producing the "IPTC Core Schema for XMP", which merges the two approaches to embedded metadata. The XMP specification describes techniques for embedding metadata in JPEG, TIFF, JPEG2000, GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
, PNG, HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, PDF, SVG, Adobe Illustrator, and DNG files. Recent versions of all the main Adobe software products, (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Framemaker, etc.) support XMP, as do an increasing number of third-party tools.
In June 2007, IPTC in cooperation with Ifra
IFRA
The abbreviation IFRA can stand one of the following organisations:* International Fragrance Association* Ifra - an international organisation for the publishing industry...
held the First International Photo Metadata conference, titled "Working towards a seamless photo workflow" to a standing room only crowd (over 130 attendees), prior to the CEPIC Congress, in Florence, Italy. A similar conference was held in Malta in June 2008.
The IPTC Photo Metadata working group released a white paper, which figured prominently at this event. The conference keynote was given by Andreas Trampe, head of the photo desk of Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
. Other speakers included photographers such as David Riecks and Peter Krogh, photo and news agencies such as Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
; representatives of standards bodies such as PLUS, IPTC, and IFRA; as well as spokespersons from the photo metadata implementers side, such as Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, Apple Inc., Canon Inc., FotoWare, Hasselblad
Hasselblad
Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium-format cameras and photographic equipment based in Gothenburg, Sweden.The company is best known for the medium-format cameras it has produced since World War II....
, and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
.
The electronic presentations given by most of the speakers are available online from the Photo Metadata Conference website including a link to a report on each of the speakers' talks