Photo apps and metadata
Just a quick share of something quite disturbing.
(applies to Big Sur 11.12.1)
If you want to use Photos as the DAM (Digital Asset Manager) of your pictures, you'll likely be coming from another place, where you'll have likely see metadata in the jpeg (usually in a IPTC tag).
When you use Photos, you'll be able to access and edit the following metadata : Title, Description, Keywords, GPS.
However, if you want to reuse this data outside of Photos, beware :
- if you use the "export 1 photo" feature, you'll lose all the other metadata that were included in the original. They will not be carried with your new photo. This can include rights information, contact information, or content information, such as image place or headline, useful to categorize a shooting session
- if you use the "export the original with IPTC included" feature, you get all your old metadata back in the jpg file, and only the modified ones in the xmp file. They may not be in sync
This is different from many other softwares who populate the xmp file with all the current metadata.
As a consequence, there is no easy way to use Photos.app to organize your photos and ensure you will not loose your information in a future software : you will have to parse the metadata in the original and substitute them by the ones in the xmp file.
iMac 27″, macOS 11.2
