Metadata Alert

A Journalist’s Diary

A handwritten mind map (and a loupe) showing the photo editing workflow as it fits my needs.

Editing in photography is often described with the word photoshopped, showing an understanding that editing means the manipulation of a photograph. When I think about editing, the process splits into various tasks: culling, writing the metadata, toning, retouching, and archiving (not to forget the selection of photographs specifically for a story or other larger project).

Today, I guide you through the parts of my editing process connected to metadata. I write a bit about how my care for metadata has changed over time and use the pictures from the last Fun With Cameras post to share how I take care of the basic needs for two of those editing steps.

Photo Editing & Metadata

I only look at two steps because I don’t dabble in retouching (or photoshopping) besides removing the occasional dust spot. And my archiving needs are almost checked off during the culling and metadata phases.

I include a few thoughts on culling below, and save you from a description of the toning procedures because I limit that work to some basic tweaks/fixes to exposure, white balance, highlights, shadows, and the like. There’s nothing dramatic happening here. It’s just turning the flat raw data into a picture file that resembles what the scene looked and felt like to my eyes.

That leaves me with the metadata. I care about it. And so should you because it will make your life easier. A good metadata routine, if maintained well, is the best archival assistant you can have. It helps you maintain order and structure. You can find specific pictures easier. And you can pick up contextual information about a photograph, which you might forget over time.

Those are desirable qualities for any photography collection — personal or work.

The metadata world includes a plethora of data points. In today’s post, I’ll share my approach to captions, keywords, location, and people information.

A Quick Word On Culling

Photo editing begins with culling. As a quick note for today, I rely on a simple metadata element called color classes to narrow down my entire contact sheet in multiple elimination rounds.

I usually start with a quick browse through in-camera and protect pictures that stand out. That action translates into a tag in the software I use for the initial editing processes. Those pictures all get the lowest color class. Before I move to the next round, I quickly look through the remaining pictures and advance anything I want to keep checking.

These five screenshots illustrate my culling process and the role color classes play in it. From top left to bottom right you see the entire contact sheet (top left), the first round candidates that remained at the end of the process (top center), the C-List or back-up files (top right), the B-List (bottom left) and A-List (bottom right). This part of the editing happens in a different software than depicted here. But the screenshots came out better with the software I use for toning and archiving. I use keywords to satisfy further culling needs (for stories or other types of projects). You can see that in screenshots below.

Then I eliminate pictures in rounds and end with an A-list, B-list, C-list, and the group of first-round picks. Only A-and B-lists usually get toned, but all pictures receive the basic metadata treatment.

There are several ways you can manage this process. Star ratings are one alternative, or some software feature flags or other means to mark pictures. The method you use is a personal decision. It needs to feel good for you; that’s all that matters. You can also make this process as detailed as required for your personal or professional needs.

My Metadata Journey

My metadata journey has seen a few stages. It began many moons ago with trying to input GPS data. Then, I became very frustrated when Apple discontinued iPhoto, the software I used in those early days. I had left all the organization to the software and was confused about where the precious originals were stored.

Over the years, especially when my photography became more serious, I started thinking about captions and ratings. My relationship with keywords was a troubled one at all times. More on that is below.

Recently, I started an overhaul of my archive, streamlining keywords, captions, and location data to make it easier to find pictures. I’ll share some thoughts and notes about what I’ve learned below with the help of the contact sheet from the last Fun With Cameras post.

Metadata 101: locations, keywords, captions

Let’s begin with location data. Before I started overhauling my archive, I tried to find all the pictures of a specific location. And I endured a lengthy search operation because I relied on bad captions, messy keywords, and inconsistent file/folder names.

I’m still fine-tuning how detailed I want this data point to be. Initially, I made a granular differentiation between the location from which the picture was made and what’s shown in the picture and tried to include district names.

I found that approach too detailed. Now, I only distinguish between taken and seen if there’s an important difference. Otherwise, what’s shown in the picture suffices.

Bonus tip: the more detailed your captions are, the less worried you need to be about location data.

Photo Mechanic (the software I use for culling and metadata input) includes a detailed but fairly straightwforward metadata hub called Metadata Template. I have a few templates set up that include a set of base keywords and/or a base caption as well as my contact/copyright information. You can see the location input on the right side. I only fill out all three sections because Lightroom Classic (the software you saw in the first set of screenshots) does not fully support location data. It only takes a few seconds to copy the data into the additional sections, so I do it for ease of mind. A quick note on names: if the photographs are about people, I add the names under “Persons shown” (and also as keyword because you can’t search for this data in Lightroom…).

The same holds for keywords. The most important lesson I’ve learned here is: consistently apply a controlled vocabulary, i.e., think about what elements in your pictures you would need to be able to find by searching for a word.

You can go to town with keywords (been there, done that, can’t recommend it). But after developing 20 lists of keywords and noting elements of flora and fauna by name (as one example), I reduced it to the basics. I still have lists of some types of keywords. I maintain those and use them as consistently as possible. But I follow the guideline: as much as needed and as little as possible. I’ve included a few extra thoughts in the caption of the screenshots.

The left screenshot shows one of the keyword interfaces and the lists I maintain. I probably slim those down while I progress with the overhaul of my archive. I’m still learning how detailed I really need to be and when it gets too detailed. The only reason I started bothering with keywords is the ability to search and find specific pictures without having to sift through countless folders. The right screen shows a keywords search. All pictures for this post received the keyword “blog.” You can can see that I drew from A- and B-Lists. You can also see the base keywords for all pictures in the field on the right (just below the historgram). In the beginning of the overhaul, I would have included keywords for the type of structures (blast furnaces, for example). But I’ve learned that captions can take that role where needed.

Captions are a vital part of photography. At their minimum, captions describe a picture in a nutshell. But they can also reach the length of mini-stories in themselves. Captions are a good place to store contextual information for the viewers as much as for archival purposes.

During my initial time with the metadata template, I enter a basic caption. I include answers to what and who is depicted, and when and where the picture was made. More specific details about the how and why of a scene follow at the end of the process. I write those richer captions after toning and for a few final selects only.

You can see the caption textfield in some of the screenshots above already. Here is what I use for most of the more detailed captions. If you’ve noticed the {} in the template: those are variables that automatically pull specific information from the metadata (on a basic level, the date of the photograph or the location info I entered). That’s a huge time-saver.

I hope you found some valuable insights in this metadata alert. I know it can be a dry topic. I enjoy having a well-structured archive, but I don’t particularly enjoy post-processing. But photography, especially in a documentary form, includes stages beyond the time behind the camera. And the best way to make the computer work as enjoyable as possible is to have a well-thought-out process in place.

Next week, I’ll have new reading recommendations. And I’m working on the next entry into A Journalist’s Diary, which details how the photographer in me emerged.