Meta Data in Images act like address or history of where it comes from i.e. The device used for creating the image, date, orientation, resolution, exposure time, aperture etc. These data is popularly known as Exif Data, IPTC-NAA and ICC Profile. Now while ICC Profile is related with colours, IPTC stores data, tags etc. EXIF is another popular standard which is similar to IPTC .
PhotoMe is an image editor which can edit the metadata information of any image and change it if you want to correct it. Though many similar editors are available but what makes this different is the presentation and how the editor allows you to change.
Who needs this tool ?
Mostly photographers which need to preserve this data so when they upload to professional website like Flickr, the details can be read by anybody else to find out what settings was used when the image was taken. This helps both in learning and self analysis to improve.
Another important thing Images can store is the Geo Location i.e. exact longitude and latitude which is useful when you want to map this online so people get to know where it was taken. So even if you are not a photographer but want to tag your image, this is handy.
PhotoMe User Interface :
The interface is user-friendly but if you are using such kind of tool for the first time, you might get overwhelmed if you did not knew how much data is stored in your image apart from what you shot. Remember metadata contains a lot of information so if you do not want, make sure to remove them using tools like Jpeg and PNG Stripper
It gives you tabulated details
- Overview
- IPTC-NAA Data
- Histogram of the Image.
- Image : Contains Camera details like manufacturer, image resolution, File change and date, IFD and GPS details.\
- Camera : Next comes your state of camera when the image was taken i.e. Exposure Time, F Number, ISO Speed, EXIF version, date and time of Original Data Generation, Digital Data generation time, flash, compression etc.
- GPS : Longitude, Latitude, Altitude etc. What is interesting here that if you have GPS data you can lunch Map Tools like Google Maps. If you have Google Earth installed, it will launch that too. In case you do not have any GPS data, add it manually using these tools.
- Then you have Manufacture View and ICC profile.
How to edit the Metadata using PhotoME
PhotoMe follows all the standard when you edit any data of the image. So if you are editing lets say Exposure Time, the editor gives you option to choose between Decimal, Hexadecimal and Binary and a live preview of the final output.
Lets take another example. When you edit date of the image taken you get option to change date format to Current Date, Creation Date, Modified Date or change it to MM-DD-YY-HH-MM-SS. However any date changed can be tracked by using a popular tool JPG Snoop which works for any other meta data also.
Any data which can be changed using PhotoMe is linked in blue and it opens a popup window where you can enter the desired values.
How to Export Meta data using PhotoMe :
Many a times data is required to be exported so it can be analyzed by another software or to be kept as backup. Useful when you have lost the image or want to restore the original metadata. The options for exporting Exif Data, IPTC-NAA and ICC Profile are available on left hand side of the software. The same menu allows you to import meta data and apply to the current image.
Overall this is classy software which is very helpful for users who need to edit the images. The user interface is simple and smart. It integrates with Maps and your Windows nicely. The only drawback if I had to say will be the absence of Mass Editing Metadata of images.
Ashish,
This product has not been updated for over 3 years. This alone wouldn’t be a problem, but it does not support XMP metadata blocks. This can be disastrous, since XMP contains a lot of metadata.
Please take a look at FileMind (www.metabilitysoftware.com), it’s a free software (currently in beta). It can do the same and a lot more, and it supports XMP very well.