There is a huge amount of data hidden in your digital photographs. Many search engines are now starting to look at this data.
You can easily add your name, location, copyright, description, and a title to each of your digital photographs. You can even add GPS coordinates for the photo location. Here are a few key concepts that you will need to know…
- JPG or JPEG – File format used by most digital cameras.
- EXIF – (Exchangeable Image File Format) Your camera uses this format to store setting, timestamp, and equipment info in your JPG files
- IPTC – (International Press Telecommunications Council) Group responsible for the creation of header information in the JPG format to store metadata (name, title, description, copyright, location, etc)
- Geocoding – Placing lat/lon coordinates and elevation in the EXIF data of your photo
Software (freeware) that I use to tag and geocode my photos…
- Microsoft photo info – edit IPTC tags by right clicking the file in explorer
- Exifer for Windows – edit EXIF and IPTC tags. This one will allow you to reset file dates and times back to the EXIF time stamp.
- KUSO EXIF Viewer – Good EXIF viewer (limited editing)
- Panorado Flyer – Geotag photos with Google Earth. Right click files in explorer to assign the current position in Google Earth. Find you location and tag your files.