EXIF or IPTC?

Sergey Shevchenko

Can some of the Smugmug gurus tell me what is more preferable to use for commenting my images and why: the EXIF's Image Description field or the IPTC's Caption field? I've discovered that during an upload Smugmug can use any of these two fields; however, it gives preference to IPTC - if it is set, it is used regardless of EXIF; EXIF is used only if IPTC is blank. Also, Smugmug help explicitely mentions IPTC captions, but not EXIF. Does that mean that IPTC is more widely supported or considered to be somehow "better" than EXIF? I was under impression that EXIF was much more known.

Thanks!

Andy

Sergey Shevchenko wrote:

Can some of the Smugmug gurus tell me what is more preferable to use for commenting my images and why: the EXIF's Image Description field or the IPTC's Caption field? I've discovered that during an upload Smugmug can use any of these two fields; however, it gives preference to IPTC - if it is set, it is used regardless of EXIF; EXIF is used only if IPTC is blank. Also, Smugmug help explicitely mentions IPTC captions, but not EXIF. Does that mean that IPTC is more widely supported or considered to be somehow "better" than EXIF? I was under impression that EXIF was much more known.

Thanks!

IPTC are the captions we support, and would ask you use. EXIF Image Description is not always used properly, for example, most Olympus Point and Shoot Cameras.

Sergey Shevchenko

Andy wrote:

IPTC are the captions we support, and would ask you use. EXIF Image Description is not always used properly, for example, most Olympus Point and Shoot Cameras.

Thanks, Andy.

And yes, I actually noticed that improper usage myself: my Minolta 7D for some reason puts "KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA" in EXIF Image Descriptions, which causes all my uploaded images to have this as a caption, unless I either clean up this field or explicitely enter something into IPTC.

Is using EXIF in the abscense of IPTC an undocumented feature then (since you've said you only support IPTC)? I didn't see any mentioning in the Help. If it is, I think it should be described there, to avoid surprises.

Andy

Sergey Shevchenko wrote:

Thanks, Andy.

And yes, I actually noticed that improper usage myself: my Minolta 7D for some reason puts "KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA" in EXIF Image Descriptions, which causes all my uploaded images to have this as a caption, unless I either clean up this field or explicitely enter something into IPTC.

Is using EXIF in the abscense of IPTC an undocumented feature then (since you've said you only support IPTC)? I didn't see any mentioning in the Help. If it is, I think it should be described there, to avoid surprises.

Yes - you can put the caption there, in lieu of Konica Minolta....