25 September 2008

Attendees at the Photokina 2008 event

The Metadata Working Group, an organisation formed in 2007 dedicated to solving interoperability issues in digital photography, released its first specification at Photokina 2008 in Cologne, Germany.

The new specification provides guidelines designed to increase interoperability and preservation of metadata in digital photographs. The Metadata Working Group includes Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony.

“Lack of metadata interoperability has led to significant frustration for both consumer and pro photographers,” said Josh Weisberg, chairman and founder of the Metadata Working Group and director of Microsoft’s Rich Media Group. “Getting these industry leaders together to rally around metadata interoperability is a real turning point, one that we believe will result in technology that’s easier for photographers to use. We’ve been working very hard to produce guidelines that are compatible across all applications, devices and services and that provide best practices for how, when and where metadata should be changed in popular file formats.”

Metadata is important to digital photography because it allows photographers to tag their digital photos with information such as where and when they were taken. This enables basic activities such as being able to find and share photos. Existing industry metadata standards often overlap in purpose and lack interoperability guidance.

Lack of metadata interoperability has led to significant frustration for both consumer and pro photographers

Josh Weisberg, chairman and founder of the Metadata Working Group The Metadata Working Group’s initial guidelines target still photo metadata, with a focus on common consumer uses. The guidelines also identify overlapping content between existing standards and schemas.

“We’ve chosen to address the most common issues photographers face as we feel this will make the biggest impact for the average photographer,” Weisberg said. “Down the road, we will expand our work to include other metadata issues relevant to photographers.”