Basic embedded metadata for photos of art and architecture

2012-01-29

Looking for more detailed metadata? VRA Bridge Metadata Tools

Question, comments? emwg@vraweb.org

INTRODUCTION

Digital images contain data for such things as the camera model, photographer's name, and date taken. This data is referred to as “embedded metadata.” The following guidelines demonstrate how to create embedded metadata to describe the tangible creative works shown in photographs of art and architecture. The guidelines focus on five metadata fields that are widely used by image processing applications and web services: Creator, Title, Description, Keywords and Copyright Notice.

The aims of the guidelines are:

• To provide a simple, common sense guide to describing creative works that makes a clear distinction between a work and a digital image of that work, i.e., when was the painting created and when was the photo of the painting taken.
• To make use of existing embedded metadata features in image applications, without requiring special tools or plugins.
• To provide a method for entering metadata easily into any image application. 

The guidelines will be helpful to the following types of users, among others:

• Students describing their own work to share with other students; submit for class projects; contribute to institutional repositories; or post online.
• Faculty describing their own work to send to colleagues, clients, galleries, museums or publishers; contribute to visual resources center databases and institutional repositories; or use for job applications and tenure reviews.
• Freelance artists and designers describing their own work to use for web publishing or share with colleagues, clients, galleries and museums.
• Visual resources professionals looking for a basic embedded metadata set to use for downloadable images.
• Everyone searching for images in their desktops, or using images for web publishing.

FIELDS

EXAMPLES

Painting (detail)

http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-%E2%80%93-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo 

Creator Musée du Louvre / A. Dequier - M. Bard Title Mona Lisa; detail; head with landscape in background Description/Caption Leonardo da Vinci; Mona Lisa; ca. 1503-1506; oil on poplar; 77 x 54 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris; INV. 779; public domain; This portrait was doubtless painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. Keywords oil painting (technique); portraits; women; Renaissance Copyright Notice © Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier - M. Bard; http://www.louvre.fr/en/conditions-use-images

Mural

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peyri/1014107116/ 

http://www.chicanoparksandiego.com/murals/history.html 

Creator Peyri Herrera Title Historical Mural; detail; left side Description/Caption Toltecas en Aztlan (Guillermo Aranda; Arturo Roman; Salvador Barrajas; Jose Cervantes; Sammy Llamas. Bebe Llamas; Victor Ochoa; Ernest Paul; Guillermo Rosete; Guilbert "Magu" Lujan & M.E.Ch.A. group from U.C. Irvine); renovated, 1988; Chicano Park, San Diego, California Keywords mural painting; urban parks; Mexican American art; Mexican Americans; Spain; Mexico; history; Politics and government; Chicano Movement Copyright Notice Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

Sculpture

http://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/spitzhacke.htm 

Creator ProSell Archeo [Taken from a Flickr Gallery] Title Pick Axe; installation view Description/Caption Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; Pick Axe; Spitzhacke; 1982; steel painted with polyurethane enamel; 11.2 x 13. 6 x 1.1 m; Documenta 7, Kassel, Germany; ©Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen Keywords site-specific works, public sculpture, Pop (fine arts styles), scale (relative size), labor, picks (tools), Documenta (7th : 1982 : Kassel Germany) Copyright Notice ©Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. May not be reproduced without express written permission from the artists.

Historic Photo of Architecture (digitized from an archival negative)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ansel_Adams_-_National_Archives_79-AA-Q01.jpg 

Creator Department of the Interior. National Park Service Title Church, Taos Pueblo; Front view of entrance Description/Caption Ansel Adams (1902–1984); Church, Taos Pueblo National Historic Landmark, New Mexico; 1942 [San Geronimo Chapel]; film negative; National Archives Washington, DC; 79-AA-Q01; Public Domain; Part of the series: Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, compiled 1941 - 1942, documenting the period ca. 1933 - 1942; http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=519983  Keywords Taos Pueblo (N.M.), churches, portals, entrances; crosses, national monuments, national parks Copyright Notice Public domain; This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain. http://www.nps.gov/disclaimer.htm

Building

http://www.flickr.com/photos/setatum/4111422810/in/set-72157622812668290/ 

Creator Steve Tatum Title Poplar Forest; southwest facade, showing west stairwell, south portico, and wing Description/Caption Thomas Jefferson; Poplar Forest; Began 1805 or 1806, preservation, restoration and reconstruction began ca. 1986; 1542 Bateman Bridge Road, Forest, VA, USA 24551 Keywords Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), United States presidents; houses, Palladian, octagonal plan Copyright Notice © Steve Tatum

Jewelry

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Irish_Celtic_-_Penannular_Brooch_-_Walters_542341_%282%29.jpg

Creator Walters Art Museum Title Penannular Brooch; detail; hoop Description/Caption Anonymous (Irish Celtic); Penannular Brooch; 6th-7th century (Early Medieval); bronze with traces of gilt; 12.5 x 6.5 x 1.2 cm; 54.2341; Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD, USA; ID: 2120; Public Domain http://art.thewalters.org/detail/4768 Keywords metalwork; pins (jewelry); penannular brooches; Celtic; Early Medieval; spirals (geometric figures) Copyright Notice Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and GNU Free Documentation License

Performance Art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeuysAchberg78.jpg 

Creator Rainer Rappmann Title Each Person an Artist; Achberg, Germany, 1978 Description/Caption Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986); Each Person an Artist – on the Way to the Freedom Figure of the Social Organism; 1978; Achberg, Germany; public domain in the United States Keywords Joseph Beuys; performance art Copyright Notice Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and GNU Free Documentation License

Advice

Before you begin

• Make a test image in your photo editing/organizing application.
• Enter metadata for one of your most challenging images.
• Save and re-open the image to make sure you get the results you expect.
• Test images
• Mona Lisa; detail  / metadata above
• 16 century Italian brooch  / metadata on museum's website 

Creator names and commas

• Some applications use commas as separators (delimiters) to create a list of Creators.
• If you enter: Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. it might be saved as:
1. Joseph H. Taylor
2. , Jr.
• For maximum interoperability it is best to avoid commas.
• If you need to use commas, test your application be sure you get the results you expect.

Plain text and semicolons

• Even though plain text fields don't use separators the way list fields, like Keywords, do, it is still useful to separate independent parts of plain text with semicolons for readability and possible separation by other software.
• The Description field will likely consist of several distinct pieces of information strung together, such as:
• Francisco de Goya; The Third of May 1808; 1814; oil on canvas; 68 x 347 cm; Museo del Prado; ID: P00749; Public domain
• This is a plain text list representing these individual characteristics of a painting:
• Creator; Title; Date; Material; Measurements; Repository; ID; Rights
• The (photo) Title field will be a combination of the title of the work and the particular view shown in the photo, such as:
• Poplar Forest; southwest facade, showing west stairwell, south portico, and wing
• This is a plain text combination of two individual characteristics:
• Creative work Title; Photo view
• By using semicolons it is clear where one characteristic ends and the other starts. Also, semicolons could be used to parse the information into separate columns of a spreadsheet for further processing.

Description

• Your task is to concisely describe what it is, who made it, where it was made, how it was made, the materials of which it was made, and what it is about.
• You can follow this with additional information such as construction details or historical context.
• Be consistent regarding capitalization, punctuation, and syntax. Avoid abbreviations, but when necessary, use standard codes and lists for abbreviations (for example, the ISO abbreviations for countries).

Keywords and commas

• Some applications use commas and/or semicolons as separators (delimiters) between keywords. Because of this, using commas as regular punctuation should be avoided.
• If you enter: Castelli, Leo (American art dealer, 1907-1999) it will probably be saved as:
1. Castelli
   
2. Leo (American art dealer
3. 1907-1999) 
• To avoid problems, remove commas or replace them with another character:
1. Leo Castelli (American art dealer. 1907-1999)
• In some applications, surrounding a phrase containing commas with quotes will fix the problem.. e.g., "Castelli, Leo (American art dealer, 1907-1999)".  This is still risky because other applications might use commas as delimiters and mangle the words. 

Getting started with... 

• Bridge
• Lightroom
• Nikon View NX2 
• Photoshop / Photoshop Elements 
• Mac Snow Leopard Finder