Organizing, keywords, and metadata

This chapter describes the metadata features in Corel AfterShot Pro.

Photo metadata, or information about your pictures, can make searching and finding your images much faster and easier. Metadata simply refers to the information about your images, including data recorded by your camera, such as the time, date, exposure, shutter speed, and aperture. You can also add your own metadata to photos to record what the subject is, where you took the photos, and professional photographers can include client information.

Types of metadata

Some metadata is standardized so it can be accessed by a wide range of devices and software. EXIF and IPTC are the most common metadata standards:

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EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format): Data typically recorded by the camera about the settings used for a photo. Most EXIF metadata is not editable. The EXIF data from the original photo (master file) is used for all versions that are derived from the master file (same source). Some examples of EXIF metadata are shutter speed, aperture, ISO, date, and time.

•	IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council): Data added by the photographer such as image description, photographer information, copyright, and caption.

Corel AfterShot Pro also supports other metadata, some of which can be shared between different applications. This metadata includes:

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Keywords

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Ratings

•	Color Labels

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Flags

Storing and sharing metadata

Not everything in Corel AfterShot Pro can be shared with other applications that support XMP files. Different applications have different methods of storing metadata, so some incompatibilities may exist. Corel AfterShot Pro saves all your image adjustments in XMP files; however, these changes cannot be seen in other applications. For example, if you adjust the exposure and saturation on a RAW file in Corel AfterShot Pro, these changes will be saved to the sidecar XMP file for that image. Opening the RAW file in Corel AfterShot Pro at a later date (with both the RAW file and XMP file in same folder) will show the image with the adjustments you've made: exposure and saturation. However, opening that same RAW file in other image editors will show the original RAW file, not the RAW file with your edits intact. In order to make the adjustments you've made in Corel AfterShot Pro visible to other applications, you must export the RAW file to a editable format like JPEG or TIFF, then open that exported file in the other application.

Corel AfterShot Pro stores its settings in an XMP file that is slightly different than other popular image editors. For more information, see XMP files.