Photo EXIF & Metadata

EXIF / IPTC / XMP is the invisible half of every photograph: who took it, where, when, with what gear, and how it was processed. It also leaks GPS coordinates, serial numbers, and personal info if you publish raws untouched. For privacy stripping see File Uploads; for browser-side EXIF read/write see Image Editing. DAM tools in Photo DAM & Management read/write metadata as a side effect — the tools below do it as the main event.

CLI / libraries (free / OSS)

• ★ ExifTool (Phil Harvey) — Perl, GPL/Artistic. The canonical metadata tool: reads / writes ~190 formats, supports EXIF / IPTC / XMP / MakerNotes / GeoTIFF / PNG text / PDF metadata. Every other tool wraps it. Learn the CLI; you'll use it for the rest of your career.
• exiv2 — C++ library, GPL. Smaller than ExifTool but fast; good when you're embedding into a pipeline. Has a CLI too.
• libexif — older C library; mostly read-only EXIF; still used by some viewers.
• piexifjs, exifr (npm) — JS/TS readers; useful when you need EXIF in the browser or in a Node service.
• PyExifTool, pyexiv2 — Python wrappers.

GUI metadata editors

• ★ GeoSetter — free Win, geotagging-focused but a strong general EXIF/IPTC editor. ExifTool under the hood; map view for placing GPS coords. The de-facto Windows free pick.
• Adobe Bridge — free with any Adobe ID; full metadata panels for EXIF / IPTC / XMP with template support.
• Photo Mechanic / Photo Mechanic Plus — paid pro tool; the fastest way to template metadata across thousands of frames.
• digiKam — see Photo DAM & Management; strong embedded metadata editor.
• AnalogExif — free; specialized for adding metadata to film scans (manually entered camera/lens/film stock).
• MetaImage — paid macOS; clean ExifTool front-end.

Standards to know (briefly)

• EXIF — camera-written technical data (shutter, aperture, ISO, lens, GPS).
• IPTC IIM — original 1990s photojournalism standard; copyright, caption, keywords. Still required by stock agencies.
• XMP (Adobe, ISO 16684) — modern XML metadata; superset of EXIF + IPTC; what Lightroom / Bridge / darktable write to sidecars.
• MakerNotes — vendor-specific binary EXIF blob; Canon / Nikon / Sony embed AF points, lens corrections. Often stripped by web exporters.
• IPTC Photo Metadata 2024 — current spec; adds AI / synthetic-media disclosure fields, used by news agencies in 2025–2026.

Sidecar (.xmp) workflows

• ★ Lightroom / Bridge / darktable / RawTherapee all write .xmp next to raws. The raw file stays untouched; develop settings + metadata live in the sidecar.
• Sidecar discipline — keep raws + sidecars together when you back up; don't separate them. See Photo Backup & Archive.
• Catalog vs. sidecar — Lightroom catalogs hold authoritative state; "Save Metadata to File" forces a write to sidecar. Always-write-to-XMP is a common safety setting.

Keyword / taxonomy patterns

• Hierarchical keywords — Places > Europe > Italy > Rome beats flat tags. Lightroom, digiKam, Bridge all support hierarchical export.
• Controlled vocabulary lists — David Riecks' Controlled Vocabulary, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (for archival work).
• AI-generated keywords — Excire Foto (paid plug-in), Adobe Sensei in Lightroom, Tonfotos. Mixed results; usually need human cleanup.

EXIF stripping / privacy

• ★ exiftool -all= file.jpg — strip everything.
• exiftool -gps:all= file.jpg — strip GPS only (preserve technical EXIF).
• ImageMagick -strip, mogrify -strip — same idea.
• Cloudflare Polish, imgproxy, <Next/Image> — strip metadata at delivery time. See File Uploads.
• jhead -purejpg — minimal JPEG cleaner.

What's changing in 2024–2026

• C2PA / Content Credentials — cryptographic provenance attached to images; Adobe, Sony, Leica, Nikon shipping cameras that sign at capture. ExifTool reads them; tooling still maturing.
• AI / synthetic-media flags — IPTC added a digitalSourceType field; major newsrooms now require it.
• Apple ProRAW + DNG metadata — richer scene metadata embedded in DNG; ExifTool keeps up.

Pick this if…

• Default scriptable metadata tool: ExifTool.
• GUI on Windows, free: GeoSetter.
• Already in Adobe land, free GUI: Adobe Bridge.
• Pro newsroom / sports speed: Photo Mechanic.
• Strip GPS before posting: exiftool -gps:all= *.jpg.
• Embed in a Node pipeline: exifr (read) + ExifTool (write).