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How to add © Copyright info to Metadata?


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Hi

Second posting, same question, first posting below, surprised no response, maybe my settings are off and/or I am doing something wrong, but I ask again please, how to include © symbol and copyright info to photos? 

Also, the only way to add a new thread that I could see sent my question apparently to iPad Requests, Forum where I did not and do NOT intend to be posting. I do not have an iPad, how and where to post to General Questions, and why was my inquiry diverted to iPad? Thx, Stuart

 

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How to add © Copyright to metadata?

SF Charter Boat posted a topic in  iPad Feature Requests, Suggestions and Feedback

Hello, First post, been wandering since Aperture gone, starting to use Mac Photos and Affinity and beginning with the tutorials. Photos does not have a © copyright option for name, year, url, etc which I could find, unless adding it to "description". Is there an option to include copyright info into metadata on Affinity? This is a critical piece of information needed to be embedded in photos, so it will be included automatically. Please advise. Thanks, Stuart
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Hi SF Charter Boat,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Currently you can only add/edit the Description field in the EXIF panel in Affinity Photo (menu View ▸ Studio ▸ EXIF).

To create a thread in the main Questions section you have to click the Start New Topic button on the top right in the Questions section. The only way to create a thread in the iPad Question section is entering that section from the main Questions area. In any case i can delete your post from there if you want.

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MEB, Thanks for assistance, explanation and guidance! No need to delete, will post it again per your instructions in correct forum. Much appreciation.

 

Re my © question,  the only way to add copyright info is to have to add it to Description field? To me, not including legal protection for a professional photo site seems like it should be a high priority for the developers. This method is no better than the Apple Photos "Description', an amateurish  extra step required, with potentially enormous legal and financial implications if not done. Thanks

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19 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

Re my © question,  the only way to add copyright info is to have to add it to Description field? To me, not including legal protection for a professional photo site seems like it should be a high priority for the developers. This method is no better than the Apple Photos "Description', an amateurish  extra step required, with potentially enormous legal and financial implications if not done. Thanks

Yes, sorry. Currently only the Description field can be edited. There was already a few requests to improve this area so it may end up be expanded/improved in a future version.

 

Regarding where to post: on that screenshot you have attached, click the black Start new topic button, and the thread will be created in the main Questions forum (as you did for this thread). To post on the iPad Questions section specifically you would have to click the iPad Questions link (in bold on top in your screenshot) to enter in that subforum first and then click the black Start new topic button there. Look at the breadcrumbs on the top of the forum to know exactly where you are (this is also valid for when you are creating a new thread - it shows exactly where it will be created).

 

 

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MEB, ahhh, my first posting was to iPad and the one you responded to was done correctly, in the General Questions forum?

If so, thanks, will just leave the iPad question there, does not seem to do any harm and if read by anyone will bring up what I feel is a very important element which is now missing from Affinity.

Is this the best/only way to contact them and ask for what is simply a very basic part of any professional photo editing system-a method to protect the image? 

This should be addressed immediately in my view. A simple click to choose which © info to be attached to a photo, which is NOT a 
"Description" and should have its own link. What Affinity is doing is providing image adjustment tools without any photo protection whatsoever-unless put in "Description", two entirely different subjects

Thx

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2 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

MEB, ahhh, my first posting was to iPad and the one you responded to was done correctly, in the General Questions forum?

Exactly.

 

3 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

Is this the best/only way to contact them and ask for what is simply a very basic part of any professional photo editing system-a method to protect the image? 

This should be addressed immediately in my view. A simple click to choose which © info to be attached to a photo, which is NOT a 
"Description" and should have its own link. What Affinity is doing is providing image adjustment tools without any photo protection whatsoever-unless put in "Description", two entirely different subjects

Thx

Yes, the development teams also participate on these forums actively so they are well aware of users requests, however i advise you create a thread specifically for this in the Feature Requests section where it has a better chance to get picked up.

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9 hours ago, SF Charter Boat said:

A simple click to choose which © info to be attached to a photo, which is NOT a 
"Description" and should have its own link. What Affinity is doing is providing image adjustment tools without any photo protection whatsoever-unless put in "Description", two entirely different subjects

Just some things to consider about this:

 

1. There are three different metadata standards commonly used to embed info in photo files, including copyright info. They are Exif, IPTC, & XMP. It has become common to refer to them generically as "Exif metadata" or simply "Exif tags" but this is just for simplicity's sake -- they are different & unfortunately in some ways contradictory.

 

2. The Exif standard alone lists many different kinds of metadata tags that can contain copyright info. It is very complicated, but if you want to slug through the details, go to http://www.cipa.jp/std/documents/e/DC-008-2012_E.pdf & use your browser's search function on "Copyright" -- you will get around 70 hits!

 

3. The main purpose of ownership, rights, & copyright metadata tags regardless of the standard used is to make it easy for those wishing to use copyrighted material legally to contact the appropriate people to get permission to do that. It does not protect owners from illegal use, although it may (but not necessarily will) be considered should legal proceedings become necessary to stop illegal use.

 

4. Copyright laws vary around the world but in general you do not need to formally include a copyright notice for your original work to be considered copyrighted under law. As above, an included notice may help in a court case but defense of copyrights is the owner's responsibility.

 

5. It is simple to delete or change embedded metadata including copyright & owner info using many different widely available applications. So in this sense, embedding copyright info offers no practical protection from infringers.

 

6. Digital watermarking is an alternative to embedding metadata that is more difficult to detect or remove. If you are concerned about infringement, this may be something for you to consider.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor am I representing the above in any way as equivalent to or a substitute for consulting with one regarding the legal protections you have or how best to preserve them.

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Agree. Indeed, both a digital (in the pixels) very visible watermark -yet elegant-, to stop the masses, and a non perceptible one, which you could demonstrate in court (and the infringing party would not see that coming) could be ideal, for those really caring about this. There are though other considerations / measures / market reasons / contracts, etc, etc.  that long ago made me treat this problem very differently. As R C-R, not a lawyer, but yep an artist having had to deal with these things often, professionally...

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Thanks! Very useful information and appreciate the time and considerations from those responding.

Yes, I understand there is no foolproof protection, and I also understand that supposed protection information embedded in a photo will not deter those doing mischief.

Understandably,  a watermark can be used, but that is not my concern.

I just think Affinity should offer, as does Lightroom, an option to include certain info re photo ownership and contact info, which they do not do now. Affinity seems to use a "Description" offer for what is an entirely different subject, notwithstanding the above, and correct comments, re potential abuse. 

I think Affinity should at least make an option to include a © symbol, date, name, etc. which, apparently they do not now offer. Regardless of those not heeding it, I feel this option should be a basic and fundamental  piece of information on a photo, and not have a high end photo adjustment company make a decision for the creators  of the image.

Cheers

Stuart

 

 

 

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You can use other third party software and tools here, which do address a much better flexible handling of applying custom copyright infos into Exif metadata. - One such defacto tool is ExifTool which is widely used in most other apps here and for which there are also GUI frontends (ExiftoolGUI Win, Mac ExifEditor etc.) available. Further free software like IrfanView, XnView MP and a bunch of other commercial ones all also do use that one for applying custom Exif metadata to single and bulk/mass image files! - Give it a try!

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In windows you can look at the file properties. Right-click on a file and choose Properties (right at the bottom of the list). Then select the Details tab, and it will show the Metadata. Some of these are editable, including the copyright notice.

Perhaps a Mac user could say if there is an equivalent in that OS.

You can also edit metadata in Bridge. You can download a legacy version of Bridge from Adobe for free. This is my second port of call for managing my files (after renaming them with Bulk Rename Utility). I can add a set of Exif items, including my name and Copyright notice, to a bunch of files very easily using Bridge.

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Yep. Irfan is great. Extremely useful for batch operations, and one of the many batch actions available is including meta info.  I also used PNGtweak for this matters, and a pair of others for JPGs and GIFs. But this was not something for photography (rather more for video game graphics (editing animations frames is a joy with irfan's batch), illustration and design stuff ). Also, it has a very powerful batch renamer, which can act alone or combined with the flexible batch system. To my knowledge, doesn't deal with CMYK color profiles, but I rarely have a need in that regard for this kind of matters. It is also the fastest viewer to pop up of all what i have tested (as just a fast checker). 

 

Working at a company, I was even in the need of editing our exe files (that is, our main application exes! ) in many occasions , to include/modify the copyright, icon linked, and deeper stuff, due to time constraints for a new compilation round (often with betas)  , and it's amazing how -at least in Windows- there's practically a free utility for literally everything. I found 4, each with a different set of advantages. 

 

Indeed, while I think is a good feature to add, and "perhaps" they might add it in the future (specially when asked politely, maybe ;) , which is the case ) , but I'd advice what i am doing with these and other applications that I use regularly or often : I use them for the best uses, each one. Even working at a successful well funded start-up, with PS purchased and a bunch other apps, I still needed free batch utilities (like irfan). Simply, specialized tools (like ExifTool, really famous, btw) are just too good for some tasks. Lately, these tend to also provide the output in a so flexible , powerful way, in so many formats, that you just do yourself a favor if just use a external tool like this for some specific tasks. Plus, things that were not likely to be added, have been added to Affinity's, so, imo is a game of patience. (but my advice, not pushing it too much, to not generate a negative vibe around the feature... programmers are human beings, too... ;D )

 

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7 hours ago, v_kyr said:

free software like IrfanView, XnView MP and a bunch of other commercial ones 

 

Please be aware that many “free” software products are only free for personal or educational use, and commercial use requires the purchase of a licence. IrfanView is one example of this, but the licence for it is very inexpensive (ten euros, if I remember correctly).

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8 hours ago, SF Charter Boat said:

I think Affinity should at least make an option to include a © symbol, date, name, etc. which, apparently they do not now offer.

OK, but which Exif/IPTC/XMP tags should this option use for these things?

 

Just for copyrights, there is the Exif.Image.Copyright tag used to indicate both photographer and editor copyrights. As explained in http://www.exiv2.org/tags.html this should be written in the form "Copyright, John Smith, 19xx. All rights reserved" for each applicable rights holder. There is also the "core" IPTC "Copyright Notice" tag that could/should include similar info that conforms to various legal standards, as explained in this web page. Note that on that web page there are also other copyright & copyright related tags that could/should be included when applicable.

 

So just for copyright info alone it is much more complicated than it might seem. It is still more complicated for dates: there are very many that might apply, including original shooting dates, various kinds of modification dates, dates related to the content of the photo, & so on. Some may be included in other tags, like in copyright notices, & the relevant Exif/IPTC/XMP standards for date info do not all agree on what should go where or how it should be formatted.

 

Beyond that, consider that Affinity supports importing & exporting quite a few different image file formats, & they each have their own differing requirements for how the tags they support should be embedded in the file. To be very useful, the "More" export options & the Export Persona would somehow have to sort all this out, most likely requiring still more presets and/or user interaction that would require some knowledge to use correctly. Yikes!

 

Considering all of it, I think it should not be too hard to see why several people have suggested using third party tools for this, particularly ones with batch processing capabilities.

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1 hour ago, John Rostron said:

In windows you can look at the file properties. Right-click on a file and choose Properties (right at the bottom of the list). Then select the Details tab, and it will show the Metadata. Some of these are editable, including the copyright notice.

Perhaps a Mac user could say if there is an equivalent in that OS.

AFAIK, there is no equivalent in the Mac OS. :(

 

7 hours ago, v_kyr said:

You can use other third party software and tools here, which do address a much better flexible handling of applying custom copyright infos into Exif metadata.

I recently bought Photos Exif Editor (link is to the Mac App Store preview). It is a basic Mac-only batch tool with a simple GUI. I have not used it very much but it seems to get the job done, & at $0.99 it is hard to complain much about its limited support for IPTC & XMP tags. I am not sure I would recommend it without some reservations -- I am not thrilled about the offer of "premium help" available through a phone number, but using it seems straightforward enough that I doubt anyone would need that.

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1 hour ago, Alfred said:

 

Please be aware that many “free” software products are only free for personal or educational use, and commercial use requires the purchase of a licence. IrfanView is one example of this, but the licence for it is very inexpensive (ten euros, if I remember correctly).

I have assumed here that the mature reader should be able to determine the license terms of a specific software himself, since we always don't know if the software will be used privately or in a business context on his side. Further if I had to list any or all specific software license eventualities here, then I would still be sitting for quick help postings until tomorrow! ;)

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17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

...

I recently bought Photos Exif Editor (link is to the Mac App Store preview). It is a basic Mac-only batch tool with a simple GUI. I have not used it very much but it seems to get the job done, & at $0.99 it is hard to complain much about its limited support for IPTC & XMP tags. I am not sure I would recommend it without some reservations -- I am not thrilled about the offer of "premium help" available through a phone number, but using it seems straightforward enough that I doubt anyone would need that.

Well I don't know that one, but most of such tools are just GUI frontends, so to say they are reusing already available CLI backend programs or libraries like ExifTool etc. and just place a GUI frontend around those. So there might be a bunch of such tools for OSX and Win available. - Further I think one can probably do the same on OSX in a custom way with Automator and AppleScript and things like that, if desired.

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9 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Well I don't know that one, but most of such tools are just GUI frontends, so to say they are reusing already available CLI backend programs or libraries like ExifTool etc. and just place a GUI frontend around those.

From what I can tell the Photos Exif Editor app uses the Exiv2 library for read/write access to the image metadata. The GUI provides a limited amount of formatting help & error checking & some conveniences like adding GPS metadata using the Apple mapping API, image previews, & so on. Nothing fancy but much easier to use than typing commands in a CLI.

 

But frontend or backend, learning how to use any of these tools to best effect is not a trivial task.

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@R C-R

Well yes, learning how to handle powerful software tools is sometimes a challenge, but hey that's the way of cookie crumbles in order to be able to do certain tasks at all, or to find the right/best working solution for solving custom problems here. Working with CLI tools usually offers more capabilities here than most GUI tools can UI wise offer. - So it always also depends on knowledge and/or what amount of time certain people are willing to spend for IT related solutions to their specific individual problems.

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10 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Working with CLI tools usually offers more capabilities here than most GUI tools can UI wise offer.

And more ways to screw things up. Thus the warning "with great power comes great responsibility" that some CLI editors like the Mac Terminal app display the first time they are used.

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10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

And more ways to screw things up. Thus the warning "with great power comes great responsibility" that some CLI editors like the Mac Terminal app display the first time they are used.

LOL, well as a software engineer and dev I usually live in that one, beside Emacs and Co. etc.!

If you over time grow up with Unix/Linux systems, used different shells (ksh, (t)csh, bash...) and common system CLI tools (awk, grep, sed, ed/vi, perl, [gt]roff, and so on...) that's all to some point then common usage for you. You have learned over time how to deal with these things efficient and in careful manner. - Further all major OS do distinguish between user permissions (root vs plain users) and tasks (administrative or plain user tasks), aka those who are allowed or not to be performed by certain system users here. When in doubt, don't use sudo and always do thoroughly tests first before performing things as root.

In short, it always depends on a users knowledge and capabilities!

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Hi All, My initial observation, opinion and suggestion still stands:

- Affinity does not have a © copyright metadata option

-My (polite!) opinion and suggestion is that Affinity provide it.

Lightroom does, do something similar

Windows or third party options was not being discussed and appreciation for the options, but I just want to stay with Affinity.

 

I am just a newbie, going to use Photos with Affinity, and I look forward to what I hope will be a good combination after have been dumped by Aperture. Some of my photos will be combined with those of another photographer for a magazine article and I wanted to include the © symbol and info for identification purposes if they got the photos confused, that was the reason behind my initial question.

Thanks, Stuart

(btw, some of the mentioned photos: www.sfboatphotos.com)

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