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How to add © Copyright info to Metadata?


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As already said, if AF doesn't provide what you are looking for then use something else to get the job done! - In your case on a Mac, you can install the OSX ExifTool version and then try to use this SetEXIFData tool (see there --> How to use SetEXIFData --> the Copyright section) for applying your copyright data infos!

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2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

As already said, if AF doesn't provide what you are looking for then use something else to get the job done! - In your case on a Mac, you can install the OSX ExifTool version and then try to use this SetEXIFData tool (see there --> How to use SetEXIFData --> the Copyright section) for applying your copyright data infos!

Is anyone using SetEXIFData? From the link, there is this:

Quote

 

Type your copyright text. Symbols are replaced :

  • © : Copyright (c)
  • ™ : Trademark (tm)
  • ® : Registered Trademark (r)

This modifies the following META-data : copyright, copyrightnotice and rights.

 

I am not sure if this means the copyright symbol is replaced with the text or visa-versa, but either way, according to http://www.photometadata.org/meta-resources-field-guide-to-metadata#Copyright Notice (& other sources) it seems like this would make it difficult to use the symbol or the word as appropriate for the country or region of interest.

 

I assume "rights" in the above refers to the IPTC Core tag Rights Usage Terms, but from http://www.photometadata.org/meta-resources-field-guide-to-metadata#Rights Usage Terms, in addition to including "free-text instructions on how the photograph can be legally used" in this field, there is this:

Quote

Use the PLUS fields of the IPTC Extension in parallel to express the license in more controlled terms. It is strongly encouraged that you use a standardized set of terms or controlled vocabulary when populating this field.

It is probably a good idea to also click through on that "PLUS" link to see why adding the parallel metadata is encouraged.

 

Anyway, all this implies that a lot of associated metadata should be added for the most effective usage rights protection. It seems pretty obvious to me that a separate tool dedicated to this purpose, ideally with batch processing & preset capabilities, is the best way to go.

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Don't know if anyone is using that one, it's just one of the Mac related GUI tool references from the ExifTool site. - There are also other tools like XnViewMP which do support to do bulk image batch-processing for applying custom metadata. Personally I do mostly use ExifTool from a shell...
 

1) Basic write example

    exiftool -artist=me a.jpg

    Writes Artist tag to a.jpg. Since no group is specified, EXIF:Artist will be written and all other existing Artist tags will be updated with the new value ("me").

2) Write multiple files

    exiftool -artist=me a.jpg b.jpg c.jpg

    Writes Artist tag to three image files.

3) Write to all files in a directory

    exiftool -artist=me /images

    Writes Artist tag to all files in directory /images.

4) Write multiple tags

    exiftool -artist="Phil Harvey" -copyright="2017 Phil Harvey" a.jpg

    Writes two tags to a.jpg.

...(and so on)...

 

...and sometimes XnViewMP or GraphicConverter on Macs for such tasks, on Win I use instead IrfanView!

batch-process.thumb.jpg.d02b04de1fccf6f81ee495e0c4ad320d.jpg

 

BTW one of the easiest way to overall deal with this is, to already setup/place copyright infos etc. directly inside the used cams (all DSLRs I use do support this) and thus such infos are then always already there when you're taking the images, if not stripped out by any software processing afterwards. Most pros I know do it this way and later they also add additional specific image infos for their individual archivement/cataloging purposes, or when dealing with image agencies etc.

 

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On 12/11/2017 at 5:56 PM, SF Charter Boat said:

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)

 

Our point is.... Any developer company has a roadmap, and schedules... I'm absolutely convinced they hear every suggestion (and to an extent that I have not seen before in any company, both as a registered user and customer, like here, but definitely neither working at several of them ) , so, while it is a good suggestion -perhaps even already in a roadmap!- , we say that, meanwhile, you get the job done by combining -which you find essential and almost unavoidable to do in any advanced project, sooner or later- an external tool. Also because very rarely batch processing is going to be as flexible and/or fast in performance inside a general editing package like PS (way behind than the best specialized tools for that) or Affinity's,  as a specialized batch processing tool is, and which does not need even an UI (my fav batch processing tools tend to be command line...) and not having the constraints imposed in a general editing application.

 

I got back here now to mention one which I forgot to link before, and not sure if has appeared in the  thread already. But is so extremely useful for... literally anything graphic, so deep, flexible and powerful, an even more, free and cross platform (win, mac and linux) , that I don't know why I hadn't mentioned before. Imagemagick. It has a command with tons of settings for virtually any need, and beyond. The tool has a really long history, been used intensively over decades specially in server related stuff for handling image operations in batch, but is useful in so many other ways and uses. saved my work in several companies, specially when time was tight (almost always is....). And is free, completely, also for commercial. Is a highly useful companion for ANY 2D and 3D package. Very recommended. I am not completely sure about your exact needs, in detail, but, while I have not needed to use it for that specific use, in a fast glance, it has (for a lot of formats, as the application imports/exports a ton of formats) the -comment parameter, to include copyright or any meta data, the -set comment to modify existing meta data, and -strip to remove all meta data, in case you need that.  Surely it has a ton more options for all that :
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php?ImageMagick=m1p7m1l4edbn28tg0qnrejp5a4#comment

 

I believe it only modifies the header part, but confirm it, as is one danger is re-saving lossy formats like JPG / gif / etc ! . PDF with no compression (other than internal zip), PNG (if not forced/specified a lossy mode! ), TIFF (again, if only with zip compression or with none), TGA, PSD (other than loosing the native features from PS which aren't supported !) formats are lossless, so here wouldn't be a danger.

 

My advice would be use it in command line rather than with a graphical UI, and also, you can always create a bat file (in Windows console (~ the old DOS, which I keep loving)) , or an script of whatever the kind, call it from python, vb code, whatever. Or just use it normally, from Windows / DOS / Linux / whatever console.

 

If you are curious (I am, by nature) you'll see it has also parameters to insert graphically a copyright notice so it is visible at whatever the pixel placement you choose in the image, and do it in batch mode for an entire folder, with a ton of options for doing that in whatever the way you might need it.  (in case you want to make it visible, not having enough with the meta data option above. Indeed, any meta data is very weak protection, these days, but if is for internal organization with colleagues in a company, etc, that's very doable. )

 

One other interesting tool, but more specific/limited, and probably faster in performance than Exiftool, is Jhead. Its use is mostly to modify existing exif parameters, not to create new ones. It's also free. Jhead :

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/

 

Another which I haven't either tested, might be useful, also free (is more for editing raw files' meta data from the cameras, for y'all photographers ) :

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

 

I'm speaking always about a procedure of doing your edits with Affinity (of course ! So, there's no "leaving Affinity", that wouldn't be clever in any way), saving in a lossless format (not jpeg), and a final one-go type and hit batch process of an entire folder, to assign whatever copyright notice to whatever the bunch of files in the formats exported (being final files, yep, could be jpegs or other lossy format).

 

This does not mean you are forced to go away from Affinity (quite the opposite), is that, one way or the other, you end up needing external tools, even with Photoshop !  I am not a newbie, but definitely not a photographer (worked in complex photo retouching since... always, but I'm not a photographer), have worked decades editing images in practically every way....and definitely, whenever is the case that you need to handle an image catalogue (or a bunch of animation or video frames, or...), you end up needing external batch tools. Indeed, I tend to combine the macro/actions system of whatever my general editing app is at the moment (I often vary , from project to project), with these batch tools.

 

One note....when uploading your final JPEGs or whatever to internet, a ton of servers do remove the exif infos, and other meta data. Sometimes just automatically by front end/backend frameworks (often they do that to compress files, to remove some bytes, other times to remove color profile info (as browsers often don't treat that well, and web designs can get messed) ! And yet other times, to replace it with own server meta data, seen that done! :S ), and even sometimes by hand by non too wary about the matter web designers / coders (often even just happens by uploading to any Wordpress blog..)... So, only way you get to be sure is a small signature/watermark, visible, in the pixels, but imo, this tends to ruin an image (mostly a watermark, a signature to me looks more elegant...)

 

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56 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Our point is....

I think a lot of different points have been mentioned here, not the least of which is that just adding some variant of "© copyright" to any tag is, by itself, just about useless. Minimally, the usage rights & who claims them need to be defined as well, ideally both in the IPTC "core" & "Plus" extensions.

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Lots of time and information shared by many knowledgeable people, much appreciation!

A simple question has been answered, will use a third party program. This is not a high priority for me but useful in certain situations. Friends have had their photos copied in spite of extensive protection efforts. Will also see if my camera settings provide the © info, thanks for that!

Am just starting at the very beginning of AF, going over the tutorials and relieved to have found a comfortable Aperture replacement. And a Forum board with many sharing folks!

Cheers and thanks,

Stuart

www.vineyardvideo.com, some old images, fyi...

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27 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

...Will also see if my camera settings provide the © info, thanks for that!...

Most cams do support this in the one or other way, meaning that some offer explicite menu settings here like "Copyright information" for this and others may have/offer instead some "Image comment" section, where you then can add "Copyright: yourname". Just take a look at your cams menu settings if they provide such sections among their menu settings! - Such applied settings will then be written into the Exif data for every image you take!

Nikon:

nikon.jpg.c9379c3e070c7acdf022bd6b8ea9b008.jpg

Canon:

canon.jpg.932536d52106f4ef4355d7798a8250b1.jpg

Some cams also offer this instead:

other_cams.jpg.0bfeb13a987239bf89379a9ea5b2a811.jpg

 

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21 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think a lot of different points have been mentioned here, not the least of which is that just adding some variant of "© copyright" to any tag is, by itself, just about useless. Minimally, the usage rights & who claims them need to be defined as well, ideally both in the IPTC "core" & "Plus" extensions.

 

True. Bad habit of mine, putting "our" -also happens to me in Spanish- where I wanted to say "my". Actually, in this case kind of wanted to expand on stuff that had been mentioned...  Also, in quite  some countries' rights related laws, the (c) is unneeded in the sense that if is your piece, you created it, and you can prove it (setting a meta data is not the proof) you have an automatic copyright of it, by default. And/or, perhaps setting a CC (Creative Commons) license could give you better arguments of proof and defense. Yet though, I'm a strong defender of pure copyright. (while I don't see creative commons as a bad thing, quite the opposite, I've licensed some stuff so)

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4 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Yet though, I'm a strong defender of pure copyright.

But in reality is there really such a thing as a "pure" copyright? With so many different laws in different parts of the world governing copyright provisions, what defines the difference between infringing derivative uses & non-infringing ones, various statutory frameworks for determining fair use, lax or nonexistent enforcement of existing laws in some countries, & all the rest of it, I do not believe there is. :(

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As an extra consideration, just let people copy your work...then hunt them, track them, and pray they make success and good profit of your work. Then you can sue them, and grab the money in court. You can so avoid as well a huge investment in publicity and promotion campaigns !  

 

All the paragraph above is a big joke, with the only purpose of introducing the aspect that the thing has way too many sides, in the sense here that what is needed is a bunch of other matters, before considering that some uninspired people copying your work is a real show stopper for anyone creating. There are other worries and issues of larger magnitude when one wants to get to be known and so, better paid for the work (or even if not after the money, to get better recognition )

 

Wont say specific data to avoid... well to avoid things. But worked once at a small game developer start up, we got very badly played by a large distro (multinational) , in the sense that thanks to "great lawyers" , tons of money, and contracts signed by ppl who knew a lot about game code and graphics, and little about legal English and some types of half orcs in the business, the distro did not paid millions which it owed to the start-up, only a small part (ie, with the money, lawyers, time and capability to travel and long abroad staying, heck, even with just some cash for surviving, would have been won..! ). Sadly I was shown the contracts once signed, indeed, approx. a year later than it happened (I got there in the middle of the project, till the end). I found pretty funny that a year or more later, the owners, these good guys had some laugh and even felt deeply proud when they saw the game was strongly pirated and peer to peer distributed by someone cracking the only (single country) version where it went distributed. So, people valued our game way more than the distro did, lol. Often these large corporations sink a product as competes with other interests (happened to me again, around 5 years later, in another game dev company, same size...) .... )  Our game got a strong expansion thank to that, even while all rights and capabilities to get money for that was lost, for ever.

 

One piece of thought... The source, original files, with layers, etc, you gotta always keep those...and if possible, don't give 'em away... with its creation dates in the files, etc, is sth the copycat would never have, that, besides a close to invisible, disguised own signature, are very strong in court. The issue, related with the above real case, is that often one does not have the money (for lawyers), time, or capability to move to another country's jurisdiction to gain a case.... :S . So, when there are contracts in the middle, is best to read them well fully and slowly, and ask for changes, if it's worth it for you. (sometimes it wont, and might prefer not to loose the gig. )

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
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26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But in reality is there really such a thing as a "pure" copyright? With so many different laws in different parts of the world governing copyright provisions, what defines the difference between infringing derivative uses & non-infringing ones, various statutory frameworks for determining fair use, lax or nonexistent enforcement of existing laws in some countries, & all the rest of it, I do not believe there is. :(

 

I know... But a judge can estimate measures, damage done to the author no matter what, and in most cases, it'd harm completely the profit the copycat person or entity (a company can even sink for that silly act, bad press is mostly what the y fear, not laws... ) is making... Plus, probably revert some of that promotion to you, if the case gets some exposure.

 

Of course, all this said, I recon that most companies/whoever up to the "easy path" tend to kind of avoid grabbing the image when see the (c) sign or a limiting C. Commons license (not a CC0 or public domain ( the latter, btw, has a ton of interpretations, as well)). I mean, there's always the extreme "valiant" thief, or desperate one, who wont be stopped, but IMO that stops a bunch of people, and even more, a letter of Cease and Desist (that's once the person/company is hunted), tends to really put people in panic. Seen it happening specially with fanmade art, often just kids drawing their whatever loved manga character and uploading to a website (this tends to happen only if its damaging the image/brand, as usually they can't get money from kids...)... But often done as well to mid size companies. RanXerox comic character needed to change the name by the printers making company pressure, mostly due to the violent/moral content of the comic and how it could damage the brand name, sth totally unrelated to the profits, as an example... And they HAD to change it...(from Rank Xerox)

 

IMO, you don't play for getting a 100% perfect solution, you just stop most of the waves, and if some there still goes for it, you have ways to hunt the person, and make pressure (legal methods, of course, lol ), when not even benefiting from it (by fame/exposure or money...).

 

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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  • 8 months later...

Hello,

I was just wondering if there will be a possibility to edit EXIF fields in the near future with Affinity Photo?

And if there is a possibility to do it via Batch Processing (at the moment at least with the description field)?

Thank you!

Miss C

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