How to Modify Metadata on Your Pictures: EXIF, IPTC and XMP

Photo metadata is text stored with an image. The camera writes EXIF (settings, capture time, sometimes a GPS position), and you add IPTC fields such as creator, copyright notice, caption and keywords, usually stored as XMP. To modify it, use the metadata panel of a raw editor or photo organizer, a command-line metadata tool, or the file properties dialog of your operating system, then confirm the change reached the file and not only a catalog.

This guide is about changing metadata, not just reading it. The camera side is explained in what EXIF data is, and the wording of a caption in how to write photo captions. This page goes further: which fields to fill in, which to leave alone, where your edits are physically stored, how to apply them to hundreds of files at once, and what is left after export and upload.

EXIF, IPTC and XMP: who writes what

Three names appear in every metadata panel. They are not rivals; each answers a different question about the picture.

IPTC fields were designed by the press industry so that a picture could travel between photographers, agencies and publications with its credit and caption attached. They suit any photographer for the same reason: they record what the camera cannot know.

XMP was created by Adobe and is now a published international standard. It is plain structured text, which is why it can live in two places: embedded inside an image file, or in a small separate file ending in .xmp, called a sidecar. A sidecar opens in any text editor.

One detail saves confusion later. The same field can be stored in more than one place inside a file, because an older way of storing IPTC data still exists beside XMP. Good software keeps the copies in step. A simple tool may update only one, and then two programs show two different captions for the same picture.

Only want to read what the camera recorded? How to quickly view EXIF data on your Mac covers Preview and Quick Look, reading raw files with a command-line tool, and batch workflows.

The fields worth filling in, and what to write in each

Six fields do nearly all the work. Four of them are identical on every picture you make, so they cost nothing once a preset exists.

Add the written location fields (sublocation, city, state or province, country) when the place matters. They are separate from GPS coordinates: a place name is searchable text, while coordinates are numbers a map can plot. A picture can carry either, both or neither.

Be careful with contact fields. A preset is applied to everything, including files you later hand to strangers, so it should hold only details you would print on a business card, never a home address or private phone number.

Many cameras can do part of this themselves. Look in the setup menu for an author name and copyright setting; once filled in, the camera writes both into every file it records.

These fields are a label, not a lock. Anyone with the right software can change or delete them, so they are no substitute for knowing your rights, which copyright basics for photographers explains in general terms (for anything that matters, check the rules where you live or ask a professional). A visible mark is a different tool, compared in how to watermark photos. What the label does well is help an honest user: a picture editor or a relative who finds the file can see whose it is and how to ask.

Some destinations expect complete fields. Stock libraries rely on captions and keywords to make pictures findable, as described in how to sell stock photography, and a file sent to a lab for printing is easier to trace back to you with your name inside it.

Not sure what a caption should actually say? How to write photo captions covers what every caption must answer, captions for family photos, and why captions and alt text are not the same thing.

How do keywords fit with folders and ratings? How to organize your photos covers folder structure, file naming, keywording, star ratings and color labels.

Capture data: correct the clock, change nothing else

The camera’s record is useful only while it is true. Editors read the camera and lens names to choose lens corrections, organizers sort by capture time, and you learn from your own settings months later. Treat the camera’s fields as read only, with one exception: a capture time that was wrong when it was written.

That happens for ordinary reasons. The clock was never set, it drifted, daylight saving time changed, or you traveled and left the camera on home time. The pictures then sort in the wrong order beside those from a second camera or a phone.

Which date is which

• Date and time original. When the shutter fired. Most software sorts by this field.
• Date and time digitized (some tools call it the create date). When the image became a digital file. For a camera it matches the original time; for a scanned print it is the moment of the scan.
• Modify date. The last time software rewrote the file.
• File system dates. The created and modified dates your operating system shows for any file. They are not part of the photograph and change when a file is copied or downloaded.

The basic capture time is the camera’s local clock reading with no time zone attached. Some cameras and phones also write a separate offset from universal time, but you cannot count on it.

Correcting a wrong clock in principle

1. Measure the error. Photograph an accurate clock, such as a phone’s lock screen, using the camera in question. The time shown in the picture minus the time in its metadata is the correction.
2. Select every picture made while the clock was wrong, and only those.
3. Shift them all by the same amount. A raw editor’s capture time command usually offers a shift by whole hours (the time zone case), or lets you set one picture to a stated time and moves the rest by the same difference.
4. Check that the pictures now interleave correctly with those from another device, then set the camera’s clock.

Shift, do not overwrite: one fixed time typed onto a hundred files destroys the real gaps between them. Change every date field together, or software that reads a different field keeps showing the old value. If the files are already in a catalog and you change dates with another program, the catalog shows what it stored at import until you tell it to read metadata from the files again. Where possible, correct times before importing.

Scans of old prints are the other honest reason to edit a date. The scanner records the day of the scan, not the day of the picture. Setting the date to when the original was taken is a correction; how to organize and preserve a family photo archive has a section on dating photos when nobody wrote the date down. Say in the caption when a date is an estimate.

Keeping metadata honest

Correcting an error is different from inventing a record. Changing the capture time, camera, lens, settings or location to make a picture look as if it was taken at another moment, in another place or with other equipment is deception, and it has consequences wherever the record matters: competition entries, published documentary work, insurance claims, anything used as evidence. Contests and publications commonly ask for the original file for this reason.

The same applies in the other direction. Do not remove another photographer’s name or rights information from their picture. A number of countries treat deliberate removal of rights information as a wrong in its own right; check local rules.

Where your edits live: in the file, in a sidecar, or in a catalog

Typing a caption does not guarantee the caption is in the file. It depends on the file type and the software.

• JPEG and TIFF. Metadata is embedded in the file, in sections kept apart from the picture data. A proper metadata tool rewrites those sections without recompressing the image. Opening a JPEG in an image editor and saving it again is a different operation, and that one does recompress.
• Camera raw files. The camera embeds its EXIF data in the raw file. Raw formats are specific to each maker, so most editors do not write into them and put your additions in an XMP sidecar: a file with the same name as the raw file (in some programs, the whole file name with .xmp added) in the same folder.
• DNG. An openly documented raw format built to hold metadata inside the file, so no sidecar is needed.
• Catalogs. A catalog-based organizer saves what you type in its own database. The file or sidecar is updated only if you turn on automatic writing or run a command with a name like “save metadata to file”. Until then, another program looking at the same folder sees none of your captions.

Three habits follow. Keep each sidecar beside its raw file when you move or rename, which is easiest inside the program that made it; folders and naming are covered in photo file management and backup. Write metadata out to the files now and then if your work lives in a catalog. And include both catalog and sidecars in your backups, as described in how to back up photos.

Raw editors often store their adjustment settings in the sidecar as well, so deleting one can delete your edit along with your keywords.

Doing it at import with a preset, then in batches

The cheapest moment to add metadata is import, because one setting covers every file. It belongs to the import stage of any photography workflow.

1. In your raw editor or organizer, open the metadata panel and find the preset or template command. Layouts shift between versions, so look for the words metadata preset or metadata template.
2. Fill in only what is the same for every picture: creator, copyright notice, usage terms and public contact details.
3. Leave caption, keywords and location empty. A blank preset field should mean “do not touch”, not “erase”; check how your program treats blanks.
4. Save the preset and select it in the import dialog, so it is applied as the files come in.

Batches in the metadata panel

After import, work from the general to the specific. Select everything from one place and enter the location once. Select one scene and add its keywords. Then caption only the pictures you are keeping. Most panels apply what you type to every selected file. Adding a keyword to a selection is harmless; typing a caption with two hundred files selected overwrites two hundred captions.

A command-line metadata tool

For large folders, a command-line metadata tool is faster and more exact. ExifTool, written by Phil Harvey, is free and handles almost every camera format. Three typical jobs:

• Set creator and copyright on a folder: exiftool -copyright="Copyright Your Name" -artist="Your Name" /path/to/folder/
• Add exactly one hour to every date field: exiftool -AllDates+="0:0:0 1:00:00" /path/to/folder/
• Remove GPS data from a folder: exiftool -GPS:All= /path/to/folder/

By default the tool keeps a copy of each original beside the changed file. Adding -overwrite_original stops that, so use it only when you already have a backup, and try any unfamiliar command on a few copies first.

What the file properties dialog can and cannot edit

• Windows. In File Explorer, the Details tab of a file’s Properties dialog lets you type into fields such as title, tags, rating, authors, date taken and copyright on JPEG files, for one file or several selected together. The same tab has a link to remove properties and personal information. Most raw files show their details read only. How to quickly view EXIF data on your PC shows where to look.
• macOS. Finder’s Get Info window and Preview’s Inspector display camera data but do not let you edit it. Finder tags and comments are stored by the file system, not in the picture, so they do not travel when the file is emailed or uploaded. The Photos app keeps titles, captions, keywords and date changes in its library and writes them into a file only when you export with the matching options on.
• Phones. Built-in gallery apps generally let you adjust a picture’s date and location, and offer an option when sharing to leave the location out.

That is enough for a handful of JPEGs. These dialogs have no presets, no full set of rights and contact fields, and no sidecars for raw files.

What survives export and upload, and how to remove location first

An exported file carries only what the export settings allow. Export dialogs normally have a metadata menu running from copyright only up to everything, often with separate checkboxes to remove location and the names of people. For public pictures, copyright and contact with location removed is a sensible default; for a client or your own archive, include everything. Exporting photos has a section on metadata to keep and metadata to strip.

After upload it is out of your hands. Many large social platforms remove most or all embedded metadata from the copy they show the public, which takes away the GPS position and your copyright notice together. Others keep some fields, and behavior changes without announcement. Sending the original is different: an email attachment or a shared cloud folder delivers the file with every field intact.

So deal with location before the file leaves you. The fields that can identify a place or a person are:

• GPS coordinates, which on phones can include altitude and the direction the camera faced;
• written location fields, captions and keywords that name a place, a school or a person;
• the camera’s serial number, which links separate pictures to one camera;
• the capture time, which shows when you were somewhere.

Remove them on a copy, never on your master, using the export checkbox for location, the remove properties link in Windows, the sharing option on a phone, or the GPS command above. Then open the shared copy in a metadata viewer and confirm the fields are empty, because a position can be stored in more than one place in a file. Stripped coordinates do not help if the caption names the street.

What exactly does a platform remove when you upload, and what stays? Sharing photos online covers location data and geotags, what metadata stripping on upload does and does not do, and asking before you post people.

Common mistakes

• Captions that exist only in a catalog. Another program opens the folder and finds nothing. Fix: run the save metadata to file command, then confirm in a second program.
• Raw files moved without their sidecars. Keywords and edits appear to vanish. Fix: move and rename inside the program that wrote the sidecars, or move both files together.
• Only one date field shifted. Some software still shows the old time. Fix: change the original, digitized and modify dates together.
• Private details in a preset. A home address rides along on every public file. Fix: keep only public contact details in the preset.
• Trusting a platform to keep your credit. The uploaded copy may carry no name at all. Fix: archive originals with metadata intact and treat uploads as copies.
• Writing into original raw files with no backup. An interrupted write can damage a file. Fix: back up first, and test unfamiliar tools on copies.

Try this

Take fifteen minutes and ten pictures. Copy ten photographs into a spare folder so the originals stay untouched. In your raw editor or organizer, build a metadata preset holding your creator name, a copyright notice, one line of usage terms and a public contact address, and apply it to all ten. Add a city and country to the group, then a one-sentence caption and five keywords to a single picture. Export the ten as JPEGs with all metadata included. Open one result in a different program, or in the file properties dialog, and look for your name, the caption and the keywords. Finally, export that picture once more with location removed and compare the two files.

Frequently asked questions

Does editing metadata reduce image quality?

No, provided the tool writes metadata only. It rewrites the text sections of the file and leaves the picture data alone. Quality drops only when a program opens the image and saves it again as a recompressed JPEG.

Can I change the date a photo was taken?

Yes. A raw editor’s capture time command, a command-line metadata tool and the Windows file properties dialog can all do it. Use it to correct a wrong camera clock or to date a scan, and never to misrepresent when a picture was made.

Does a copyright notice in the metadata protect my photo?

It identifies you. It does not prevent copying, and anyone can edit or remove it. Rights and how to enforce them depend on the law where you live, so check local rules or a professional for anything important.

Why does my caption show in one program but not in another?

Usually because it was never written to the file. It is sitting in a catalog, or in a sidecar the second program does not read. Write metadata to the file from the program where you typed it, then look again.

Related guides

• What is EXIF data: the camera-written record.
• How to write photo captions: what to put in the description field.
• How to organize your photos: folders, file names, keywording and ratings.
• Photo file management and backup: naming conventions and archive strategies.
• Sharing photos online: consent, children and location privacy.
• Exporting photos: format, color space, size and metadata by destination.