In images,
"metadata" is information associated with the image. "Metadata"
means "data about the content." For example,
the date that a picture was taken is considered metadata. It isn't part of
the image, it is information about the picture. Most modern digital cameras support EXIF meta data. Cameras that support this
standard record a lot more than an image when you take a picture. The
metadata includes information about date and time when the picture was taken, the exposure
time, the F-stop and many of the other settings on the camera. For an
example, click on any of the pictures on
this web page and look at
all the information displayed about each picture. All this information is
stored in the file with the image. The EXIF standard for metadata includes
a definition for user comments, copyright holder and other settings that are
beyond the scope of what the camera can provide (there is no way for the camera
to know your comments). MetaEdit allows you to edit these values.
This is a very useful feature because the data is stored in the same file as the
image. Some other programs allow you to save title and descriptions of your
images in a database separate from your image file. Someday in the future,
the database may lose track of your files (because files get moved or renamed
etc), or you may want to use a different program that doesn't support that
database format and all your time and effort to enter that information would be
lost. When the information is stored in the same file as the image using a
standard EXIF format, the two will never be separated. More and more
applications are supporting the use of metadata. Most importantly, the
values you set here can be used by other utilities (see
text substitution).
