Meta Data is simply the identifying tag on your images. It allows you the ability to track where your images are being used; it also will allow you to prevent someone from using your images without permission. It really is crucial for any profession photographer who posts any of their images online.
So how does one put the meta-data onto their image files?
I primarily use Lightroom and it is fairly strait forward. At the top menu bar is a tab called Metadata. Click here, now scroll down and click >Edit Metadata Presets.This opens a dialogue box with a whole bunch of sections to fill out. The ones you are concerned with is IPTC Copyright, IPTC Creator, and IPTC Status. IPTC stand for International Press Telecommunications Council and is the standard for protecting content like our images.
Now just a quick FYI to get the copyright symbol on a Mac is (Opt+g) on a PC it is (Alt+0169)
Save this as a preset, and apply it when importing your images and boom, done. All of your information that you have entered will be forever embedded into your images.
What if you don’t use Lightroom, and only work in Photoshop, can it still be done?
Of course you can, every time you open an image in PS you can find and enter you EXIF or Metadata by following these steps: >file>file info> and entering the information the same as in Lightroom. In the newer PSCC everything is listed in one heading of IPTC. NOTE: After you enter your information, you must perform a save or save as command to your file or else all information entered will be lost.
There is a way to easily batch edit your imports with PS to have them all added at the same time. For this you will need to use Adobe Bridge.
Do a Select All images. By adding this metadata now to all of the original files, it will remain with all subsequent files that are created after you’ve colour corrected, cropped, downsized, etc. So now is the best time to do it. Metadata can always be added later at any time, but it becomes more labour intensive to add to all files after the fact.
Click Tools> Append Metadata and use a template for your overall information. You can create a template at this time with the basic information that you would like to add to all of your photography.