106068 - (iptc) Access and Display IPTC Metadata of JPEG Files as Image Properties

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Graphics: ImageLib, enhancement)

Description

[Greg K.]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:0.9.5) Gecko/20011011
BuildID:    2001101117

Certain image software allows the inclusion of "IPTC" meta data. This data
should be accessed and displayed by Mozilla as image properties.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Access the image properties of a JPEG image that includes IPTC metadata in
Mozilla

Actual Results:  IPTC information is not displayed.

Expected Results:  IPTC information should have been displayed.

More information about this metadata suite may be found at
[http://www.iptc.org/], the International Press Telecommunications Council,
under "Standards"/"JPEG File Information." Sample C++ code is available.

That I'm aware of, the Mac OS graphic applications Photoshop and
GraphicConverter both implement IPTC metadata accessibility.

Comment 1

[Greg K.]

Attachment: The Bugzilla Ant with example IPTC metadata added.

Comment 2

[Christopher Hoess (gone)]

Sister to bug 18779

Comment 3

[Greg K.]

FWIW, GraphicConverter also seems to enable this metadata suite on other image
formats, like PNG.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** Bug 146952 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

*** Bug 176196 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Sam Greenfield]

A fairly decent open-source implemenation of IPTC captions can be found in the
Image::IPTCInfo library by Josh Carter at
http://search.cpan.org/author/JCARTER/Image-IPTCInfo-1.6/IPTCInfo.pm  It seems
to implement everything in IPTC except for low-resolution preview images.  There
are also widely available open-source implementations for C--PHP and ImageMagick
both support IPTC.

There are a couple of different ways of including IPTC information in a file. 
Most programs today imbed the IPTC information inside the file.  For example,
TIFFs embed this information in tags 0x83bb; JFIFs embed this information in
marker APP13 (I think).  Another way to embed the IPTC information is through
the use of an AXS caption.  This is a trailer to a file that contains IPTC
information.  Most programs don't support this anymore.  On the Macintosh, IPTC
information was stored in the resource fork.

With Photoshop 7, Adobe has introduced a new caption format called
XMP--eXtensible Metadata Platform.  This is an XML/RDF application using the
namespace XAP.  It leverages specifications like the Dublin Core metadata
specification.  More information is available at
http://http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/xmp/pdf/MetadataFramework.pdf 
Less useful information is available at
http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/main.html  As far as I know, Adobe is the only
company using this specification so far, and they are still supporting IPTC
information with Photoshop.  I don't think it would be too valuable to support
XMP right now, but it is something to think about in the future.

The big wire services, AP, AFP, and Reuters, all use IPTC information when
transmitting their photos.  IPTC is the standard way to transmit caption
information with a photo.  Other commercial programs that support the use of
IPTC captions are MediaGrid from Software Construction Company
(http://www.swcc.com) and PhotoMechanic from Camera Bits
(http://www.camerabits.com/)  These programs are both widely used by
professional photographers.  Many image database also support the use of IPTC
captions in importing and exporting data.

Along the same lines, perhaps Mozilla should also have the ability to display
EXIF data.  EXIF is the format used by digital cameras to store information
about the constuction of the actual digital image.  For example, EXIF stores the
white point setting, lens used, and date photographed.  It can be very, very
useful to have this information when viewing digital photos.  Information about
EXIF is very easy to find; just do a search on Google.

Comment 7

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

A tool that can manipulate RDF in JPEGs: <http://nwalsh.com/java/jpegrdf/>.

Comment 8

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

Mozilla is not an image manipulator. I hardly think it needs to support viewing
image comments. (most formats have some comment/metadata filed).

As to comment #6, and EXIF, the POSIX program "jhead" is a command line viewer
for EXIF data in JPEGs, and it is public domain, so would be easy enough to add
to Moz is this is really deemed appropriate.

Comment 9

[Daniel Kabs, reporting bugs since 2002]

Sorry Jeremy,

but I have to disagree on your comment:
>I hardly think [Mozilla] needs to support viewing image comments

Please download the image at

http://democam.mobotixserver.de/record/current.jpg

and have a look at it. The JPEG comment (marker 0xFF 0xFE)
contains some interesting information that should be 
displayed somewhere in Mozilla.

Mind you, the notorious Netscape 4.7 *does* display this
jpeg comment.

Cheers
Daniel

Comment 10

[Daniel Kabs, reporting bugs since 2002]

Attachment: JPEG image containing comment field (marker 0xfe)

This jpeg image contains a comment section containing
ascii text.

The comment is introduced in the jpeg stream by marker
M_COM = 0xFE.

Comment 11

[Prognathous]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Along the same lines, perhaps Mozilla should also have the ability to display
> EXIF data.  EXIF is the format used by digital cameras to store information
> about the constuction of the actual digital image.

See Bug 232806 (a dupe of this one?)

Prog.

Comment 12

[Daniel Kabs, reporting bugs since 2002]

*** Bug 176196 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Bruno Rohée]

To be more precise on the specification we are talking about it is located here.
http://www.iptc.org/IIM/

It is very clear that the standard is dead and have been replaced by XML based
ones. I now think that developer time would be better spent doing something else
than implementing that.

Comment 14

[Sam Greenfield]

> It is very clear that the standard is dead and have been replaced by XML based
> ones. I now think that developer time would be better spent doing something else
> than implementing that.

This standard is not "dead." It is still in use by every major wire service and
publishing company in the industry. On the wire service side, this includes: AP,
AFP, Reuters, Getty, and EPS. Information entered in Photoshop panels is
simultaneously entered into both the IPTC and IPTC for XML fields. You won't see
a lot of work on the standard because the standard is over 10 years old and
still works in the real world. The biggest problem with IPTC is that
photographers and editors do not always enter the information--this is not a
problem that a different specification will solve.

Do you have real world references to back up your statement?

Comment 15

[Bruno Rohée]

(In reply to comment #14)

> a lot of work on the standard because the standard is over 10 years old and
> still works in the real world. The biggest problem with IPTC is that
> photographers and editors do not always enter the information--this is not a
> problem that a different specification will solve.
> 
> Do you have real world references to back up your statement?

By your own admitance the migration to XML is well underway, I know it is still
used but given that parsing the information is significant work we might as well
support only one standard that will last.

Comment 16

[Sam Greenfield]

(In reply to comment #15)
> By your own admitance the migration to XML is well underway, I know it is still
> used but given that parsing the information is significant work we might as well
> support only one standard that will last.

I apologize--I must have confused you. I did not mean to suggest in any way that
the "migration to XML is well underway." I think it is important to reiterate
that every major news organization and photographer currently uses IPTC captions
and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. While people may start to
use XML-based captioning formats, it will not be in lieu of IPTC.

I must admit that you have confused me a bit. When you state that IPTC standard
has been "replaced by XML based ones," to which XML standards do you refer? I'm
assuming you mean XMP from Adobe. If you feel that XMP support from Adobe should
be implemented, would you advocate that panel support should be implemented to
allow viewing and entry of fields like IPTC4XMP?

I would assert that the only reason to focus on XMP support is to allow easy
support for IPTC elements as well. That is, develop a framework that can support
reading and writing multiple different metadata fields. This could be tied in
with support for EXIF as well. However, they should still be able to be tied
together--elements from EXIF, the core XMP, and IPTC all overlap. (See Bug
232806 and Bug 18779; this kind of metadata support could also be used to close
Bug 298619)

Choosing one metadata standard over another is like choosing to display only
JPEGs rather than PNGs.

IPTC is still more important than XMP; EXIF support is also more important than
XMP support.

Comment 17

[Daniel Kabs, reporting bugs since 2002]

For Exif support you can try the add-on "FxIF"

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5673?src=api

Comment 18

[Joe Drew (not getting mail)]

This should be implemented in an add-on. Imagelib core isn't going to implement it.