06 Preserving Metadata

For our purposes let’s define metadata as any information that’s available about the contents of a scan or picture. That might be anything written on the photo or what you may know about it. It’s important to record names, dates, and places in particular. This data can be entered so that it is recorded and visible for each scan when working on the computer. It will not be visible when you make your final albums for the TV. I find it easiest to enter that information during the scanning process while the originals are still in front of me. This information, entered as tags (see below), will always travel with the image no matter what editing program you're using.

When displaying a picture in Picasa there are four tabs across the bottom right of your screen. Click on the far right tab and all the technical Properties associated with that photo will be displayed along the right of your screen. This is also considered “metadata”. Keep an eye on the date of camera pictures so you know you have it set properly in your camera.

The next tab is the Tags feature. We can use this to enter any and all information we want. It is a little limited and awkward to use. Punctuation in a line of text sends it to the next line and you cannot edit text once entered but you can delete it and start over. Click on the double arrow at the top right to expand the tags field for more space on a line of text. When a line is filled enter it and start a new line if necessary. Tags can be used to search for photos of people or places with the same tag so be consistent with your spelling. Set frequently used tabs under “quick tabs” so that you can add a tag with just a single click. And do this for multiple photos too. This might easily be a date, location, or trip name.

In Windows Photo Gallery it is the "Descriptive Tag" that follows the image from platform to platform.

Google Photos will use a photo's location and group photos by location. Be sure to have location turned on in your phone settings.