Importing Photoshop IPTC data into WordPress

Thanks for your question, which is a variation on some earlier topics. As you’ve discovered, the labels Adobe tools like Photoshop (and Lightroom and Illustrator) give to metadata fields can be a challenge to map to their IPTC, EXIF and XMP equivalents. Here is an earlier topic with some guidance on using MLA to investigate your images:

How to use exif_read_data and ALL_IPTC

You can also find more information here:

Lightroom IPTC Description Field > WordPress Description Field

One experiment I performed was to go through the Description, IPTC and IPTC Extension tabs of the Photoshop File/File Info dialog box to fill in all the fields with a descriptive value. For example, I entered “IPTC Title” in the “Document Title” field and “IPTC Job Title” in the “Author Title” field. I then uploaded the image to MLA and used the ALL_IPTC feature to produce this result:

array (
‘1#090’ => ‘%G’,
‘2#000’ => ‘2’,
‘2#120’ => ‘IPTC Description’,
‘2#122’ => ‘IPTC Description Writer’,
‘2#105’ => ‘IPTC Headline’,
‘2#040’ => ‘IPTC Instructions’,
‘2#080’ => ‘IPTC Creator’,
‘2#085’ => ‘IPTC Job Title’,
‘2#110’ => ‘IPTC Provider’,
‘2#115’ => ‘IPTC Source’,
‘2#005’ => ‘IPTC Title’,
‘2#055’ => ‘20121130’,
‘2#060’ => ‘000000+0000’,
‘2#090’ => ‘IPTC City 2’,
‘2#092’ => ‘IPTC Sublocation’,
‘2#095’ => ‘IPTC State/Province 2’,
‘2#101’ => ‘IPTC Country/Territory 2’,
‘2#100’ => ‘US’,
‘2#103’ => ‘IPTC Job Identifier’,
‘2#015’ => ‘Cat’,
‘2#020’ => ‘ARRAY(Supplemental,another)’,
‘2#025’ => ‘IPTC2 Keyword’,
‘2#116’ => ‘IPTC ? Corbis. All Rights Reserved.’, )

You can also look at the Photoshop “Raw Data” tab to see if the EXIF or XMP values might be easier to use. If you use the “ALL_” pseudo values on a few of your images you should be able to decide the best values to use for your application.

I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have problems or further questions regarding the above suggestions. If you can post a link to one or more of your images I can have a look and give you more specific guidance. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

Hi David

Thanks for the reply. That helped.

However I have noticed if the file is saved as a .png file I only get XMP data and not IPTC or EXIF.

Under your Standard field mapping settings area I do not see an option to map to a XMP value? Is this possible?

Thanks for your update with the progress you’ve been making.

You can use a Content Template to map XMP metadata to Standard Fields, Taxonomy terms or Custom Fields. Here is an earlier topic with some additional information that might help:

Joining two IPTC fields into one

If you have any problems or further questions, let me know. If you post a link to one or more of your images I can see what XMP metadata they contain and give you more specific guidance.

Hi David

Thanks for your reply.

I have entered “template:(+xmp:Iptc4xmpCore.Description+)” in the EXIF/Template Value description standard mapping field and set the IPTC Value to none and the Priority as EXIF, but when I check the result on my images it shows the text “+xmp:Iptc4xmpCore.Decription+” instead of the image field value.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Also do you have a list of XMP fields?

Regards

Pete

Thanks for your update and for posting the details of your Content Template. The example you posted is close but has a minor syntax error; you need square brackets around the substitution parameters:

template:([+xmp:Iptc4xmpCore.Description+])

You might also find that common fields like the Description are available without the Iptc4xmpCore prefix, depending on what tool you use to add metadata to your images. I used Adobe Fireworks CS 6 and I can get the description as:

template:([+xmp:description+])

You asked “Also do you have a list of XMP fields?” The short answer is no, I don’t. Every image processing tool I have seen uses different naming and organization for metadata values. Adobe has published some recommendations, which you can find here:

Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)

Generally, you have to use parameters like [+xmp:ALL_XMP+] or [+xmp:Iptc4xmpCore,export+] to explore the data and find what you need.

Hi David

Many thanks. It’s now working how I require. Keep up the great work.