Which TAG for my photos ?

[ArtNonoBstant]

Hy Exiftool World !

I am French, so apologise for my english.
I am also a beginner in photography, and more in photo licensing.

I searched a lot on the web, but I don't found the help I want.
I would like to know which Tags are important to "protect" my work & inform people of wich type of license there is on each photo.
I haven't got website, I'm thinking about that.

I would like to know if the Exif tag "Artist" is enough to inform.
I also want to put CC license. I found this topic, is it enough to inform ?
I want to put my e-mail ... Which group tag have I to use : Exif, IPTC, XMP ? And which tag of this group (Artist, Autor, Crator ...) ?

There is a lot of tags, and I lost myself in.
Please help me !!!
How do you do to put license ?
I am sorry if an other topic answer yet about that question. please give me the link

Thank you !!!

[BogdanH]

Hi,

I recommend using XMP for this (copyright, contact, etc.). Now, the question is, which tags you should use.. usefull for you might be:
http://www.exiftool.org/TagNames/XMP.html#dc
http://www.exiftool.org/TagNames/XMP.html#iptcCore
-but before you finally decide, do a research (inside XMP, there are different tags serving similar purposes).

Let's say you wish to write copyright into dedicated tag (assuming you're on Windows):
-exiftool -xmp:rights="Copyright by My Name" MyPhoto.jpg
-this will write into single file.
Or:
-exiftool -xmp:creator="My Name" *.jpg
-this will write into all jpg files inside directory.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Bogdan is correct that XMP is the way to go.  However, for maximum compatibility you might want to take advantage of the ExifTool MWG tag feature.

Writing MWG:Creator will write both EXIF and XMP, and also IPTC if it necessary to keep all of these metadata types synchronized.

- Phil

[ArtNonoBstant]

Thanks for these informations

[Moonbase59]

Even in 2022, this answer is still a LIFESAVER—thanks ever so much!

I often have to batch-tag camera files, and using the MWG group allows me to efficiently set the creator and copyright tags other software in the processing queue looks for.

I even made a small Linux bash script, exifset, which does it for me, using CreateDate (and FileModifyDate as a fallback in case of screenshots and the like) for the copyright year:

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#!/bin/bash

# exifset

# 2022-04-09 Matthias C. Hormann (aka Moonbase59)

# set initial params like Creator, Copyright in images and videos
#   exifset [file, folder, params]
# where [params] are standard exiftool parameters, i.e. '-ext jpg'

# define me
me=$(basename "$0")

# check if exiftool installed
command -v exiftool >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "$me requires \"exiftool\" but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 2; }

# Name for Creator and Copyright
CREATOR="Matthias C. Hormann"

# use CreateDate for copyright year,
# fall back to file modify date if it doesn't exist
exiftool -P -overwrite_original \
  -MWG:Creator="$CREATOR" \
  '-MWG:Copyright<Copyright © ${FileModifyDate#;DateFmt("%Y")} $CREATOR, all rights reserved.' \
  '-MWG:Copyright<Copyright © ${MWG:CreateDate#;DateFmt("%Y")} $CREATOR, all rights reserved.' \
  $@


This script can be used with all needed additional exiftool parameters, like, for instance

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exifset -ext jpg -r ~/Pictures/Test


Adapt as needed and enjoy!

[Moonbase59]

Small update of the script, can now take the full user name from the (Linux) system and handles the Copyright text correctly:

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#!/bin/bash

# exifset

# 2022-04-11 Matthias C. Hormann (aka Moonbase59)

# set initial params like Creator, Copyright in images and videos
#   exifset [file, folder, params]
# where [params] are standard exiftool parameters, i.e. '-ext jpg'

# EXAMPLES:
#   exifset .
#     will set Creator & Copyright for all files in the current folder
#     from the system's current username (i.e. "Firstname Lastname").
#   CREATOR="Matthias C. Hormann" exifset .
#     will set Creator & Copyright for all files in the current folder
#     to "Matthias C. Hormann"

# define me
me=$(basename "$0")

# check if exiftool installed
command -v exiftool >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "$me requires \"exiftool\" but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 2; }

# Name for Creator and Copyright
# get full name from system
if [[ -z "$CREATOR" ]]; then
  CREATOR=$(getent passwd "$USER" | cut -d ':' -f5 | cut -d ',' -f1)
fi
# If above fails, or you wish to always use another fixed name,
# change and uncomment the following line:
#CREATOR="Matthias C. Hormann"

# use CreateDate for copyright year,
# fall back to file modify date if it doesn't exist
# NOTE: Quoting the $CREATOR very carefully here!
exiftool -P -overwrite_original \
  -MWG:Creator="$CREATOR" \
  '-MWG:Copyright<Copyright © ${FileModifyDate#;DateFmt("%Y")} '"$CREATOR"'. All rights reserved.' \
  '-MWG:Copyright<Copyright © ${MWG:CreateDate#;DateFmt("%Y")} '"$CREATOR"'. All rights reserved.' \
  $@


This allows to use the currently logged-in user's name to be used ("Firstname Lastname"), let's say for all files in the current folder and its subfolders:

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exifset -r .

—OR—
specifying a name to be used (say for a bunch of folders from another photographer):

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CREATOR="Alfred E. Newman" exifset -r .


Result:

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exiftool -MWG:Creator -MWG:Copyright .
======== ./20220404-224120.png
Creator                         : Alfred E. Newman
Copyright                       : Copyright © 2022 Alfred E. Newman. All rights reserved.
======== ./20110428-153409-Canon EOS 1000D.jpg
Creator                         : Alfred E. Newman
Copyright                       : Copyright © 2011 Alfred E. Newman. All rights reserved.
    1 directories scanned
    2 image files read