Collection - Scanned Photos Source Metadata Field

[jbrauher]

I have a large collection of scanned photos that I am using Exiftool to add metadata to.  I would like to keep track of where I sourced the different "collections" of photos from - Mom, Grandma, Dad, Cousin Fred, etc. 

While I have a basic folder structure that indicates from who the photos came from, eventually, I plan to merge them together into one collection sorted chronologically and by event, etc. and then tag and keyword accordingly.

My question is I would like to store where I sourced the photos from (Mom, Grandma, etc.) in the metadata.  Is there a standard tag for that (I have not found one), or would I need to create a custom field?  If custom, any recommendations?

Thanks for your help.

[Phil Harvey]

The first thing I would check are the XMP-dc tags since they are very common.  There is one called "Source" that sounds like a match for your needs.

Note that you'll have to specify XMP:Source to write this or else ExifTool would write the old IPTC:Source tag.

Hmmm.  It seems this writes XMP-photoshop:Source not XMP-dc:Source as I was expecting.  But I would trust ExifTool to pick the best one, so all is good and XMP-photoshop:Source it is.

- Phil

[jbrauher]

Thanks Phil.  I'll give that a shot and hopefully not do anything with Photoshop or other tool that would overwrite the tag!

[StarGeek]

XMP-photoshop:Source is part of the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard, so that's probably why it writes that.

The description of "Source" in the IPTC standard

The name of a person or party who has a role in the content supply chain. This could be an agency, a member of an agency, an individual or a combination. Source could be different from Creator and from the entities in the Copyright Notice.