IPTC Support

IMatch fully supports the IPTC / NAA metadata standard (see http://www.iptc.org) for embedding textual information into images files. The IPTC standard is widely accepted by professional photographers, graphic artists, agencies and companies in the press-, publishing, newswire- and stock photo business. It is a key technology for digital image management applications.

The IPTC Editor

IMatch comes with a comfortable and powerful IPTC Editor. This editor allows you to add/edit IPTC information in many ways. The editor adjusts to your workflow, and allows you to add IPTC captions even to hundreds of images at the same time.

Core features of the IPTC Editor are:

1. Support for TIFF, PSD, JPEG and Nikon NEF files
2. Multi-edit and single-edit modes. You can add captions (e.g. from a template) to even hundreds of images at once using the multi-edit mode. You can also navigate all currently selected images, and edit captions individually. This allows for a very efficient processing of large volumes of images
3. Templates to store common presets for IPTC-Information, e.g. copyright statements, specific bylines or other tags
4. Multiple thesauri for keywords, categories, supplemental categories, captions and headlines
5. Unique synonym feature for automatic translations or adding of synonyms for keywords and categories
6. Tools to import existing IPTC information to create thesauri, or to add/remove specific keywords to batches of images
7. Ability to customize the IPTC fields to match corporate standards or proprietary systems in use in your agency or at your customer's site

The editor uses three panes to display the IPTC information. This gives plenty of room for edit controls, and also adjusts best to most workflows.

		The first pane of the editor contains the most frequently used IPTC tags, like Caption, Headline or Byline.On this tab you can also load one of your templates, with predefined IPTC information. At the bottom of the IPTC editor you can see the toolbar, which allows you to control how the IPTC editor works and to trigger commands.
		On the second tab, you can add/edit categories, keywords, dates and times and all other standard IPTC fields. From here you have access to all category, keyword thesauri and the synonym editor. IMatch allows you to use the EXIF date and time embedded in your image to fill the relevant IPTC date and time fields.
		On the third tab, you can edit custom IPTC tags. IMatch allows you to edit these custom tags, and already includes some of the custom tags created by other applications. On the lower half of the dialog you can control how IMatch merges existing information in your IPTC fields when you work in multi-edit mode.
		The image on the left shows the unique IMatch IPTC Synonym™ Editor. This editor allows you to add synonyms to your IPTC categories and keywords. Synonyms allow you to add multiple keywords or categories to your IPTC record by just selecting a master keyword or category.

IPTC Integration into IMatch

IMatch integrates IPTC information in a variety of ways. You can search for IPTC information or use IPTC fields to sort your images in thumbnail windows. You can also use IPTC information in Contact Sheets (Index Prints), the Batch Processor, the Smart Renamer or in the Web Photo Gallery Builder.

Since IPTC information is fully accessible via the scripting object model in IMatch, you can create your own custom scripts that perform operations on IPTC information in your database or your images.