Metadata and flickr tags

photoman500 said:
So my question is whether Flickr tags effectively do the same jobs as metadata in the photo, or should i still have added it seperately? :thinking:
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Essentially, the answer to the first half of your question is yes.

The second bit depends where else you might tag the images with keywords, etc. If you have Adobe Lightroom or a similar cataloguing tool then you're probably better off putting the information in there as it'll help you find and sort your images later.

JohnBW83 said:
As I'm new to the whole photography world. What is metadata?
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It's not limited to photography.

Metadata is data about other data, its title, who created it, a description of what sort of information is there. Think of it like the labels on the products you see in a supermarket telling you what's inside the packets that you're thinking about buying - and there's another layer of metadata above the aisles telling you that each aisle is dedicated to frozen goods or cereals. It helps you find the things you're looking for and organise them mentally.

When you get Properties of a file on your computer, you're looking at metadata about the file, such as its size, when it was created and last modified or whether it's a JPEG, Excel or Word document inside.

In traditional photography, you might have kept a card index telling you what was on each film that you had, describing the subjects of the photographs, when and where you took them, which camera and lens you used, etc. All that we're doing is to use software to make doing all that a lot easier.
 
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If you keyword and tag your photos in your editing software then when you import into flickr the metadata carries across and saves you a job.

When I import photos from a CF card as they import my basic metadata is added, contact details, rights information etc, as a template (the camera also embeds copyright info). They are then geotagged with their location. Once I've edited I fill out the IPTC information, location, city, country etc and add keywords, title and description, all to the master TIFF.

When I export to jpeg this information gets carried across, when I upload to flickr it is all there, ready to go, similarly my own website, no more tagging or keywording is required.

It also helps catalogue my images in Media Pro, I can search for a particular location, or date, or person, or keyword, or camera or any combination thereof.
 
As Mark has said once the images are on Flickr the keywords work the same whether you've added them to the files or to your Flickr uploads but if you add them to your files most sites that have keywords for images will read the keywords, which means you only have to add them once instead of several times.
There are also other bits of metadata you may wish to add which you can't add on Flickr - such as copyright info, the creator's name, etcetera - but will be read and displayed on Flickr if it's added to your files before uploading them.
 
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