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The use of Exif Metadata in a newspaper workfl ow
Simon Spann
Trinity Mirror Newspapers
June 2007
Daily Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The People
Magazine titles
Regional titles
Contract Print
Trinity Mirror is the UK’s largest newspaper publisher, with a portfolio of more than 500 media brands
This includes some 240 local and regional newspapers, fi ve national newspapers and four sports titles, as well as over 300 websites
With its headquarters at Canary Wharf in London, the Group employs approximately 10,000 people in centres across the UK
The potential benefi ts of Exif Metadata...
• Facilitates faster processing of images
• Ensures greater consistency
• Removes subjective evaluation and correction
• Improves image quality
• “Future proofs”
• Makes economic sense
So what is Exif Metadata?
Exchangeable Image File Format
The information captured by your camera at the point at which a picture is takene.g. compression applied, colour information, shutter speed, time and date etc.
IPTC Metadata
The information entered by the photographer once the picture has been taken
Aids in the storage and retrieval of fi les and the easy identifi cation and captioning of pictures
Helps eliminate copyright issues
What is XMP?
XMP is the acronym for Extensible Metadata Platform a standard developed by Adobe
Adobe products such as Bridge, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop store metadata using this standard
and fi nally a brief word on XML...
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language
Facilitates the sharing of data across different information systems
XML is recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium
It’s a fee-free open standard
Image Capture...
• Almost all digital cameras store extra information, called metadata, with your pictures
• Digital fi les are accessible to the paper more quickly and effi ciently than ever before
• Thanks to the signifi cant advances made by camera manufacturers, pictures are now much easier to take
• DSLR (Digital Single Lens Refl ex) camera’s are more accessible to users
Image Capture...
• The vast majority of images from DSLR cameras are in either thesRGB or Adobe RGB colour space
• It seems to logical to avoid multiple conversions
• Newspapers control of incoming pictures is limited, given the wide variety sources
• Camera manufacturers need to ensure that information is embeddedin a non-proprietary format
Camera raw fi les...
• Camera raw fi le formats are proprietary
• A raw image fi le contains data from the image sensor of a digital camera or scanner
• Raw fi les are so named because they are not yet processed and ready to be used with a bitmap graphics editor or printed
• They contain no CIE white point reference
• Further steps are required to produce a JPEG fi le
The Photoshop Raw format
• Don’t confuse Photoshop raw with camera raw fi le formats which are proprietary formats developed by various camera manufacturers
Adobe RGB may offer a more appropriate colour space for transformationto press CMYK than that of sRGB
Magazine products have a larger colour gamut than that of the web-offset newspaper gamut
Adobe RGB
sRGB
High Paper QualityCMYK
Current Trinity Mirror (Nationals) Workfl ow
CMYK PDF (1.3) pages
transmitted toPrint Sites
RGB to CMYKconversion in
via ICC profi les(IFRA 26)
RGBimage manipulationprior to conversion
PICTUREAGENCIES
Incoming picture fi les
PICTUREDESKS
PICDARIMAGE LIBRARY
10-15000 pictures arereceived
on a daily basis
Potential problems with Exif...
Choice of pictures is content driven
Only 10-15 percent of incoming fi les contained meaningful Exif in terms of conversion
Inappropriate Exif data for the subject matter
Live situations diffi cult to control or assess
No automated software currently available, capable of handling conversionsin an effi cient and appropriate manner
Workfl ow Issues...
Image correction is subjective i.e. Operator dependant
Time constraints impact on the ability to achieve optimal results
Multiple conversion/correction of image fi les may take place
Image sources fl owing into the Daily Mirror titles...
ISDN
(Group/Personal)
FTP (fi le transfer protocol)
Getty’s
(Group)
FTP(fi le transfer protocol)
(Group/Personal)
E-LOADERS
(Group/Personal)
PICTURE AGENCIES
Press Association (PA)Associated Press (AP)
Reuters Agence France-Presse (AFP)
PICDARIMAGE LIBRARY
10-15000 pictures arereceived
on a daily basis
Image sources fl owing into the Daily Mirror titles...
PICDAR
10-15000 pictures arereceived
on a daily basis
LIBRARY DATABASE
Saves proprietary Picdar EXIF-Jpeg with unique
reference number (URN)All IPTC and EXIF metadata
is preserved
PICTURE DESK
Daily Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The People
PICTURE EDITORSAccess to personal and group
databasesImages transferred to relevant
queues
NEWS DESK SPORTS DESK FEATURES DESK
WORKINGPICTURES
TIFF, EPSFEXIF-JPEG
(No EXIF metadata retained)
Potential Workfl ow...
PICTUREAGENCIES
CMYK PDF pages transmitted to
Print SitesIncoming picture fi les
PICTUREDESKS
PICDARIMAGE LIBRARY
10-15000 pictures arereceived
on a daily basis
AutomaticConversion
of Exif images
Manualintervention intervention
on“failed images”“failed images”
Automated batchimage
processing
Vettingof
completed fi les
What I’d like to see…
Further development of software capable of using Exif metadataProducts such as Agfa Intellitune
Education of photographers (in terms of manipulating images prior to us receiving them)