It’s in every photo you take…
But it’s completely invisible.
Most people don’t even know it exists…
And yet, it can help your photo get found and sold.
And when you know how to use it… it can even teach you a LOT about the photos you’re taking.
What I’m talking about is…
Metadata!
Now, if you’re not familiar with what the heck it is…
It’s basically all the information ABOUT your photo that’s stored inside the digital image file.
Metadata stores things like:
- The camera and lens you used to take the photo…
- What aperture, ISO, and shutter speed you were using (even if your camera was on auto)…
- Your location when you took the photo (if you have GPS enabled on your camera)…
- Whether or not the flash fired…
AND any other information you choose to add, including:
- Copyright (featuring YOUR name)…
- Any information about you, the photographer, that you choose to embed in the photo (like your address, phone number, or website)…
- Title and description of the photo…
- Keywords…
And more.
You can think of metadata as “behind the scenes” information about each photo, since you can’t see it on the photo, itself. But you can read it by right-clicking on a photo and clicking “info,” or within a program like Lightroom.
One of the most important pieces of metadata to add to your photos is your copyright information.
Lightroom makes it super easy to do. You can even set it up so that when you import photos into Lightroom, it will add the copyright information for you automatically.
Google has recently started showing copyright metadata in their image searches, so this is an extra incentive to include this information on any photo file that you plan on putting out into the world.
That way, if someone finds it somewhere on the web, they can find your information.
When you submit a photo to your stock sites, they will add a watermark overlay directly on your image to protect it until someone purchases it, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to also include your copyright metadata in the file.And, adding your information into a photo file might lead to getting contacted by a publication for a sale!
You’ll find the metadata section in the “Library” module of Lightroom, in the right side-panel, under the “Metadata” tab.
Just look at all of that information!
