This post is part of my “Steal This Idea” series: free ideas for anyone to take and run with. Learn more about #StealThisIdea.
There’s a whole side to digital media that most people don’t see: metadata. Every picture taken with a digital camera has all sorts of details embedded in it, in the form of EXIF, IPTC and/or XMP data. This can include everything from the color profile of the image and when it was created down to whether or not the flash fired, the ISO settings, and — if a GPS was available — where the photo was taken.
Just inside “Mary’s Chamber”, where Mary, Queen of Scots was thought to stay
For example, here’s the output from a photo I took on my phone on a recent vacation:
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ExifTool Version Number : 11.70 File Name : doune-castle-door.jpg Directory : /Users/steve/Desktop File Size : 1147 kB File Modification Date/Time : 2019:12:06 11:38:41-05:00 File Access Date/Time : 2019:12:06 12:04:21-05:00 File Inode Change Date/Time : 2019:12:06 11:38:48-05:00 File Permissions : rw-r--r-- File Type : JPEG File Type Extension : jpg MIME Type : image/jpeg Exif Byte Order : Big-endian (Motorola, MM) Make : Apple Camera Model Name : iPhone 6 Orientation : Rotate 90 CW X Resolution : 72 Y Resolution : 72 Resolution Unit : inches Software : 12.4.3 Modify Date : 2019:11:15 10:50:11 Y Cb Cr Positioning : Centered Exposure Time : 1/17 F Number : 2.2 Exposure Program : Program AE ISO : 250 Exif Version : 0221 Date/Time Original : 2019:11:15 10:50:11 Create Date : 2019:11:15 10:50:11 Components Configuration : Y, Cb, Cr, - Shutter Speed Value : 1/17 Aperture Value : 2.2 Brightness Value : -0.5503409216 Exposure Compensation : 0 Metering Mode : Multi-segment Flash : Auto, Did not fire Focal Length : 4.2 mm Subject Area : 1631 1223 1795 1077 Run Time Flags : Valid Run Time Value : 178815043698458 Run Time Scale : 1000000000 Run Time Epoch : 0 Acceleration Vector : 0.01124620717 -0.9112634659 -0.4343886672 Sub Sec Time Original : 478 Sub Sec Time Digitized : 478 Flashpix Version : 0100 Color Space : sRGB Exif Image Width : 3264 Exif Image Height : 2448 Sensing Method : One-chip color area Scene Type : Directly photographed Exposure Mode : Auto White Balance : Auto Focal Length In 35mm Format : 29 mm Scene Capture Type : Standard Lens Info : 4.15mm f/2.2 Lens Make : Apple Lens Model : iPhone 6 back camera 4.15mm f/2.2 Compression : JPEG (old-style) Thumbnail Offset : 1784 Thumbnail Length : 6057 Image Width : 3264 Image Height : 2448 Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding Bits Per Sample : 8 Color Components : 3 Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2) Run Time Since Power Up : 2 days 1:40:15 Aperture : 2.2 Image Size : 3264x2448 Megapixels : 8.0 Scale Factor To 35 mm Equivalent: 7.0 Shutter Speed : 1/17 Create Date : 2019:11:15 10:50:11.478 Date/Time Original : 2019:11:15 10:50:11.478 Thumbnail Image : (Binary data 6057 bytes, use -b option to extract) Circle Of Confusion : 0.004 mm Field Of View : 63.7 deg Focal Length : 4.2 mm (35 mm equivalent: 29.0 mm) Hyperfocal Distance : 1.82 m Light Value : 5.0 |
That’s a lot of data, and I don’t even have location tagging enabled on my phone.
If I were shooting on something more sophisticated than my iPhone, I could also embed IPTC and XMP metadata, including details like comments, photographer info, and copyright. These are metadata standards that are more commonly used by professional media outlets to help protect their work.
The Idea
WordPress is a common platform for sharing news and ideas, but image metadata is largely ignored by the platform.
What if WordPress could automatically apply copyright details to each and every image uploaded to a site? What if someone running a photo blog could automatically have their details embedded in everything uploaded?
This could be accomplished via some of the EXIF functionality already in use by WordPress, or it could use ExifTool directly (for some insight on how to execute system binaries from within PHP, take a look at this blog post where I did just that with Gifsicle).
I’d imagine there would probably be a settings screen where the site owner could configure default values to write, and maybe the option to not overwrite anything already present in newly-uploaded media.
The ability to modify metadata on existing media would be nice, too.
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