README
1Image::IPTCInfo README
2by Josh Carter <josh@multipart-mixed.com>
3
4OVERVIEW
5
6Ever wish you add information to your photos like a caption, the place
7you took it, the date, and perhaps even keywords and categories? You
8already can. The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC)
9defines a format for exchanging meta-information in news content, and
10that includes photographs. You can embed all kinds of information in
11your images. The trick is putting it to use.
12
13That's where this IPTCInfo Perl module comes into play. You can embed
14information using many programs, including Adobe Photoshop, and
15IPTCInfo will let your web server -- and other automated server
16programs -- pull it back out. You can use the information directly in
17Perl programs, export it to XML, or even export SQL statements ready
18to be fed into a database.
19
20As of version 1.5, you can also add IPTC info to JPEG files. Now
21marking all your images with your name (or a folder full of images
22with a date and location, whatever) becomes a piece of cake. Great
23news for people who can't stand the tedium of using the "File Info..."
24command in Photoshop a billion times!
25
26NEW FEATURES IN 1.7
27
28Just a couple bug fixes (see Changes file).
29
30NEW FEATURES IN 1.6
31
32Better support all-around for JPEGs. It will now handle all JPEGs
33instead of insisting on JFIF; notably, EXIF files generated by digital
34cameras are now supported. SaveAs() is also improved with an important
35bug fix. (If got the error message in Photoshop, "this file is not
36supported by this version of Photoshop" after saving a file with
37IPTCInfo, that's fixed.) I'd still suggest trying SaveAs() on copies
38of images, but I believe all the kinks have been worked out.
39
40NEW FEATURES IN 1.5
41
42You can now modify IPTC info objects and resave the file. Thus, you
43can very easily do something like add copyright notices to all your
44images, set the creation date of all images in a folder to something,
45etc.. Super-huge bonus. NOTE: Please only work with *copies* of your
46images, or use SaveAs(), since I don't have enough field reports to
47say the code is definitely bulletproof.
48
49Also, file parsing on JPEGs is much smarter. IPTCInfo should always be
50able to find the info, even if there's other meta-data in your images
51(e.g. EXIF) that messed up previous versions.
52
53INSTALLING
54
55Instaling IPTCInfo is just like any other Perl module. Run the
56following from the module's director:
57
58 perl Makefile.PL
59 make
60 make test
61 make install
62
63The last line must be done with superuser access if you're installing
64into the system's perl libraries (default).
65
66DOCUMENTATION
67
68Run: perldoc Image::IPTCInfo
69
70PROBLEMS?
71
72Send me an email with any questions, comments, bug reports, etc:
73josh@multipart-mixed.com
74
75CREDITS
76
77IPTCInfo has turned out to be very popular -- much more than I
78expected. That means I've had a wonderful user base sending me emails
79with suggestions, bug reports, test files, and so forth. Many thanks
80go to all who have helped! The test files have been especially useful
81in ensuring compatibility with all graphics programs and digital
82cameras. I'm sure I've left some people off this list by accident, but
83here are some users who have contributed to IPTCInfo:
84
85Dirk Koppers Paul Bayer
86Murray Chapman Lee J Carmichael
87Sean Warburton Alfred A. Lorber
88Paul Krohn Nils Rossmann
89Alexander Ng
90
91My apologies again to people whose names I've missed.
92