Thank you for choosing quality software from Microsoft. This file contains information to help you get the most out of this software program.
Microsoft Photo Info is an add-in for Windows that allows photographers to add, change and delete common “metadata” properties for digital photographs. In addition, it provides enhanced “hover tips” and additional image file sort properties in Windows Explorer (in Details view).
Microsoft Photo Info is designed to run on 32-bit versions of the Windows XP (with Service Pack 2 or later) or Windows Vista operating systems (see Requirements for details).
Microsoft Photo Info provides the following features:
· View or edit photo metadata from inside Windows Explorer. View or modify advanced image properties from within Windows.
· Edit images individually, or as a collection. Photo Info has two edit modes: individual and collection, making it easy to update many images at the same time.
· Quick recall of recent entries. For some properties, Photo Info remembers the most recent entries you have typed. To recall a recent entry, click on the drop down arrow and select it from the list.
· Generate copyright notice automatically. Photo Info can generate a standard copyright notice automatically from the Author and date Created information, if present.
· Quick recall of location details. To help save time when entering location information, Photo Info can save location details under a name you provide. Recall these details by selecting the location name from the drop-down menu.
· Correct EXIF capture date / time information. Photo Info can optionally update the EXIF date/time information as recorded in the image file by your camera. You can use this feature to correct the file capture date if your camera’s clock was set incorrectly (for example, to the wrong time zone).
· View EXIF properties. Click on the Details tab to view common EXIF properties. Click on More properties for additional details.
· Preview the image. To see a larger preview of the image, double-click on the thumbnail.
· Enhanced hover tips. Hover tips have been enhanced for JPEG, TIFF and other supported file types in Windows Explorer.
· Custom column properties. In Windows Explorer when viewing a folder in Details view, additional sort properties are available for supported image types.
You must have Administrator privileges to install Microsoft Photo Info.
If installing on Microsoft Windows XP, you may be prompted if the .NET Runtime 2.0 is not present on your system. In addition, the software will install the WIC 1.0 redistributable package if it is not already present. Note: WIC is an operating system component and it will not be uninstalled automatically if you later decide to uninstall Microsoft Photo Info.
After running Setup, a new “Photo Info” item appears in the file context menu in Windows Explorer. (Microsoft Photo Info can only be accessed from within Windows Explorer; it does not appear separately in the Windows Start Menu.)
To use the tool, select one or more supported image files in Windows Explorer, right-click and choose Photo Info. The Photo Info properties dialog appears. This dialog permits you to view and edit properties for selected images individually or as a batch, and you can switch between these two editing modes at any time. Navigate between selected images by clicking on the Next or Previous buttons or by pressing the Page Up or Page Down keys on your keyboard.
Properties are arranged in several tabs: Description, Keywords, Origin, Advanced, and Details. Click on the tab containing the information you wish to view or edit. To see tips or get help with a particular property or control, hover over it with your mouse, or, click the “question mark” icon in the title bar, then click the control for which you wish to see additional information.
When you are finished, click OK or Apply to save your changes, or Cancel to exit the tool without saving changes. You can also undo changes by clicking on Revert. Only changes that have not yet been saved can be reverted.
Microsoft Photo Info does not modify the image pixel data in any way when saving changes; only valid “metadata” properties are updated or added to the image file.
Note: Please see Support for RAW File Types for a discussion of how to use Photo Info with RAW file types and with other digital photography software.
You can verify your software version, view this document, view your End User License Agreement (EULA), or access a link to provide feedback to Microsoft by clicking on the Advanced tab, then clicking on About Microsoft Photo Info…
· 32-bit Microsoft Windows Vista operating system (any version)
· 32-bit Microsoft Windows XP operating system (any version) with Service Pack 2 or later installed, and the following components:
o Microsoft .Net Framework runtime version 2.0.
o Microsoft Windows Imaging Component (WIC) redistributable, version 1.0 (included in Photo Info Setup and installed automatically if not present).
This initial release of Microsoft Photo Info supports the following common image file types: JPEG, TIFF, WDP, HDP (HD Photo), NEF, CR2, and CRW.
Note: Support for CRW files may require that an associated THM file is present in the same folder as the selected CRW image. (THM files are thumbnail “sidecar” files generated by certain Canon cameras.)
More details about RAW file format support can be found in Support for RAW File Types.
Microsoft Photo Info supports many of the properties in the Information Interchange Model 4 specification as published by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). Microsoft Photo Info can read and write these properties in either the “legacy” IPTC IIM format (the well-known “IPTC headers” supported in Adobe Photoshop and other programs) or in the newer Adobe XMP metadata format, depending upon the file type. In the case of certain RAW file types, support for XMP metadata may be limited if a RAW WIC codec is not installed (see Support for RAW File Types for more information).
For some properties, Microsoft Photo Info maps the original IPTC property names to more commonly used terms:
|
Microsoft Photo Info property |
IPTC IIMv4 Tag |
|
Title |
Object Name |
|
Author |
Byline |
|
Description |
Caption |
|
Description Writer |
Writer/Editor |
|
URL |
Contact |
Microsoft Photo Info also enables you to give your photos “star ratings” that are compatible with both Windows Vista and with Adobe software.
If the same property is found in a file in both IPTC and XMP formats, Microsoft Photo Info gives precedence to the XMP value for display. When updating properties, Microsoft Photo Info attempts to write the new values to both IPTC and XMP formats if the file type supports both. In this case, the property values will be synchronized.
Microsoft Photo Info is designed to use the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) architecture recently introduced with Windows Vista and also supported on Windows XP. WIC supports a pluggable model that enables camera vendors to provide “codecs” that enable WIC-based software to support their RAW file formats. Most camera manufacturers have plans to support WIC, and in the future you will generally obtain RAW codecs by downloading them from your manufacturer’s Web site, or by installing them with your camera software.
Because few production RAW image codecs were available for testing at the time this software was released, this initial version of Photo Info has limited support for RAW file types. Specifically for version 1.0:
· Only certain Canon (CR2, CRW) and Nikon (NEF) RAW file formats are supported.
· If a WIC codec for one or more of these formats is not installed, Photo Info reads and writes IPTC metadata only; XMP metadata is not supported. Other application such as Adobe Photoshop can generally read the IPTC metadata that Photo Info writes, but may write changes back only in XMP. If so, Photo Info will not see these changes.
· If a WIC codec for one or more of these formats is installed, Photo Info will attempt to write both XMP and IPTC through the codec. Interoperability with other software will be determined by the metadata support provided by the codec.
As additional WIC codecs become available for testing, Microsoft may release new versions of Photo Info with support for additional RAW file types, including those from other camera manufacturers. (See Downloading and Installing RAW Codecs for more information.)
Currently, all XMP-enabled software writes XMP metadata for RAW files in a separate “sidecar” file having a ‘.XMP’ extension. For XMP metadata to be visible in a RAW image the sidecar file must be present in the same directory as the RAW file, and the sidecar and RAW file must have the same root name. If you move or copy your RAW images in Windows Explorer, you must be sure to move or copy the .XMP flies as well if you want XMP metadata to travel with the file. (By contrast, IPTC metadata that Photo Info writes is stored within the RAW file itself.)
It is possible that in the future camera vendors may define ways to write XMP metadata into their RAW files without use of separate “sidecar” files. If so, Photo Info would support this when and if a RAW codec having this feature is installed in Windows.
Microsoft is working with camera manufacturers to ensure that customers have a simple means of finding and installing codecs for RAW files. To find more information and check the availability of codecs for Nikon and Canon RAW files, try the following links:
· The image capture time may appear differently in Photo Info than in Windows Vista. Windows Vista displays the capture time relative to the current time zone, while Photo Info displays the time relative to the original time zone.
· Interoperability with other software such as Adobe Photoshop may be limited for RAW files. In the absence of an installed WIC codec, Photo Info may not read or write XMP metadata for supported RAW file types. (See Support for RAW File Types for more details.)
· The size of TIFF files may increase substantially when adding or changing metadata if the file was saved using TIFF compression. This is because the file is rewritten as an uncompressed (standard) TIFF file. (This is currently a limitation of the Windows Imaging Component TIFF metadata writer.)
· Apple Aperture may not see IPTC metadata written in TIFF files.
· Microsoft Photo Info does not run on 64-bit versions of Windows or on Windows Server 2003.
Your feedback is important in helping Microsoft improve the usefulness of its software. To share your thoughts with us, click on the Advanced tab, then on About Microsoft Photo Info…, then on Give us your feedback on this product.
Thanks!
The Microsoft Photo Info Team