What’s your favourite IPTC editor on Mac OSX

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I’ve been thinking of Informator Pro as it works right through the Finder of Mas OS X but their product isn’t Tiger ready yet and the trial downloads don’t work. GRRRR!! Painful and discouraging!

What is IPTC?

IPTC was established in 1965 by a group of news organisations including the Alliance Europ�enne des Agences de Presse, ANPA (now NAA), FIEJ (now WAN) and the North American News Agencies (a joint committee of Associated Press, Canadian Press and United Press International) to safeguard the telecommunications interests of the World’s Press.

Since the late 1970′s IPTC‘s activities have primarily focussed on developing and publishing Industry Standards for the interchange of news data.

Here are your choices, if there is more than this to add please do let me know and I’ll add ‘em in.

What do you use? And most importantly – why do u prefer it?

9 thoughts on “What’s your favourite IPTC editor on Mac OSX”

  3. It’s been a month and I’m still stuck. I eventually had to go to using text files as a temporary alternative.

    The first person that makes a comprehensive IPTC editor will be a millionaire.

  6. I am a bit late in the game, but I have found myself caught up in the same net, in search for an IPTC editor. I have used a few of the options on the list, but could not find everything I wanted in one place that was easy to navigate. I was looking for a way to write IPTC for single or multiple images with the simplest interface possible.

    The BEST solution I have been able to find is simple, easy, does batches, and Free. Create it yourself! Make an automator workflow using a free "Write IPTC Tags to JPEGs" action provided by Apple:

    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/w…

    If you are unfamiliar with Automator, I suggest you learn it and love it! It can save you so much time, especially with regards to photos!

    Steps to do so:

    1) Download and Install "Write IPTC Tags to JPEGs" from the address above

    2) Open Automator

    3) Create a Custom Workflow

    4) Drag the "Write IPTC Tags" action over to your Workflow and fill out the IPTC Data you wish to add;

    •Alternatively (My Choice): Click "Options" within the "Write IPTC Tags" and select "Show this action when the workflow runs" and you can change the data each time you use the workflow

    5) File > Save and Name your Workflow

    6) Use your created Workflow to change IPTC data for JPEG images

    Note: For Step 5, I choose to "File" > "Save As Plug-In…" for Finder. This allows me to select my image(s) within Finder, Control-Click > More > Automator > "Write IPTC Tags" for each or all of the selected images. You could also save it as an application you can add to your Dock to drag-and-drop images to initiate the workflow.

    I do hope to save people the time and trouble I went through when looking for a decent solution to the problem.

    The biggest disadvantage I have found with the Automator solution is as follows: The IPTC tags you edit will replace/overwrite any existing IPTC information; this method will not allow you to add info to the tags without replacing all that is already there.

    My Current System:

    Mac OS X 10.5.8

    2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

  7. Its good to revisit this post. I seem to use LightRoom for most of the quick and easy IPTC I need to edit/add/delete but if I need to do a thorough detailed IPTC I prefer Photo Mechanic. Bit pricy for the job but blazing fast and save a LOT of time!

  8. Mark-

    I like the Automator approach, but I have a question: I'm trying to clear the IPTC Keywords field for a ton of pictures. How do you have the Automator delete everything in that field only?

    Thanks!

    Dave

  9. Hi Mark-

    I like the Automator approach. However, I'm trying to figure out how to delete all current values stored in the IPTC Keyword field and just leave them blank, without affecting any other field. Do you know how to do this with the Automator script?

    Thanks!

    Dave