Video – Stripping the Metadata from Your Photos
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What's really great about this website is that I get to share my experiences of teaching Lightroom (and the questions asked) with all of you even if you can't be there. Today's video is one of those cases where I wrote down a question last time I taught Lightroom that I heard multiple people ask through out the day. What they were looking for is an easy way to strip the metadata (typically the EXIF data) from the photos that they send to a client or post on to the web. They simply didn't want others to be able to see the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lens, etc... that were used for the photo. Well, Lightroom has a feature that does just that and we'll take a look at it in this video.
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For more control over what metadata stays or goes you should check out Jeffrey Friedl’s Metadata Wrangler export plugin:
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/metadata-wrangler
Hi Matt,
Thank you for all your nice videos. i would like an export choice where I could strip the exif but keep the iptc. And use the “will export”-feature in the key-wording. Is that possible?
Thanks again,
Stina
Hi everyone,
I want to do the opposite. I got a crappy digital photo as a present that doesn’t show the pictures if they don’t have correct EXIF data. After editing my pictures in Lightroom it doesn’t like them anymore, probably because something is missing in the EXIF data.
Is there a tool to recreate a (minimal) EXIF record from scratch by analysing the picture itself (size, color depth, …)?
Thanks
Florian
Hi,
I just would like to thank you for sharing all these tips. They really improve my work with Lightroom.
Thanks again,
Fabio
@ Stina:
It sounds like what you could use is Jeffrey’s Metadata Wrangler which is an Export Filter that allows you to select which metadata components are kept or stripped on export. Lightroom is an all or nothing approach. The only way I can think of doing it in Lightroom is to export with “Minimize Metadata” checked, then re-import, add IPTC then export THAT copy out.
Hey Scott,
I have lightroom but I found a free software that will do this removal in a zip.
I think it will only work on Windows plattform
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
I hope this helps
Ken in KY
Does anyone know if you can strip meta data in Bridge or Photoshop without using Lightroom?
Tom,
In Photoshop, use the Save for Web & Devices option for saving your images. It will strip the data from the saved jpeg.
John
Thanks for the video.
I actually just discovered this feature and love it. The best thing is that it keeps your copyright info in the metadata, while stripping everything else out. Great for sending to clients.
Hi Matt,
I was wondering why this video isn’t on iTunes? I normally get them downloaded automatically but for some reason it has the GPS video as the latest one.
Thanks
Hi Matt,
Love the tips and tricks… I have a question completely off topic, but was not sure where to post it.
Q. While in the develop module and moving from image to image is there a way to set up Lightroom to open the image and automatically go into “Crop Mode”. While it’s not a big deal to hit the R button, I do it on almost every image I process and would like to automate the process if possible.
Thanks and keep up the great work.
Rich
It does not work exporting tiff’s at least in version 2.2 have not tried it in 2.3. Any one else have any other input on the tiff export?
Hi Matt,
Is it possible to check on both “Minimize Embedded Metadata” and “Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy”? When I check on Minimize Embedded Metadata the other grays out. Any idea why we can’t get both?
DENNIS
Another great tip Matt,
But doesn’t LR already have a bit of its metadata stripped anyway?
Using a simple exif viewer (I use the excellent firefox one written by Alan Raskin araskin@allstream.net) shows more details than LR.
Is it possible to get LR to show more metadata ?
Nigel.
Matt,
What’s up, are you OK? No new posts since last Friday?
@ Rich
When you are done cropping an image, do not double-click nor close the crop tool; Just go to the next image and you will still be in crop mode. Only close the toll when all images are done.
I concur with Glenn that minimizing camera metadata does not work when exporting TIFFs. It works only when exporting to JPEGs. An Adobe rep at a LR seminar I attended in 2007 was surprised when I demonstrated this. He said he would get back to me, but never did. Most files I send to clients are TIFFs, not JPEGs, so the Photoshop workaround is necessary to strip all metadata. Then, the desired IPTC metadata has to added.
hi there, another small util i found:-
http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=30
thanks