Adobe Systems Incorporated Joins IPTC as Voting Member

LONDON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

After 12 years of collaborative work on establishing and implementing photo metadata standards, IPTC, International Press Telecommunications Council, the global technical standards body of the news media and related industries, announced Adobe Systems Incorporated is joining as a Voting Member. Adobe's membership was announced at IPTC's Spring Meeting today in London.

"Adobe is a key player in the media production ecosystem, so we are thrilled to welcome them as a member of the IPTC," said Stuart Myles, Chairman of the Board of IPTC, and Director of Information Management at Associated Press. "We look forward to working together with Adobe on driving continued improvements in the workflows of photo and video creators around the world."

"Adobe has a long history of working informally with the IPTC, and we look forward to further success as we participate directly and contribute as a Voting Member," said Dr. Scott Foshee, Principle Scientist, Adobe. "Our close involvement will not only enable greater coordination between Adobe and the IPTC, but will also allow Adobe to facilitate better coordination across the photography standardization community."

Photo metadata is key to protecting images' copyright and licensing information, and for managing digital assets. IPTC's Photo Metadata Standard, created with contributions by Adobe, is the most widely used because of universal acceptance among photographers, distributors, news organisations, archivists, and developers. Adobe's metadata management software, which supports the IPTC standard, is used by Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Acrobat and Premiere.

"Adobe's implementation has made IPTC photo metadata very popular," added Michael Steidl, IPTC Managing Director. "For 12 years we have been collaborating on fostering professional use of IPTC photo metadata by photo businesses - building on our success by conducting research and incorporating feedback from users. This membership will open yet more opportunities for better tagging of photos and videos."

Adobe first adopted IPTC IIM metadata in Photoshop around 1994 and later created the metadata format XMP. In 2004 IPTC and Adobe joined forces to support a consistent use of metadata: The first IPTC Photo Metadata Standard was created jointly. A main goal of the standard was to provide support for photographers and photo editors to use the fields in correct and consistent ways.

Adobe will be a Voting Member of IPTC, signifying Adobe as a key player and industry leader. IPTC currently has about 60 members . Its voting members take part in all decisions regarding IPTC standards. Delegates can participate in working parties and groups, may request changes, and make contributions to standards' development.

About IPTC: 

The IPTC, based in London, brings together the world's leading news agencies, publishers and industry vendors. It develops and promotes efficient technical standards to improve the management and exchange of information between content providers, intermediaries and consumers. The standards enable easy, cost-effective and rapid innovation and include the Photo Metadata and the Video Metadata Hub standards, the news exchange formats NewsML-G2, SportsML-G2 and NITF, rNews for marking up online news, the rights expression language RightsML, and NewsCodes taxonomies for categorizing news. Visit the web site http://www.iptc.org or follow @IPTC on Twitter.

Media contact:
Michael Steidl, IPTC Managing Director
Phone: +44(20)3178-4922
Email: office@iptc.org