loupeYour work's metadata
What loupe reads from your files, what it keeps, and what it writes back into every picture that leaves — in plain words.
What metadata is
Every picture file can carry a small label inside it: what the work is called, who made it, when, where, who took the photograph, and who holds the rights. That label is metadata. It travels inside the file, so wherever the picture goes, the label goes with it.
IPTC is the shared standard for that label. It's why photo software, publishers, museums and archives can all read the same label the same way. When loupe writes a label, it writes it the IPTC way wherever the standard has a place for it.
What loupe does with it
- When you upload. If your files already carry details from the software you use — captions, keywords, dates, places, credits — loupe shows you what it found and fills in only the blanks, when you say so. It never overwrites anything you typed. Where a file gives a more precise date than one you wrote (the day, where you wrote only the month), loupe offers that separately, and never where the file disagrees with you.
- Your record. Everything about a work lives in loupe: its title, its date, its materials and size, where it was made, and the photographs of it.
- Every file that leaves loupe carries your record. The pictures visitors see on your site, anything they download, your submission packets, and your own complete copy.
- You decide what visitors' files carry. The title, the maker, the date, the medium, the size and the rights always go. Captions, keywords, places, the names of people pictured and your original file name are each your choice, and each work’s own page shows the same — except the names of people pictured, which are never on a page. Your own copy always carries everything.
Two sets of facts in one file
A photograph of a painting, a sculpture or an installation holds two sets of facts, and loupe keeps them apart, as the standard does:
- About the photograph: who took it, when, where the camera was, and the photographer's copyright.
- About the work in it: its title, who made it, when, its materials and size, and your copyright.
So a photographer's credit stays the photographer's, and your work stays yours. Neither is ever filled in from the other, and loupe never makes up a copyright notice you didn't write.
Who those two people are is its own question — why a creator field holds a name and not a life story, and how that lines up with the systems museums and libraries use: the maker.
How your record lines up with IPTC
Take a sculptor's installation as the example: a woven willow pavilion, built at a botanic garden in November 2022 and taken down in 2024.
| On your record | In the file | Read by other software? |
|---|---|---|
| Title | IPTC Artwork Title | Yes |
| Who made the work | IPTC Artwork Creator | Yes |
| When it was made or built — a year, a month or a day | IPTC Artwork Date Created | Yes |
| Materials and size: willow, 21 × 35 × 35 ft — height, then width and depth | IPTC Artwork Physical Description | Yes |
| Your words about the work | IPTC Artwork Content Description | Yes |
| Who built it with you | IPTC Artwork Contribution Description | Yes |
| The site: its name, city, state or province, country | IPTC Location Shown in the Image | Yes |
| Your copyright | IPTC Artwork Copyright Notice | Yes |
| Who took the photograph | IPTC Creator | Yes |
| When the photograph was taken | IPTC Date Created | Yes |
| Where the photograph was taken | IPTC Sublocation | Yes |
| The photographer's copyright, and the terms of use | IPTC Copyright Notice, Rights Usage Terms | Yes |
| Caption, keywords | IPTC Description, Keywords | Yes |
| The gallery a work belongs to | IPTC Series | Yes |
| Names of people pictured | IPTC Person Shown in the Image — only if you turn naming on | Yes, when on |
| Still standing, or taken down and when | No IPTC field — loupe's own section | No, but it travels with the file |
| Height, width, depth and unit as separate numbers | No IPTC field — loupe's own section, beside the Physical Description sentence | No, but they travel with the file |
| A letter or document: what kind, and who it was to | No IPTC field — loupe's own section | No, but it travels with the file |
| A letter's full typed text | Not in the file — on its page and in its PDF | — |
| Video and press about a work | Not in the file — on the work's page | — |
| A place you've hidden from your archive | Never written into a visitor's file | — |
| Price | Never written into any file | — |
Where loupe goes its own way, and why
- A work that is no longer there. The standard has no place to say a piece has been taken down, removed or destroyed. loupe writes it in its own clearly named section, so it travels with the file without pretending to be something it isn't.
- Size, as numbers. A size can be kept two ways: as a sentence people read (21 × 35 × 35 ft), or as separate numbers software can sort (height 21, width 35, depth 35, in feet). The standard only has room for the sentence. loupe writes the sentence there, and writes the separate numbers in its own section of the same file, so every piece taller than 20 feet can be found without anyone reading sentences.
- Letters and documents. What kind of document it is, and who it was written to, go in loupe's section, because the standard doesn't cover them. A letter's full text can run to pages, so it stays on the letter's page and in its PDF rather than inside every picture.
- What never goes into a file. Prices, because a file travels to other people. The names of people pictured, unless you choose to name them. A place you've hidden from your archive — a home address, somewhere private. Video and press, which belong on the work's page rather than inside a picture.
Everything in loupe's own section is written under loupe's name, so any software that doesn't know it simply passes over it, and nothing that does know the standard is misled.
What this means for you
- Enter a work once. Every file loupe hands out carries its title, date, materials, size, credits and rights, in the form photo software, publishers, museums and archives already understand.
- Nothing you typed is overwritten by what a file says.
- The facts the standard has no room for still travel with the file, in loupe's own clearly named section.
- Your own copy to keep carries all of it — your whole record, in the standard fields — on any plan, any day.
Questions: [email protected].
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