What is photo metadata?

Last reviewed: August 2026 · by Ferran Sarrió

Photo metadata is information embedded inside an image file, separate from the visible pixels. A single photo can contain metadata from more than one standard at once: EXIF, IPTC and XMP are the three most common.

EXIF

Camera- and capture-oriented: device information, exposure settings, capture date/time, and optionally GPS coordinates. Written automatically by the capturing device.

IPTC

Originally developed for the news and publishing industry: caption, byline, copyright notice and keywords. Usually added manually by a photographer or editor rather than by the camera itself.

XMP

A more flexible, extensible metadata format developed by Adobe, embedded as XML. Used by editing software (e.g. Lightroom, Photoshop) to store creator, rights and editing-history information, and can technically carry custom fields.

Why it matters

A photo can carry metadata from any combination of these three standards, plus format-specific technical information (dimensions, color profile, compression). Understanding which type of metadata is present helps explain what a given field actually means and where it likely came from.