Digital Light & Color

Some 10 years ago I thought that I figured out how metadata worked... :-)

My quest is fairly simple (I guess nothing is simple in this area...): I'd like to strip processed images from most metadata other than ICC, and stamp them with Author and Copyright (and Description sometimes).

This is pretty much what PWP8 EXIF Notes displays. I also would like those notes to be fairly universally readable in any other software.

Stripping metadata and attaching sRGB ICC profile is easy. For editing Author/Copyright I used ExifToolGUI, which seems to still work, I just have to re-learn it (perhaps there is something better or simpler now?). Also, PWP7 can enter/edit those fields in batch, I believe...

My question is this: which fields and by what means should I write my Author/Copyright/Description info to?

There are EXIF Artist and Copyright and Description (as well as UserComment) fields (I suspect that this is what PWP8 is reading?)
There are IPTC By-line, By-line Title, CopyrigthtNotice
There are XMP Creator and Rights fields

And I've seen Credit, Rights and some others I'm sure, and I don't even know where they came from.

In addition, I've seen image viewers showing JPG Comments rather than EXIF/IPTC/XMP...

How should I go about it, not to regret it later?

Happy New Year, everybody!

The standard ones are the EXIF Artist and Copyright. Some cameras let you embed your name and copyright info in the metadata.

Metadata being so complicated and in a state of constant flux, in PWP8 I opted to remove all metadata editing and to use Exiftool to copy metadata (except for the ICC profile and thumbnail) from the original file to the saved file as it seems to be to gold standard for doing this.

FYI... I like the challenge to learn about PWP8 and how relatively minor knowledge of programming can make Win10 and PWP8 scripting work... so regarding PWP8's Image Info Notes tab additions/edits/deletions...

1) Create a desktop program link to exiftool.exe located in PWP8's program folder. The neat thing here is that it already is a Windows executable and JS has generously not blocked access nor limited its features.

2) In the desktop shortcut link Properties->Target box, add the following ExifTool Options in a string after "C:\....\Picture Window Pro 8\exiftool.exe" leaving a space in front of the first hyphen and each subsequent hyphen:

-EXIF:ImageDescription="Bryce Canyon National Park"
-EXIF:Artist="...den..."
-EXIF:Copyright="Copyright 2019 IMAGEs by DEN. All Rights Reserved."
-overwrite_original
-progress
-k

3) Select Apply after the Options have been added or any changes to them have been made. The suggested Option list will add/change/delete: ImageDescription; Artist; and Copyright with whatever is between the " " marks; without creating back-up *.*_original files; create a desktop progress report and a program pause so that the report can be read and manually closed.

4) Using Windows File Explorer, select one or more image file names; drag and drop the selection on the ExifTool desktop shortcut. A progress/status report will be generated on the desktop. The image file or files will be updated with no changes to pixel data and remain in their selection folder or folders. .
Have fun self-programming a variation of Command Line and utilizing Windows OS features to perhaps better your PWP8 experience.

There are numerous GUI's for exiftool but sometimes its just interesting so see/understand what possibilities are 'under the hood'.

...den...
P.S. Noticed a discrepancy in the Options list vs. those in the illustration. A -EXIF: prefix is not always necessary to idendify tag groups with a tag name but it is the best practice.

FYI ExifTool is free, so I am not being all that generous.

I'm still experimenting, but to add to Den's recipe: if such shortcut is moved/copied to

C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

right-click/Send To in windows explorer will allow applying the script to selected files, which may be more convenient than dragging files onto the shortcut.