Embedding Tags in Your Photo Files

When you apply tags to your photos, the information that associates the tags with the photo is stored in your catalog. It is not written to the photo file until you take one of the following actions:

• Explicitly write the tags to the photo files by selecting the photos in the Photo Browser and choosing File > Write Tag Info to Files.
• Export the photos by selecting them and choosing File > Export.
• Share the photos via email.
• Edit the image using any of Elements' editing modes.

When the tags are written to the files by any of these methods, the tag names are written to the photo file as IPTC keywords. (IPTC is the International Press Telecommunications Council, which defined a standard metadata format for embedding in photo files.)

Someone you've shared the photos with can then import them into their catalog, and they will have the option to convert the keywords to tags. (See pages 51-53 in Organize Your Photos for details on importing tags when you import photos into your catalog.)

Note: There are some limitations for embedded tags. The Favorite tag, star ratings, and Hidden tag are not written to the photo file, nor are collection names. Only the tag name is written; the category or subcategory that contains the tag is not specified.

Another issue to be aware of: Elements never removes any IPTC keywords from the photo file. Even if you remove tags from a photo in the Organizer and then choose File > Write Tag Info to Files, tags that were removed in the Organizer are not removed from the IPTC keywords. This policy was chosen to avoid ever deleting keywords that might have been put there by another program, but it can be annoying if you change your keywords very much and depend on having the correct tags, and only the correct tags, in the file. If this becomes a problem for you, you'll have to use another utility program that allows editing of IPTC metadata to remove the old keywords (or to delete all the keywords if you want to just start over). (Thanks to Colin Walls for pointing this out.)

You can confirm that the tags have been written to the file by viewing the photo's properties (select it in the Photo Browser and press Alt-Enter). Choose the Metadata pane of the Properties palette, and click the Complete button. Scroll down to the IPTC section and, if necessary, click the triangle next to the IPTC name to show the tags.