If someone is asking you “Do you know what the date is?” you are either:
- An unfortunate soul who has just bashed his or her head and is being checked out by a concerned bystander or medical professional trying to ascertain whether you’re really “with it” or not.
- A stock photo researcher who must provide their client with a quick and accurate response, if you want to make the sale.
At age fotostock, we find that it is becoming more and more important for clients to have access to accurate and thorough metadata information for images. The ability to respond to these questions quickly and reliably helps ensure that the client will be satisfied and will return in the future.
As you surely know, much of this information is added to images in editing programs such as Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom, etc. In addition, each image has EXIF information, which is information that is automatically created and stored when the image is taken. This includes information such as: camera make and settings, GPS information, and importantly, the date and time of capture.
The date the photo was taken is the most frequent request that we receive from agents and clients. In some countries, such as Brazil, publishing clients are required by law to check the date, in order to ensure up-to-date imagery. Fortunately, nowadays virtually every existing digital camera captures that information and saves it within the EXIF file. The information is there, all you have to do is… not strip it out!
We receive and store EXIF information from the majority of our photographers. However, some photographers make the poor choice (consciously or not) to eliminate that information by stripping the EXIF file. At best, you will receive an “additional information” request from us one day for a client who needs details. At worst, you will lose sales when the client opts for the “safer, easier” option of an image with complete EXIF information.
Please take the time to review your submission processes to ensure that you are not losing this valuable information. If you are unsure whether your material is arriving to age fotostock with EXIF intact, please contact us and we’ll let you know.
