What it is
The IPTC Photo Metadata Standard is published by IPTC, the International Press Telecommunications Council, and used far beyond news: by photo agencies, museums, archives, stock libraries and search engines. It defines the fields that describe an image (what it shows, who made it, who may use it, where and when it was made) and how they are stored. Most of it lives in XMP inside the file, with the oldest fields also kept in the legacy IIM record for older software. How the three standards fit together is in EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP.
Two schemas: Core and Extension
IPTC Core holds the everyday fields: title, description, keywords, creator, copyright, credit, location. IPTC Extension adds structured fields for richer work: people and products in the picture, artwork, licensing, image regions, data mining and AI. Both are part of the same standard and versioned together.
The fields, in five groups
| Group | Main fields |
|---|---|
| Describing the image | Title, Headline, Description (caption), Keywords, Subject and Scene codes, Event, Genre, Alt Text |
| Who made it and who may use it | Creator and contact details, Credit Line, Copyright Notice, Rights Usage Terms, Web Statement of Rights, Licensor, Data Mining |
| Where and when | Date Created, City, State/Province, Country and code, Sublocation, Location Shown and Location Created |
| What and who is in it | Person Shown (with details), Organisation, Product Shown, Artwork or Object, Image Regions |
| How it was made | Digital Source Type and the four AI fields: AI System Used, AI System Version Used, AI Prompt Information, AI Prompt Writer Name |
Every field, with its XMP property, IIM dataset and ExifTool tag, is in the field reference.
What each version added
| Version | Published | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 2025.1 | November 2025 | Four AI fields: AI System Used, AI System Version Used, AI Prompt Information and AI Prompt Writer Name. |
| 2024.1 | December 2024 | A clearer definition of Keywords. No new fields. |
| 2023.2 | April 2024 | A correction: the missing GPS altitude reference added to the Location structure. |
| 2023.1 | October 2023 | Data Mining (for example, whether AI training is allowed) and Other Constraints; ExifTool tag names added to the specification. |
| 2022.1 | November 2022 | Contributor; a generic identifier for Product Shown alongside the GTIN. |
| 2021.1 | November 2021 | Alt Text (Accessibility), Extended Description (Accessibility) and Event Identifier. |
| 2019.1 | December 2019 | Image Regions: rectangles, circles or polygons in the image that carry their own metadata. |
| 2017.1 | June 2017 | Image Rating and Web Statement of Rights in the Extension schema. |
| 2016 | October 2016 | Genre as a structured property. |
| 2014 | October 2014 | Person Shown with Details, Product Shown and CV-Term About Image; a richer Artwork or Object. |
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns
Source: IPTC's own standard page, checked October 2026.
What 2025.1 means in practice
The four AI fields complete what Digital Source Type started: that field says how an image was made (for example, created or edited with generative AI), and the new fields record which AI system and version were used, the prompt, and who wrote it. Together with Data Mining from 2023.1, they let a file say both how it was made and whether it may be used to train AI. The guide to AI image metadata shows which values to use and who reads them.
Editing IPTC fields on a Mac
Parergon edits every field of IPTC Photo Metadata 2025.1, Core and Extension, including structures such as Licensor and Person Shown with Details, and image regions. It writes the XMP fields and keeps the IIM copies in step where they exist. Viewing is free; one photo at a time counts toward the free tier's daily edits, and templates for whole shoots are part of Pro.
