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The Info panel
Sections of the Info panel
The following table describes the sections that you can display in the Info panel.
Media Info
This section displays embedded media-related metadata that cannot be edited. It includes some data that your computer assigns to a file, such as type, size,
creation date and modification date.
Other fields display information based on the media type. For example, image files display dimensions, resolution, bit-depth, color space and profile. Audio files
display the type of encoding, length of the music, audio channels and data about the quality of the sound.
Media Pro also displays the size of text annotations, audio annotations and any thumbnail associated with an item in this section.
Photo EXIF
For images created by digital cameras, this section displays special Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) data that has been captured and embedded in the photo
file. This metadata includes the date and time a photo was taken (Capture Date) and also such camera-related information as shutter speed, aperture and exposure.
Global Positioning System (GPS) information can also be displayed in this section. Different cameras record different amounts of EXIF data. Only the EXIF data
captured by your digital camera is displayed here.
Cue Points
(Audio and
Video)
This section displays
cue points
, or markers that define special time stamps in some audio or video media files. For example, an audio file might have cue points
that mark the chorus, bridge and solos of a song. Media Pro lists the name and time stamp for all cue points of an item in this section.
Movie Tracks
(Audio and
Video)
This section displays the type of encoding, start time, duration, data size, data rate and frame rate for each video track of a movie file. Movie files typically contain
two tracks of digital information, one for video and one for audio. However, movies can contain multiple video and audio tracks. For audio files that contain only
one track, this section displays the type of encoding, start time, duration, data size and data rate.
Annotations
This section displays a set of predefined fields for annotating media. This set of fields, also known as the IPTC Core, includes fields that enable you to define the
author, event date, event information, copyright, labels, ratings and more.
IPTC is an acronym for the International Press and Telecommunications Council. Since the late 1970s, the ITPC has focused on developing industry standards for the
interchange of news data. The IPTC annotation fields used by Media Pro comply with the standards set by this organization.
These fields are also part of Adobe's metadata standard called XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform). Media Pro can read XMP metadata in four image file types (.jpg,
.tif, .dng and .png) and Adobe Photoshop.
Creating or editing annotations in a Media Pro catalog does not affect annotations in the original files, unless you want to synchronize the catalog items with the
original files.
Description
This section lets you write descriptions of media, which is useful for additional details or thoughts about the files. Descriptions embedded into files are
automatically shown in this field.
QuickTime
equivalent
mapping
This section displays embedded QuickTime annotations. Some files, such as MP3s or movies, have QuickTime annotations embedded. These are mapped to
annotation fields. For example, the Author annotation field is mapped to the Artist field of an MP3, Product to the Album name and Title to a song's Full Name. For
more information about mapping, see Annotation mapping
.
People,
Keywords,
Categories,
Scenes and
Subject Codes
This section displays metadata groups that are useful for describing and organizing the content of your media. These groups are part of the IPTC and XMP
annotation standards.
Catalog Sets
This section displays all the associated Media Pro catalog sets in the Organize panel to which an item belongs. Catalog sets are a free-form, hierarchical method of
organizing media files.
Note:
To add a group to the Categories, Keywords and People annotation groups, double-click the empty field and type the name of the new field.
Configuring the Info panel list
Some images in your catalogs will have large amounts of metadata displayed in the Info panel. To view all this information, you can scroll in the Info panel. However, scrolling might
become too cumbersome or repetitive, especially when you have to scroll past fields that are irrelevant to your workflow.
The same is true of the Catalog Index in the Organize panel, which is used for sorting and annotating images.
As a solution, you can selectively display the most relevant fields or groups of metadata in the Info panel and Catalog Index by selecting them from the Configure List menu.
The state of the Info panel and Catalog Fields index lists is unique for each catalog and is maintained when you save and close a catalog.
The Configure List menu also has the option of storing a default state of hidden and shown fields, which you can define. This default can be useful for workflows that focus on a specific
subset of metadata. For example, your annotation workflow might require data entry in nine fields: eight entries in the IPTC annotation fields and one entry in the Keyword field. In this
case, you can store a default that shows only these fields in the Info panel.
To configure the Info panel list
1. Click the Configure List button.
2. Click one of the following options:
Show/Hide Fields Creates a custom display of the field sections. Select or clear the check box of the fields you want to show or hide.
Save as Default Stores the current Info panel configuration as the default, which can be loaded into existing or new catalogs.
Load Default Applies your default configuration to the current catalog.
Field names
Some software programs use different names for the various IPTC/XMP field names. For example, what Media Pro identifies as the IPTC Job Identifier field, Photoshop CS identifies as
Transmission Reference. Media Pro gives you the option of selecting which field names to display: the official IPTC Core names, those names used in Media Pro, or those used in
Photoshop CS.
To change the displayed field names
On the Edit menu, point to Preferences and then click General.
Field names do not affect how annotations are written (synchronized) into media files. They are just a visual preference designed to help you select the appropriate field when you
annotate files.
