Wednesday, May 23, 2012

EXIF Data Stripper

Photographs uploaded to Pinterest are stripped of their Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) data.

This "metadata" is part of a photograph's copyright management information. Digital camera will automatically record a long list of parameters for each photograph, from aperture to date the image was taken. Using the computer interface provided with their camera, photographers can also program their camera to add their name to this information. It's important to learn how to add one's name to one's camera; since 2011, EXIF data is crawled by Google and is searchable in Google Image. If the EXIF data on a photograph displayed on the internet is intact, you should be able to find it by searching for your name in image search.

It's yet another Pinterest practice that makes it difficult to find your images on their site.

You can check the EXIF data on your own images using one of the many EXIF viewers available online. You can view the data for an image on the web, or from an image saved to your computer.

Similarly, you can remove the EXIF data yourself by using an online service.

2 comments:

Annie Cholewa said...

For those of us who include a copyright statement in our EXIF data this constitutes an illegal removal of a copyright notice. Is there anything that can be done about this?

A Glass Artist said...

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. Pinterest doesn't wants to make it difficult for you to enfore your copyright. It's their modus operandi.