What is the difference between EXIF and IPTC?

Exif is CIPA's camera-oriented standard. IPTC's Photo Metadata Standard defines descriptive and rights fields, and says it includes no technical metadata.

Is XMP the same as IPTC?

No. XMP is a container created by Adobe that defines no fields itself. IPTC Core fields can be stored in XMP, in the older IIM format or in both; IPTC Extension fields only in XMP.

Which field holds the copyright notice?

IIM 2:116, XMP dc:rights and the Exif Copyright tag (0x8298). IPTC's mapping guidelines say the Exif Copyright and IPTC Copyright Notice values are copied directly in both directions.

Can a PNG or WebP carry IPTC fields?

The PNG specification defines no IIM chunk and the WebP specification lists only Exif and XMP chunks. IPTC fields can be stored in the XMP of those files.

Does resizing a photo keep its metadata?

It depends on the program. In our tests sharp and Pillow dropped every field at default settings.

EXIF, IPTC and XMP: photo metadata explained

Exif is CIPA's standard for camera data; IPTC is the Photo Metadata Standard that defines credit and copyright fields; XMP is the Adobe-created, ISO-standardised container that can carry IPTC and other fields. A JPEG can hold all three. PNG and WebP specifications list Exif and XMP chunks.

Published October 30, 2026. Drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources linked on this page. How we write our guides.

EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP: what each one is

Exif is the Exchangeable image file format for digital still cameras. It is maintained by the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), which worked on it with JEITA. CIPA's standards list shows Exif Version 3.1, published January 30, 2026, as a revised edition of the 2024 one. Adobe's Lightroom Classic export page gives exposure, focal length and date and time as examples of EXIF camera metadata. Exif also has Artist and Copyright tags.

IPTC is the International Press Telecommunications Council, which maintains the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard. It describes photos with two schemas, IPTC Core and IPTC Extension. The current version is 2025.1, published in November 2025. The specification says it does not include any technical metadata, which it leaves to the camera makers and bodies such as CIPA.

XMP is the Extensible Metadata Platform. According to IPTC's user guide, Adobe created it in 2001 as a data format for metadata fields, and it defines no fields itself; schemas do that. XMP is an ISO standard, ISO 16684-1:2019, whose text says that embedding XMP packets in specific file formats is beyond its scope.

The result is a layering. IPTC defines the fields; IPTC says its Core fields can be stored in its older IIM format, in XMP, or in both. Exif keeps its own tags. So "IPTC data" names a set of fields, and where they sit is a separate question.

What is IPTC metadata: IIM, Core and Extension

IIM, the Information Interchange Model, is IPTC's older format, created in 1991. A subset was adopted by Adobe Photoshop in the early nineties as the "IPTC Fields". IPTC's guide says Core fields can be embedded in IIM and/or XMP, while Extension fields can be embedded only in XMP. Because Core mirrors the IIM fields, IPTC says it will no longer be extended.

IPTC's specification adds that values should be saved to an image file using both IIM and XMP. The 2025.1 release also added four properties for AI-generated content: AI Prompt Information, AI Prompt Writer Name, AI System Used and AI System Version Used.

Which field holds credit and copyright in each format

The mapping below comes from IPTC's specification and its mapping guidelines. IPTC describes the mappings as suggested rather than mandatory. The specification itself lists no Exif tag; the Exif column is from the guidelines.

Where each credit and copyright field lives
IPTC property	IIM	XMP	Exif
Creator	2:80 By-line	dc:creator	Artist (0x013B)
Copyright Notice	2:116	dc:rights	Copyright (0x8298)
Credit Line	2:110 Credit	photoshop:Credit	none listed
Copyright Owner	none	plus:CopyrightOwner	none listed
Web Statement of Rights	none (Extension)	xmpRights:WebStatement	none listed

Two limits matter in practice. IPTC's guide says the IIM format limits the copyright notice to about 128 characters and the credit line to about 32; in XMP there is effectively no limit. And Google Images, according to the same guide, first reads the XMP dc:rights field and, if that is empty, the IIM 2:116 copyright notice. Exif 3.0 (2023) added a UTF-8 text type; before it, text fields such as Copyright and Artist had to be ASCII, as IPTC reported. We did not test non-ASCII text, so we cannot say which programs write it.

In Adobe's File Info panel, IPTC's guide says, the Web Statement of Rights is called Copyright Info URL. If you want to fill these fields, our guide to adding copyright information to a photo's metadata has the steps.

Which file formats can carry EXIF, IPTC and XMP

This table is our reading of the specifications cited in it, not a statement from one source. Where the table says "no chunk defined" or "not listed", the specification we read names no such block. That is not the same as saying the fields cannot be stored: IPTC fields can sit in the XMP of a PNG or WebP.

What each file format's specification lists, in our reading
Format	Exif	IPTC IIM	XMP
JPEG	yes	yes	yes
PNG	eXIf chunk	no chunk defined	iTXt chunk, keyword XML:com.adobe.xmp
WebP	EXIF chunk	not listed	XMP chunk

For JPEG, Microsoft's developer documentation for the Windows photo metadata policy gives write locations for the copyright in XMP, IPTC and Exif together (System.Copyright), and IPTC says IIM can be embedded in JPEG, TIFF and PSD files. For PNG, the W3C's Third Edition allows one eXIf chunk, recommends iTXt for text because it supports Unicode, and names no chunk for IPTC IIM. It also warns that unless a decoder knows the Exif data is valid, it should be considered of historical value only, because the image may have been edited since. For WebP, Google's container specification lists an optional 'EXIF' chunk and an optional 'XMP ' chunk, at most one of each, in the extended file format.

What survives resizing and conversion: our measurements

Holding the fields in a file does not keep them there. We tagged a JPEG, a PNG and a WebP with 13, 10 and 10 copyright fields (EXIF, IPTC and XMP) and measured what survived. With sharp 0.35.5 at its default options, none of the 33 fields survived a resize to 50%, and none of the 36 survived a format change. Pillow 12.3.0 at its defaults did the same.

Fields kept, out of 33 on a resize and 36 on a format change
Tool and setting	Resize to 50%	Format change
sharp, default options	0	0
sharp, keepMetadata()	33	30
Pillow, default options	0	0
Pillow, exif= passed	6	6

With sharp's keepMetadata() option all 33 fields survived a resize; after a format change 30 of 36 survived, the six lost being the IPTC fields of a JPEG converted to WebP or PNG. Passing exif=img.info.get('exif') to Pillow kept EXIF Artist and Copyright and lost the IPTC and XMP fields; also passing the XMP packet kept all 8 XMP fields in all three formats, though the JPEG's 3 IPTC fields were still lost. Our copyright metadata tool kept 33 of 33 fields and left the pixel data byte-identical. The library step of our photo tool kept 63 of 69 fields across six format paths; the six lost are IPTC fields of a JPEG converted to PNG or WebP, because our tool writes no IPTC block into those formats. EXIF Artist, EXIF Copyright, XMP dc:creator and dc:rights survived in all six.

How we measured

Inputs were three test pictures with no metadata, each 1200 pixels wide and 800 tall, one each in JPEG, PNG and WebP, tagged with one made-up profile. A field counted as kept when the output carried it with exactly the tagged value. Two independent readers, our own and Pillow, agreed on all 546 field checks. Not tested: ICC colour profiles, non-ASCII text, animated, CMYK or very large files, other sharp and Pillow options, Photoshop, Lightroom, phone and social-app re-encoding, and the browser's own encoder. The test shows what these libraries do, not what a platform does.

Which one to use

We suggest filling both the IPTC fields and their EXIF and XMP equivalents, because a program may read only one container. That is what the copyright metadata tool does: it writes the creator and copyright notice into EXIF, XMP and, for JPEG, IPTC; the credit line and web statement of rights go into XMP, and the credit line also into IPTC for JPEG. Free, no limit. Your pixels are not touched; only the metadata changes. To see what a file carries now, follow our guide to checking photo metadata.

Metadata is not the only layer. The C2PA coalition says its model is designed to interoperate with IPTC, XMP and EXIF (C2PA FAQ); our guide to Content Credentials covers what they add. For the US rules on copyright management information, see our guide.

Sources

Checked October 30, 2026.

Questions

What is the difference between EXIF and IPTC?: Exif is CIPA's camera-oriented standard. IPTC's Photo Metadata Standard defines descriptive and rights fields, and says it includes no technical metadata.
Is XMP the same as IPTC?: No. XMP is a container created by Adobe that defines no fields itself. IPTC Core fields can be stored in XMP, in the older IIM format or in both; IPTC Extension fields only in XMP.
Which field holds the copyright notice?: IIM 2:116, XMP dc:rights and the Exif Copyright tag (0x8298). IPTC's mapping guidelines say the Exif Copyright and IPTC Copyright Notice values are copied directly in both directions.
Can a PNG or WebP carry IPTC fields?: The PNG specification defines no IIM chunk and the WebP specification lists only Exif and XMP chunks. IPTC fields can be stored in the XMP of those files.
Does resizing a photo keep its metadata?: It depends on the program. In our tests sharp and Pillow dropped every field at default settings.