Emily L. Ferguson writes: : I'm glad to see that so many are wisely leaving their metadata in the : file, and that Andy's gallery creation software is leaving it there : also. : : Sorry. I very strongly oppose the idea that smaller is better. : Smaller means orphan work, and orphan work means easy theft. : : I want my name and other metadata associated with my work at all : times in all places. As you can see, converting a whole bunch of images to 'orphanware' is easily achieved in milliseconds with something as simple as a 10kb program, and with a slightly larger program (100kbish) a person could easily import their own exif or meta data, even inserting an innapropriate thumbnail should they choose This idea that metadata somehow protects an image is misinformation. Metadata is simply a nice tool at best, bloatware at worst. Exif information is a valuable reference tool, IPTC info a good method of adding cataloguing capabilities and the thumbnail bit is a handy way of making *some* programs preview the image quicker IF someone wants to afford a MUCH better way of protecting their image they would employ a steganography program to embed a simple text file of the EXIF information and copyright owners name. It can still be circumvented, but data integrated that way is much, much harder to strip, and it is stealth protection - not visible unless you spend a lot of time looking for it. karl
