Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony have just announced in a joint conference at Photokina the publication of guidelines to standardise metadata in JPEG files.

BJP was there, and you can read a full report on our website. But we thought we would share a few interesting points made during the press conference.

We now know that the guidelines will help developers across the six companies to engineer common metadata fields allowing for all imaging information to be transfered any other application without losing any data. While common details such as the name of the photographer, camera used and lens information are covered, the consortium also said that the fields would also support GPS information for the location of the photographer AND of the subject taken.

Adobe also said that currently 'in cases when data can be stored in more than one place, we duplicate it everwhere,' it said at the conference. Also, the consortium is looking at expanding its work to video files, especially since Canon and Nikon have introduced video capabilities to their newest cameras.