London (England) -- European picture agency organisation CEPIC has joined forces with standards body IPTC to produce the CEPIC/IPTC Image Metadata Handbook, which was launched on 20 May 2011 at the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Handbook, commissioned by CEPIC, is a PDF package of documents which includes Image Metadata Planning - a guide for business users, papers on the legal framework for metadata use, quick reference charts on the use of IPTC Core and Extension fields, and an interactive metadata workflow planning tool for selecting IPTC fields for use in various stages of a business workflow.

Paul Brown, Head of CEPIC's Technical Committee said "We commissioned this Handbook to make it easier for our members and other businesses to get to grips with their metadata workflow. The Handbook approaches metadata from a practical business point of view. We are very pleased to be partnering with the IPTC to make bring this important subject to our members and to the wider business community."

"Data drives automation and enables companies to manage images profitably," says Sarah Saunders, member of the IPTC Photo Metadata Working Group, who authored the guide. 'The Guide to Metadata Planning should be accessible to all business users as well as their technical staff, and we have provided work tools - the charts on use of IPTC fields and the metadata planning chart - to help with the workflow planning process. Together with the Embedded Media Metadata Manifesto newly published by the IPTC we hope that the CEPIC/IPTC Metadata Handbook will form a useful part of the metadata toolkit for businesses handling all kinds of media."

The Handbook is available for download from the CEPIC website (www.cepic.org) and the IPTC website (www.iptc.org/goto?imagemetadatahandbook)

About CEPIC:
CEPIC stands for the Coordination of European Picture Agencies Stock, Press and Heritage. Its goal is to be the centre of the picture industry. More information about CEPIC can be obtained from www.cepic.org .

About the IPTC:
The IPTC, based in London, UK, is a consortium of the world's major news agencies, news publishers and news industry vendors. It develops and maintains technical standards for improved news exchange that are used by virtually every major news organisation in the world.
Information on all IPTC standards such as the Photo Metadata standards, the family of G2-Standards - NewsML-G2, EventsML-G2 and SportsML-G2 -, NewsML 1, NITF, IIM and the NewsCodes together with a list of existing members and information on how to join is available at www.iptc.org.