Downloading image from Picasa Web Albums loses metadata

I have several photos on my Picasa Web Albums account. I have added captions, tags and location information to many of them through the PWA web interface. I assumed that PWA was saving this information in an IPTC, or some other metadata tag inside the image, but whenever I go to 'Download Photo' (on a single image), the resulting image, when saved to my computer, has no tags whatsoever. Does anybody know why this is the case? Does PWA require Picasa to be installed to preserve this information?

Jarrod

Posted 2010-03-03T17:39:05.447

Reputation: 141

1Regarding the close vote : This is a bit of a gray area. Although the question is about a web app, my answer below uses software. – harrymc – 2010-07-17T10:00:47.930

Answers

A couple things to try and troubleshoot:

Have you tried the "Download Album" option and then checking individual files for the metadata?

Also, if you browse to the full size image on Picasa, right click and save, does that file have metadata?

mindless.panda

Posted 2010-03-03T17:39:05.447

Reputation: 6 642

When I view an entire album, the only options under download are 'Download to Picasa', 'Print To Picasa', 'Make Movie' and 'Make Collage'. I don't have Picasa so I can't test downloading to Picasa. Also, when I try saving the photo after browsing to the full size image (right-click and save), there is no metadata either. – Jarrod – 2010-03-03T18:13:30.747

Picasa Web Albums does not preserve image metadata.

There's been a survey on the preservation of image metadata on online sites, and this was the result found for Picasa Web Albums.

Gcoupe

Posted 2010-03-03T17:39:05.447

Reputation: 436

Maybe the free utility Migratr can help :

Migratr is a desktop application which moves photos between popular photo sharing services. Migratr will also migrate your metadata, including the titles, tags, descriptions and album organization. Whether you want to copy your photos from Flickr to Faces, Picasa to Phanfare, or Zenfolio to Zooomr, Migratr is the app for you. Migratr will copy your photos FROM any supported photo service, TO any supported photo service.

harrymc

Posted 2010-03-03T17:39:05.447

Reputation: 306 093