New Term of the Day

So I was faced with a new abbreviation today: IPTC-NAA tags sometimes seen as IPTC/NAA parameters. It didn’t take long to find but I did have some confusing misses so I thought I would answer the question here. What are IPTC-NAA tags? The answer comes from someone’s personal web page:

The parameter interchange model is defined by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and the International Press Tele- communications Council (IPTC). The model defines a tagged file format, similar to TIFF in its design, but focussed on newspaper and newsphoto usage. It defines a large set of parameters, including copyright, captions, restrictions, photographers, publishing details, and much much more. The most common subset is called “IPTC/NAA Digital Newsphoto Parameter Record”.

As with most other standards from ISO and related bodies, the IPTC/NAA documentation is distributed on paper only, and must be obtained directly from the IPTC or the NAA. The following addresses may be used:

International Press Telecommunications Council
10 Sheet Street
Windsor, Berkshire
SL4 1BG
UNITED KINGDOM

or

Newspaper Association of America
The Newspaper Center
11600 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston
VA 20091 USA

As a footnote, the IPTC/NAA standard itself includes a well- designed standard for image transfer, which in some respects are more comprehensive than TIFF. IPTC/NAA files can also be used to wrap TIFF, JFIF, Illustrator, and several other file formats.