Adobe has
announced a public beta of
Adobe XMP Toolkit 4.0, Adobe's labeling technology for embedding metadata into files. This prerelease allows software
developers to inject XMP data into popular media file formats (JPEG, PSD, TIFF, AVI, WAV, MPEG, MP3, MOV, INDD, PS, and
EPS). It also gives developers a centralized view of XMP data through Adobe Bridge. As described on the
Adobe Labs site:
"
Version 4.0 of the
Adobe XMP Toolkit is planned to significantly extend the capabilities of the current SDK by adding an often-requested
feature: the ability to easily find, add, and update XMP in popular image, document, and video file formats. As such,
Version 4.0 will contain two distinct components:
- The XMP Core: a component for
parsing, manipulating, and serializing XMP data. This component was historically called the "XMP Toolkit"
because it was the only component in the toolkit. It will henceforth be called the XMP Core, whereas the XMP Toolkit
refers to the entire SDK.
- The XMP File Handler: a component for reading,
rewriting, and injecting serialized XMP into popular image, document, and video file formats. The XMP File Manager can
be thought of as a "file I/O" component for reading and writing the XMP that is manipulated by the XMP
Core."
A free download of the beta for Windows (Visual Studio 2005) or Mac (Xcode 2.2) development
environments is available from
Adobe Labs. The Mac
version of the Toolkit will create universal binary code for both Intel and PowerPC processors. Adobe is seeking
developers' feedback on file format support and overall architecture of the Toolkit.
For the uninitiated,
XMP stands for Extensible Metadata Platform, and metadata is information about a file--anything from copyright to image
captions. Metadata is essential for organizing and accessing files, and is an fundamental part of creative
professionals' workflow. You can learn more about XMP and metadata at Adobe's
site.
Now that you Windows users have heard that there's a beta of Adobe Lightroom for you (a free download from Adobe), you're probably hungry for some Windows specific training. As usual, NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) is right on it. They've updated their Lightroom training page with some new videos that show the Windows version of Lightroom, including Matt Kloskowski's Intro to the Develop Module, Secrets of the Tone Curve, and Magic of Split-Toning. Mac users will benefit from these videos too, because Lightroom's settings are similar across the platforms.
So everyone's picked up on Adobe's release of a
beta of Lightroom, a new pro app for photography workflows, and you can pick up a copy from 
