An image record holds more than the picture. Filled in properly, the fields are what make a library of ten thousand images usable.
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Product or photo name | The main search term. Describe the thing, not the file. |
| Image tags | The words someone would search who does not know its name — a colour, a season, a setting. |
| Media labels | Your own classification of the image. |
| Image text | Any words that appear in the picture, so an image with a headline on it can be found by that headline. |
| Description | Context: where it was shot, what is in it, what it is suitable for. |
| Industry | Who the image suits, in a network serving several trades. |
| Internal comments | Notes for your own team. Not the place for anything you would not want quoted. |
Tag the way people search
The uploader knows what the image is. The person searching six months later does not — they will type a colour, a room, a season or a product type. Tag for them, not for you.
THREE GOOD TAGS BEAT TWENTY
Tag what the image genuinely is. Twenty hopeful tags make every search return everything, which is the same as searching returning nothing useful.
Usage information
Each image records who uploaded it, when, and how often it has been downloaded. Download count is the honest measure of which artwork your network actually uses — and which is worth replacing.