While responding to an email asking about IPTC data in iPhoto, I started thinking how great it would be to store iPhoto’s information as Spotlight extended attributes, but I found that Apple did it already! This is a great idea and I was glad to see it.

The mdls [file] terminal command will list all metadata associated with the specified file. (The easiest way to see this is to type “mdls”, space, then drag a file into the terminal window)

Anything in iPhoto with keywords or a title should have these two additional bits of metadata attached to them as HFS extended attributes:

kMDItemKeywords = ("3rd Avenue", Mirror, Sidewalk, NYC)
kMDItemTitle = "Man Walking with Mirror 1"

It’s great to see this but it’s not especially portable yet. Anyone know how to write IPTC data from the command line?