
Starting on August 31, 2020, Google’s image search began surfacing new information to indicate that a photo is licensable. It also provides information about where someone can inquire to obtain a license. Many popular image editors such as Adobe Lightroom can be used to embed this licensing metadata in your photos.
In a world where the internet has made digital image theft rampant, the change is a welcome one for photographers.
Let’s take a look at what the new search results look like and how you can use the metadata tools in Adobe Lightroom Classic to add the appropriate fields to your own images.
Clicking on an image in Google’s image search brings up a detail window that features a number of metadata fields about the image’s creator.

There is a hyperlink to the photographer’s website, along with another link to a page for license details. The search results also show the name of the image’s creator, a credit line for how to credit the photo, along with copyright information.
All of this information is retrieved from the metadata embedded in the image, but the photographer must take steps to add this information to their images before publication to the web.
Google uses IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) metadata embedded in the image, structured data fields embedded in your website’s HTML, or both. Google provides a helpful guide explaining how this feature works.
IPTC has also published its own guide about IPTC photo metadata and Google Images.
In Adobe Lightroom Classic, the relevant fields can be found in the Metadata Panel, using the dropdown to select IPTC and IPTC Extension.

Creator
To display the creator of the image, Google will use either the XMP dc:creator field or the IPTC Creator field. To enter this in Lightroom, enter it in the Creator field.

This field should contain either the name of the photographer or the name of the organization responsible for creating the image.
Credit Line
The credit line is the credit to the photographer to be used when an image is published. While not every publisher will diligently follow this, it is a good metadata field to add.
Google will use either the XMP photoshop:credit field or the IPTC Credit field to show this information. In Lightroom, this can be entered in the IPTC metadata panel in the Credit Line field.

This should contain text that the creator of the image requires users to display alongside the image, such as “Photo by Kevin Lisota” or similar.
Copyright Notice
To display the copyright notice for an image, Google will show either the XMP dc:rights field or the IPTC Copyright Notice field. To enter this field in Lightroom, use the Copyright field found in the IPTC metadata panel.

This field should include the following: “Contains any necessary copyright notice for claiming the intellectual property for artwork or an object in the image and should identify the current owner of the copyright of this work with associated intellectual property rights.” The appropriate language for this field may differ based on copyright legislation in various countries.
Web Statement of Rights
The Web Statement of Rights field is what triggers the new “licensable” badge in Google Image search.
This field can be entered in the IPTC metadata panel in Lightroom, but it is not called “Web Statement of Rights.” Use the “Copyright Info URL” field to enter the IPTC Web Statement of Rights in Lightroom.

This field should contain a full URL that provides licensing information about the image. This could be a URL on your own website describing licensing requirements or could also point to a Creative Commons or other commercial license URL.
Licensor URL
The Licensor URL field is what triggers the “Get this image on” link in Google Image search.
This field is a little difficult to find, but can be entered in the IPTC Extension metadata panel in Lightroom.
Once in the IPTC Extension metadata panel, click on the Licensor field under the Rights section. You can enter various fields here if you like, but the one that Google is looking for is called URL.

The Licensor URL should contain a full, valid URL to a page that shows information about how someone can acquire a license for the image.
Using a Lightroom metadata preset
The most efficient way to enter this metadata across a batch of images in Lightroom is by using a metadata preset.
To create a metadata preset in Lightroom, choose Metadata > Edit Metadata Presets from the menu.

You can fill out the metadata fields that you want to include in the preset. You must also check the box to the right of the fields that you want to include in the preset.
For Google Images metadata, the fields you want in your preset are as follows:
- IPTC Copyright
- Copyright
- Copyright Info URL
- IPTC Creator
- Creator
- IPTC Status
- Credit Line
- IPTC Extension Rights
- Licensor (choose Replace to replace any existing Licensor information in an image)
Entering the Licensor URL is not possible in Lightroom’s preset editor window. You must first choose an individual photo in Lightroom and use the IPTC Extension metadata panel to enter that information. Once entered, while that photo is still selected in the Library, go to the Edit Metadata Presets window. Under IPTC Extension Rights, the presets window will show “1 item”. Choose Replace and check the box to the right to include that item in your preset. You are using the metadata in your selected image to set this field when creating the preset.
Once these fields are filled out and checked, choose Save Current Settings as New Preset in the Preset dropdown.
Once you have a metadata preset in Lightroom, that preset can be applied at the time of import. It can also be applied to groups of images in grid view by selecting the images and then choosing the preset from the dropdown in the Metadata panel.

Lightroom export of metadata
When you export images from Lightroom for publication on the web, you must make certain to make the correct choice for which metadata to include, otherwise some of this information will be stripped from your image.
In the Lightroom export box, under Metadata, there are various options for which metadata to include on export.

- Copyright Only
- This setting will omit Creator, Credit Line, and Licensor URL
- Copyright & Contact Info Only
- This setting will omit Credit Line and Licensor URL
- All Except Camera Raw Info
- All metadata fields described above are included.
- All Except Camera & Camer Raw Info
- All metadata fields described above are included.
- All Metadata
- All metadata fields described above are included.
Check your work
Once you have exported your images or published them to the web, IPTC has a handy metadata checker tool that you can use to check your work.
It can take Google a few days to a few weeks to index new images that you have published with this metadata, depending on your website.