Artificial intelligence in service of the photojournalist
dataflow.photo automates IPTC metadata generation for press and documentary photographers — bilingual captions, keywords, IPTC subject codes, digital provenance — compliant with the standards used by news agencies.
Developed by Digitum Conseils, in partnership with the photography agency Hans Lucas.
Sorting and captioning eat up valuable time
Four realities facing press photographers and newsrooms.
Documenting every photo takes a disproportionate amount of time
Captioning, tagging, and structuring the IPTC metadata of a full assignment, image by image, takes valuable time away from the photographer — often at the expense of editing and distribution.
Agencies demand strict metadata
Title structure, keyword format, IPTC subject code: every agency imposes its own rules. A single lapse can delay or jeopardize the distribution of an image.
Digital provenance is becoming mandatory
Article 50 of the EU AI Act, in force since August 2026, and the IPTC 2025.1 standard require that an image’s digital source type be explicitly documented.
Film photography remains poorly documented
Film type, shooting format, process-specific rendering: this information is easily lost when moving into the digital workflow.
Complete metadata, without changing your habits
Four pillars, built directly into your workflow — as a plugin or from the web.
Two-step contextual analysis
Each photo is first described factually, then classified — a method that limits common interpretation errors, such as confusing a protest with an election.
IPTC metadata ready to publish
Title, bilingual French/English captions, keywords, IPTC subject code, category, and GPS-prioritized location — written directly into your photos’ metadata.
Human review before publication
Every photo goes through a “pending review” status: approve, reject, or re-run the analysis, field by field, before any publication.
Digital provenance
The generated metadata complies with the C2PA standard, in line with the IPTC 2025.1 standard and Article 50 of the EU AI Act. dataflow.photo is a member of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), the organization behind the C2PA standard.
Designed for two distinct realities
Whether you work solo in the field or as part of a newsroom, dataflow.photo adapts to your workflow.
Photojournalists and documentary photographers
Assignments, portraits, film and digital.
- Analyze a single photo or a full batch, without switching tools
- Sync fields from a reference photo across an entire series
- Personalized profile: default credits, rights, and location
- Your images remain yours: they are never used to train a model
Newsrooms and documentary agencies
Compliance with editorial standards and time savings at team scale.
- Formats compliant with news agency standards
- No overwriting of fields already validated by a photographer or editor
- Developed and field-tested in partnership with the photography agency Hans Lucas
Developed alongside photojournalism professionals
dataflow.photo is designed and tested under real-world conditions with the Hans Lucas agency and the Transmission.photo training cooperative, to meet the concrete demands of photojournalism rather than generic use.
A French photography agency since 2006
Hans Lucas brings together a collaborative platform and an international agency, representing a diversity of photographic styles — photojournalism, documentary, portraiture, and creative photography.
- Photographers active in the field: current events, long-form assignments, culture, environment
- Distribution partnerships with AFP, Reuters, Getty Images, and Belga since 2016
- Supports both emerging talent and established photographers
A photojournalism training cooperative
Transmission.photo trains the next generation of photojournalists through a ten-month certifying program, in partnership with Hans Lucas.
- Hybrid training: online modules, in-person intensives, one-on-one mentoring
- Specialized workshops: field reporting, safety in high-risk areas, photo editing
- 82% of trainees published before even completing their training
A tool shaped by real needs from the field
The caption, keyword, and IPTC structure standards built into dataflow.photo reflect the concrete requirements of news agencies and the new generation of photojournalists in training.
- Feedback from photographers and trainees shapes the product’s evolution
- Shared goal: reduce time spent on description, without compromising metadata quality
- A tool tested by photojournalism professionals, not just designed for them
A suite of tools for images, from assignment to archive
Try dataflow.photo
A web application is in development. Contact us with any questions about integrating it into your workflow.