does anybody out there know if gimp has exif and iptc format support. i know there are some other programs which it under linux so the main question is this.

do these programs resave the entire file while altering exif and iptc info or just this specific part of the file.
under windows software i thought i noticed a quality deterioration of an after many info edits (the image was not edited of course) which could only be due to renewed compression of the image at each save of the info. does anybody know if enough to explain how the iptc, exif and jpg info coexist inside a file and which programs manage to edit one without altering the others.

thnx a lot. jens

Hmm. Nothign I've ever read about exif would make me believe that the exif metadata would it self change the images attributes (ie: compression).

Chances are your software is degrading the images by saving with jpeg comression every time you save or export. I'd look into saving your work in a format native to your editing software and then hope that it can keep track of exif data for the final image export->.jpeg.

A quick Google found some interesting Gimp/exif notes, but no mention of support for it yet. Dig thru the devel mailing list for more insight into this.