The EXIF Viewer covers the common tags; the Metadata Viewer goes deeper. It shows every EXIF, IPTC, XMP tag, plus ICC color profile info, embedded thumbnails, JPEG segments (APP0-APP15, comment segments), PNG chunks (iTXt, tEXt, zTXt), and WebP-specific metadata. Useful for forensic work, understanding what's in a file end-to-end, or diagnosing why a specific tool interprets a file oddly.
Beyond EXIF
EXIF is one metadata standard; a modern JPEG might also carry IPTC (from image agency workflows), XMP (Adobe's cross-format standard), ICC (color profile), a Photoshop resource block, and one or more thumbnails. The Metadata Viewer parses all of them.
Format-specific chunks
PNGs have named chunks: tEXt, zTXt, iTXt, tIME, pHYs. The viewer shows each with its content. JPEGs have APP segments (APP0 = JFIF, APP1 = EXIF/XMP, APP2 = ICC, APP13 = IPTC, APP14 = Adobe). Each is decoded and labeled.
Forensic use cases
Verifying image provenance (does the EXIF match the claimed camera?), finding hidden data (some tools embed messages in tEXt chunks), and diagnosing color issues (does the ICC profile match the working color space?). The Metadata Viewer is the fastest path to answers.