I'm trying to come up with a name for programs like Lightroom, Aperture, LightZone and Capture NX that use instructions to process images. We've referred to programs like Photoshop as bitmap editors, but there's no agreed name for this new field.

Peter Krogh has referred to the field “Metadata Imaging” and this seems snappy, but calling individual programs “Metadata Image Editors” doesn't do it for me. He also tried to start a debate and wrote of “metadata-based-editing” and of programs as being SISI, short for saved-instruction-set imaging.

But what's the noun? Calling them sissies isn't macho enough and while I tend to think of them as “stored instruction set editors”, I always feel happier with 3 letter acronyms too. So one I just came up with was Metadata Driven Editors - MDE's - and I rather like it despite dropping the “Imaging”.

Any views on these? Any more to throw into the mix?