JPEG 2000 is an emerging image compression standard that offers not only a competitive image compression algorithm, but the complex weave of its file format opens the possibilities for direct data content management - which were previously unthinkable with the use of other common image file formats like JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc.In this paper, we discuss the comparative advantages of JPEG 2000 over other commonly used image formats, in metadata-oriented tasks such as image annotation, metadata search, and image and data archival. Also, we present the original set of software tools necessary to create and maintain a JPEG 2000 – based image database.