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[marko]

This could potentially save me hours upon hours of tagging work.

Could we have some more info regarding what to expect from this? (field mappings etc.)


Bug?
In the library, [keywords] is set to be saved inside the file when possible, but when otto updates the keywords tag, its <MJMD> tag is not written. Update tags is checked in options. This is after changing the IPTC keywords tag externally.

I think I would prefer it if the IPTC keywords were to be appended to any existing keywords, rather than over-writing the existing tag. I'll be more sure after playing some more.

[JimH]

We're still working on the new tags.  I'll combine this thread with your other.

[glynor]

I just wanted to say.... I haven't had a chance to play with any of the recent MC12 builds quite yet (this is Crazy Week^TM at work) but....

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

This is, to me, the first really "MC11.1 killer" feature of 12.  I'm sure there'll be more.

One other comment.  For it to be really useful for me, MC12 needs to be able to write the IPTC tags as well.  In other words, I need the Keywords that I add to the files using MC to show up in Photoshop, Bridge, and my ClearStory Digital Asset Management system at work (and same goes for TIFF files).  This is a great first step though!  Again, what I like about MC is that it is a powerful tagger and organizer.  If I'm forced to use an external app to do the interoperable tagging, I might as well not import the pictures into MC in the first place!

[jimn]

Could we have some more info regarding what to expect from this?

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is very early in development. All these comments are very welcome and helpful as we develop this further. In addition to reading IPTC, we are looking into reading other TAG formats--is everyone using IPTC these days, or do people use competing or superseeding standards? We are also planning to implement writing out the tags.

The way the IPTC tags are read currently, as I understand it, is any matched field that is not aready being used is read from IPTC. This means once read, the IPTC tags won't be read again from that photo, unless the tags are cleared in MC. The IPTC and existing tags are not merged. Any of this, of course is subject to change.

Here are the current IPTC tags being read, and MC tags the are mapped to (also subject to change):

BYLINE -> Artist
CREDITS -> Notes
DATECREATED ->[changed] Date
CITY STATE, COUNTRY ->(combined) Places
COPYRIGHTNOTICE ->Copyright
CAPTION ->(same: no longer Comment)
CATEGORY->Genre
KEYWORDS->(same)

Suggestions to mapping as well as all other suggestions, are welcome.

JimN

[glynor]

Here are the current IPTC tags being read, and MC tags the are mapped to (also subject to change):

BYLINE -> Artist
CREDITS -> Notes
DATECREATED ->(same)
CITY STATE, COUNTRY ->(combined) Places
COPYRIGHTNOTICE ->Copyright
CAPTION ->Comment
CATEGORY->Genre
KEYWORDS->(same)

Those mappings look great.  One issue could be that some people would want the CAPTION == notes, and some would want CAPTION == Comment.  This wouldn't be hard to fix on the post-import side with the Move/Copy Fields.

One thing to consider... Most Digital Asset Management apps I've worked with allow the user to define and redefine those mappings, when needed.  For example, Portfolio uses many of it's own internal database fields (and has pre-built mappings), but you can define different "templates" when you import media that tells it to use different mappings.

The other major standard for Metadata to look at is Adobe's XMP.  I don't really know much about it, but that's how Adobe CS and CS2 are exchanging Metadata, and they're hyping it as the Next Big Metadata Thing.  Generally, thus far, most apps I've used and encountered read and write IPTC and EXIF if anything at all.  XMP seems to be an XML based system that separates the "tags" from the file format (sometimes actually using a discreet XMP file) which allows different asset types to share and use identical metadata formats.  Adobe says it's an open "W3C-compliant" format that is freely available to developers.  That's about the extent of my knowledge of the system.

However, because of their power in the Pro Graphics software market... most media management applicatons do what Adobe does.

[DarkPenguin]

Is XMP anything other than IPTC in a sidecar file?

I thought it was additional stuff but then I read The DAM Book and Krogh indicated that the .XMP file only existed because adobe doesn't want to touch the camera RAW files.  I may have read more into his statement than was really there.

(One of the niceties of Adobe DNG is that all the XMP stuff is in the DNG file.  So if you put 10,000 keywords with your .CR2 files (or .NEF for THOSE people) you need a .XMP side car.  But if you first convert to .DNG all that stuff will get saved in the .DNG file.  Much easier to keep track of and backup and all that.)

[glynor]

Is XMP anything other than IPTC in a sidecar file?

I don't think so.  As I said before though, my knowledge of XMP is fairly limited, so some of this could be vague, misleading, or just plain wrong.

I think the XMP file is just a side effect of the camera RAW thing you mentioned (and a way to use XMP metadata on other file types that don't explicitly allow many embedded tags -- like AVI files for example).  XMP itself however, is essentially the new IPTC.  Its a completely new specification for how to store metadata about media, and encompasses much more than just the sidecar file.

There is a tiny bit of detail about it on the IPTC web site here:   http://www.iptc.org/IPTC4XMP/

Theres another interesting article about XMP in general here:  http://www.reallysi.com/newsletter18_2.htm

[marko]

======================
IPTC mappings:

CITY STATE, COUNTRY ->(combined) Places

This one's not working quite right. Files with no form of IPTC location tags present have had their MC [places] fields overwritten with a single comma.
it wouldn't surprise me to find this is another bug caused by the myriad of proprietry tags placed in my files by a myriad of different image handling apps I've trialled in the past. If Elements uses this XMP stuff for tagging, could that be confusing things?
Is there anything out there that would help me to clean the files?
Could MC be able to do that? (on request, naturally)
I'd obviously want to keep the EXIF, IPTC, and MJMD tags. The only tool I was able to find simply trashed everything it found regardless.

[jimn]

======================
IPTC mappings:
This one's not working quite right. Files with no form of IPTC location tags present have had their MC [places] fields overwritten with a single comma.
it wouldn't surprise me to find this is another bug caused by the myriad of proprietry tags placed in my files by a myriad of different image handling apps

Nope. Just a bug in new code. It should be fixed in the next build.

You said the comma "overwrote" the places field. Was there something in the field already? The IPTC tags should be read only when importing the files into MC. IPTC tags shouldn't be written into fields that are not empty (ie. destroying data). Let me know if this can happen.

Thanks

Jim

[marko]

I'll try the latest and report back, but for sure, up to now, all existing [places] are wiped out and replaced with a comma, same goes for keywords.

===

Edit:
Confirmed. Build .36 still replaces existing library data with incoming IPTC data.

Overall, I'm not sure how I would want this to behave.
I think that for keywords, I would like incoming IPTC keywords appended to any existing [keywords] data, I absolutely would not want it to overwrite my [keywords] data. I copied mine to a new field, merged the new and the old into another new field, then copied the whole lot back to [keywords]. I would not like to have to do this as a matter of course.

[places], hmmm. I would say, no, leave any pre-existing data alone. either append, or don't import. Thing is though, I might actually want data imported, but not know it. choice might be nice, or perhaps equally annoying. I can't say for sure without a taste-test.

This new feature brings up some 'Otto' questions too. As they're not exclusive to IPTC tags, I'll raise them in an Otto thread instead.

EDIT-2:
why 'jimn' btw? you are Jimh, I assume?

[marko]

Jim, I just remembered...

Existing data is not overwritten if it already exists in an MJMD tag.
If the data resides only in the database, it gets replaced with any incoming IPTC data.

Only after copying my existing keywords to a new field, then removing the MJMD tags from all my image files did Otto go to work on the IPTC import job. After importing the keywords (which are set to be saved inside the file (when possible)) the MJMD tag was not written, which is why subsequent tests are still overwriting data.

[JimH]

why 'jimn' btw? you are Jimh, I assume?

jimn is a different person.  Better looking, smarter, etc.

[jimn]

Whoops, I forgot to add 'n' to my sig. However the comments on comparative attributes have yet to be verified.

Existing data is not overwritten if it already exists in an MJMD tag.
If the data resides only in the database, it gets replaced with any incoming IPTC data.

A-ha. That makes sense according to what I was getting. Now we have to decide exactly what way it SHOULD be.

Thanks for checking that out.

JimN

[marko]

any more thoughts re. this?

To prevent Otto repeatedly overwriting my tags, I've turned off the update for external file changes option.

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is very early in development. All these comments are very welcome and helpful as we develop this further. In addition to reading IPTC, we are looking into reading other TAG formats--is everyone using IPTC these days, or do people use competing or superseeding standards? We are also planning to implement writing out the tags.

I have a lot of files with IPTC keywords. These have come from my quite lengthy liason with Elements, which saves its tags to file as IPTC keywords.
Captions written in Elements are saved to the IPTC caption field. I feel that MC should have its own default [Caption] field too. I don't think that hijacking the [comment] field is the correct solution.
Once I've imported all the existing IPTC tags and used them to give my migration to MC a serious leg-up, I won't have any further need for them.
MC could possibly write the tags out to files too? Now you're talking...
MC doesn't do DVD authoring, HTML slideshows, html email with the image in the email body etc. etc. (which is fine, for now)...
MC's excellent support for drag 'n' drop means that collating the files needed for a given project is simple, then a simple 'ctrl+a > drag 'n' drop' to a program such as proshow gold for DVD slideshow creation is all but seamless. Most, if not all, such programs will read IPTC info such as the caption field and use it for the project.
the time saved and convenience of having MC write its captions out to the IPTC caption field is plain to see.
If you can get this in, please do.

===================

Working out how to handle sync'ing of EXIF, IPTC, MJMD tags and the MC database is hurting my head!!! (too many different scenarios)

If there's no MJMD tag, EXIF and IPTC data is imported. When does an MJMD tag get written? I can only seem to get it to happen manually via the update tags from library tool.
Perhaps more choice is needed there?
Update library from > IPTC
Update library from > EXIF
Update library from > MJMD

For tag writing, perhaps setup precise rules, either hardcoded or optional, that tell MC which database fields should be saved in which metadata block, and when.

I don't know. I've never been much of an ideas man. Have you guys come up with anything yet?

[GHammer]

Perhaps I am missing something.
If you have IPTC and EXIF, what other fields need written to the file itself?

[marko]

I don't know for sure.

What's clear atm is that MC bases some of its logic around the prescence (or not) of an MJMD tag, and because none of my files had an MJMD tag, and there was a flaw in the IPTC reading feature (now fixed), MC repeatedly trashed my places info, replacing it with a comma.

If I now add more keywords to an image, or change its comment, and there's still no MJMD tag, next time the directory is scanned for 'external changes' my changes will be wiped out and replaced with the contents of the IPTC tags (which won't have been updated by MC)

If I add keywords or captions to a file using MC, and that file does not have any IPTC/EXIF tags, what then?

I don't want to use anything else to manage my images, just MC. I'm tired of trying to maintain two databases... (although, having said that, the IPTC import might make that task a little easier) I still don't want to do it though.

Understanding that perhaps making demands for slideshow DVD authoring or half-decent html web albums may be pushing it a bit, I don't mind using another app for those things. there's plenty of choice out there, and MC can serve up the required content in a few mouse clicks, drag from MC, drop onto other program, and off I go...

what a pain it is though, to realise that the other program cannot make any use of the captions I spent ages typing into MC.

While admittedly, I'm floundering around a bit here, my photos are becoming a lot more organised while I dodge away in MC, tagging a few here and a few there.
It's great that I can quickly access desired photos. It's great that I can display them on the TV here with a nice dynamic caption to display along with the photo...

It's pants that I can't share my photos elegantly with more distant friends and family without some quite considerable extra and repetetive effort, which could prolly be avoided if MC wrote out to the IPTC caption tag.

I do hope I'm making some kind of sense here. I know what I mean, but I'm no wordsmith and often find I do more rambling than getting to the point!

-marko.

[GHammer]

Yep, I understand completely.
I have lots of images here.
I am tired of 'cataloging' them by path and name.

I'd like to use MC for this task myself. I really like the display abilities and of course the managing is easy enough I've had my wife playnig around with creating 'Albums'.

But, I want to have a fighting chance that another app or device can read info that is written to the files. Reading and writing industry standard metadata is the way to go. Nothing is lost by it and you gain compatibility.

Now, writing DVD/VCD photo shows, that would be excellent! I have to fire up Nero for that currently and while its not difficult, if MC would do it, it would be that much closer to one-stop shopping for me. Be pretty popular with several people I know who ask me what I use for pictures too.

Web albums? I've not found a single tool that does a good job on those. All I have tried either force you into their template or have no real organization. But, I keep trying things because rolling my own is a pain. It's why my website has so few pictures on it.

[jimn]

In the latest build, 47, IPTC tags will be written out if one of the mapped MC tags get modified. This only happens if there is an existing IPTC segment in the jpeg file; MC will not create an IPTC segment. The Places tag does not get written out.

Please post any problems or comments
thanks,
JimN

[marko]

This only happens if there is an existing IPTC segment in the jpeg file; MC will not create an IPTC segment.

As my camera doesn't appear to be creating an IPTC segment, I used acdsee to create one by populating a field that it called "photographer"
I then went back to MC and filled the [comment] tag for that image....
MC successfully wrote the [comment] out to the iptc caption field, but also removed the "photographer" data in the process.

Is it likely that MC12 will eventually be able to create an iptc segments if none exists?

-marko.

[jimn]

As my camera doesn't appear to be creating an IPTC segment, I used acdsee to create one by populating a field that it called "photographer"

So there is an IPTC tag called "photographer"? I suspected there might be more fields than I knew about.

Addendum: This should be fixed now.

Is it likely that MC12 will eventually be able to create an iptc segments if none exists?

It's in the works.

JimN

[marko]

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is very early in development. All these comments are very welcome and helpful as we develop this further. In addition to reading IPTC, we are looking into reading other TAG formats--is everyone using IPTC these days, or do people use competing or superseeding standards? We are also planning to implement writing out the tags.

The way the IPTC tags are read currently, as I understand it, is any matched field that is not aready being used is read from IPTC. This means once read, the IPTC tags won't be read again from that photo, unless the tags are cleared in MC. The IPTC and existing tags are not merged. Any of this, of course is subject to change.

Here are the current IPTC tags being read, and MC tags the are mapped to (also subject to change):

BYLINE -> Artist
CREDITS -> Notes
DATECREATED ->(same)
CITY STATE, COUNTRY ->(combined) Places
COPYRIGHTNOTICE ->Copyright
CAPTION ->Comment
CATEGORY->Genre
KEYWORDS->(same)

Suggestions to mapping as well as all other suggestions, are welcome.

JimN

Worth noting that the IPTC caption field now maps to MC12's [caption] field, not the comment field.
-------------------------------

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is very early in development. All these comments are very welcome and helpful as we develop this further. In addition to reading IPTC, we are looking into reading other TAG formats

acdsee presents both EXIF and IPTC tags saved in .tif files.
As MC cannot currently treat a .psd file as an image, I followed some good advice and moved to saving my work in .tif format instead. So, naturally, I'm now hanging out for MC to be able to read/write any tags that may be in there already.

-marko.

[RobOK]

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is very early in development. All these comments are very welcome and helpful as we develop this further. In addition to reading IPTC, we are looking into reading other TAG formats--is everyone using IPTC these days, or do people use competing or superseeding standards? We are also planning to implement writing out the tags.

IPTC is an older standard developed mostly for professional news and journalism organizations.

I would be much stronger in favor of XMP, which I think stores a subset of IPTC tags as well.  As others have said, I am no XMP expert but it seems to have a lot of momentum.

[marko]

I found a load of really old 35mm film that never made it to the developers, so, figuring that it's highly likely that after almost 20 years, there's a good chance that any prints won't be up to much, I paid a shop some sweetie money to give me the negs, got them home and began scanning.

MC's no good for this job, so, I'm using a 3rd party app to scan into a folder that MC is watching. works nice.
Scanning to .tiff, and, as we already know, MC can't read IPTC tags from .tiff files, but that's OK. I write the IPTC tags in the 3rd party app, and then, when exporting the .tiff to jpg, the tags go too, and MC reads those.

Problem No.1...
I write a "date created" tag, this is the date the photo was originally taken. From MC, the tag is clearly read:

1798 x 1263 - 395.2 KB

 

Flash: No
Orientation: Normal

IPTC Tags:
   Byline: marko
   Caption: hubba hubba!!!
   Date Created: 19921114
   Keywords: spaghetti

MJMD Tag: v1.0 (829 bytes - APPID 9)
   <MJMD>
   <Tool_Name>Media Center</Tool_Name>
   <Tool_Version>12.0.110</Tool_Version>
   <Caption>hubba hubba!!!</Caption>
   <Name>SCN_0426_14-11-1992 16-22-40_edited_1</Name>
   <Keywords>spaghetti</Keywords>
   <Artist>marko</Artist>
   <Album>10/11/2006</Album>
   <Date>39031.711944444447</Date>
   </MJMD>

from the mapping table above:

DATECREATED ->(same)

How do I get Otto to import this data?

[glynor]

MC's no good for this job, so, I'm using a 3rd party app to scan into a folder that MC is watching. works nice.
Scanning to .tiff, and, as we already know, MC can't read IPTC tags from .tiff files, but that's OK. I write the IPTC tags in the 3rd party app, and then, when exporting the .tiff to jpg, the tags go too, and MC reads those.

I don't know what 3rd party app you're using for scanning, but I thought I'd mention...

The absolute best scanning application there is is VueScan.  It's cheap, it works with basically every scanner there is, and it includes features usually only found in high-end pro-scanning software (like SilverFast AI).  Color profiling, "DigitalICE type features" (he didn't pay for the DigitalICE logo but it's the same infrared cleaning algorithm), and so on...

Plus, it has all kinds of awesome batch-scanning features.  So, if you're scanning from negs with a flatbed scanner and a negative tray, you can automate a lot of the process using it.

[marko]

thanks for the tip glynor. there's a little learning curve there, the tips are certainly handy, like "why not put a + at the end of a filename for incremental naming?"
I've got it batch scanning strips of 3 frames a piece, with just a short trial and error period to get the frames and the crop box lined up correctly.

How about my date created question? (reply # 22)  I'm about ready to call it a bug as I cannot seem to get the data that is clearly in the IPTC tag, from there into the library.

[jimn]

How about my date created question? (reply # 22)  I'm about ready to call it a bug as I cannot seem to get the data that is clearly in the IPTC tag, from there into the library.

Hi Marko,

It is a bug. The Date Created can't be mapped to the same, as it a system file field that can't be modified. The next build will have it mapped to the Date field and should get properly imported.

If the date exist for both, the IPTC 'Date Created' will override the EXIF Date.

JimN

[jwaters]

Is MC12 supposed to write the IPTC date taken?  It does not seem to be working for me.

I have about 4000 photos accurately date-tagged in MC using MC's Date field.  Most of my photos have an EXIF date stamp from the digital camera.  However, there are many photos that I have edited w/ old software that destroyed the EXIF tag, or that I scanned in.  For these photos, I have spent alot of time tagging the dates w/ MC.

When I open them in Photoshop or other software, this date is not reflected anywhere.  I understand that MC will not write the EXIF date taken, but I would like it to write the IPTC date field.

[Mr ChriZ]

It's IPTC tag writting has temporarilly been removed this week (Version 12.0.120)
due to corruption problems, back soon hopefully.