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Author Topic: MATT: Photo Keywords tagging oddities MC26, MC24, Adobe Photoshop Elements 18.  (Read 844 times)

MusicHawk

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MATT: As promised...

Checking MC26.0.4 behavior of image file Keywords tags vs. Adobe Photoshop Essentials 18 (aka "2020", just released), and aka PSE, and comparing with MC24, I seem to see these anomalies.

HIERARCHY-TYPE KEYWORDS

Test photos originally tagged in MC (probably a few versions ago), with Keywords hierarchy via backslashes. These backslashed Keywords show nesting in views in both MC26 and MC24. BUT the backslash values themselves do NOT show in MC26 Tag window (see below), they only show in MC24.

Also, the same Keyword values were added via MC24 using right-arrowhead (GT symbol) hierarchy, so the test photos have equivalent Keywords values in both styles ( \ and > ).

Existing arrowhead values show in MC24 Tag window Keywords field, but they do NOT show in MC26 Keywords, which only shows the backslash values. The arrowhead values for testing were added in MC24, invisible in MC26.

But if an arrowhead value is typed into MC26 Tag window, it is accepted and shows. Since it is actually a duplicate of existing tag, Tag window and view shows it just once, but somehow retyping it causes MC26 to "notice" and show it.

Oddly, PSE IPTC then shows TWO of the same tag, even though they seem to be identical text, spacing, etc. In PSE IPTC values, the  arrowhead/GT Keywords are listed, but not the backslash values that MC24 reveals but MC26 does not.

PSE seems to show any/all Keywords values, just stores whatever is typed in (or already exists in imported photo file). Apparently duplicate Keywords values are tolerated (but unclear how they behave.)

This is difficult to state precisely because of the odd behaviors that possibly interact across the 3 test apps. If a specific test would be helpful please advise.

Of course, MC26 does not process the arrowhead/GT symbols as hierarchy so there's no view nesting. (Hope that gets added as a view option.)

(I'm using MC24 as "old" behavior because that's what is on my test PC, I could install MC25 if you think it would be different, my understanding is that nothing about image file handling was changed from 24 to 25.)
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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.

Matt

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The change we made was this:
Changed: Switched how we nest image keywords to hopefully line up with Adobe better.  We now use a > character instead of a / character.

So when we write the keywords to the tag, we use > instead of /.  When we read the tag, we should read either format.

Yaobing also did some work to make us support a few more image tags.

If there's something else you think we should do, let us know.

Thanks.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

MusicHawk

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Matt, I don't see how to find and use the two new IPTC core fields, TITLE and HEADLINE. They aren't listed anywhere that I know of. Also, I don't see anything about > that is different.
 

Reminder, the new IPTC/XMP fields should all be single-value free-form. They should not be cross-connected or aliases to each other or to any other MC fields (TITLE shouldn't derive from NAME). They are simply individual stand-alone text fields stored as IPTC and XMP, and handled in MC as simply text fields, usable in views, thumbnail text, etc.


TITLE - Confusing because usage varies among apps (and among reference materials). Apparently no IPTC rule about using it but common practice over the years was a short human readable reference for the image. It can be a text reference or a numeric reference, and serves primarily as an identifier. TITLE in IIM format is officially limited to 64 characters.

The first pass of adding TITLE to MC26 connected it to NAME, but they aren't the same. NAME seems to be an internal-to-MC ID/key with no IPTC equivalent, whereas TITLE is an IPTC core standard strictly used by the photographer to efficiently ID the image, regardless of how/where it is stored (old film negatives/prints used this before there were databases, for instance, I have some that are decades old, 4x5 sheet film but the shots for a given day/job have the same TITLE, something like WPHS-196202...but some other photographer or photo shop might use it very differently. It's important that TITLE simply be a text field that MC stores but does not alter. .

However, Adobe and some others now seem to use Title as if it is the photo's headline. SmugMug displays it in the largest font above the photo. But really, that seems to be why IPTC provides field Headline.


HEADLINE -- A headline is a brief synopsis or summary of the contents of the photograph. This can be the fun part of a photo. Like a news story, the Headline should grab attention, and telegraph the content of the image to the audience. Headlines need to be succinct. Leave the supporting narrative for the Description field. IPTC says, "Do not, however, confuse the Headline term with the Title term." Easy to do, a catchy Headline is quite different from a dull ID number. BUT Adobe and SmugMug display Title as if it is the Headline (??). The field length in IIM format is 256 characters.

Because of inconsistent use by various apps, MC should provide both TITLE and HEADLINE fields and let the user choose what info goes where. (Adobe is a stone-wall, but I'll ask SmugMug's product manager (who claims tight Adobe integration) how they use and differentiate these fields.


DESCRIPTION/CAPTION - This field already exists in MC and works well. Note that the field is commonly called CAPTION (as in MC) though DESCRIPTION is the official IPTC\XMP field name. The IIM format field length is 2000 characters.



Re using > symbol instead of slash to indicate image Keywords nesting, I don't find how it is supported. It's always been possible to type in > to indicate hierarchy (Disney>Walt instead of Disney\Walt). The missing ingredient is having MC use > to trigger nested display in views (as it uses \). But nothing happening with > that I see.

(Is MC somehow withholding these fields and nesting unless it knows the library is devoted to Images? How would that be indicated beyond simply loading it with 70K photos?)

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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.

raldo

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Matt, I don't see how to find and use the two new IPTC core fields, TITLE and HEADLINE. They aren't listed anywhere that I know of. Also, I don't see anything about > that is different.
[...]

I'm not seeing anything either which indicates that MC is using ">" as a nesting separator.

Ist there a setting which must be enabled?
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RoderickGI

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Could we have this thread made public?

It is linked to from the public "NEW in MC26" thread, here: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,123122.0.html so it would seem appropriate to make it public.
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What specific version of MC you are running:MC27.0.27 @ Oct 27, 2020 and updating regularly Jim!                        MC Release Notes: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Release_Notes
What OS(s) and Version you are running:     Windows 10 Pro 64bit Version 2004 (OS Build 19041.572).
The JRMark score of the PC with an issue:    JRMark (version 26.0.52 64 bit): 3419
Important relevant info about your environment:     
  Using the HTPC as a MC Server & a Workstation as a MC Client plus some DLNA clients.
  Running JRiver for Android, JRemote2, Gizmo, & MO 4Media on a Sony Xperia XZ Premium Android 9.
  Playing video out to a Sony 65" TV connected via HDMI, playing digital audio out via motherboard sound card, PCIe TV tuner
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