IPTC tags duplicated

[kingsfan]

Hi,

I am trying hard to move away from legacy IPTC tags and start using XMP. So my existing images do not have any IPTC tags. Now ,all I do in Daminion is change the ratings on a CR2 file that does not have any IPTC tags, and 2 different sections of IPTC tags get written to my CR2 file. Thus my questions:

 

1. Can you please provide an option to not write any IPTC tags and use embedded XMP instead?

2. Even if IPTC tags are to be written, why is Damininon creating 2 sections of the IPTC tags, called IPTC and IPTC2 with the duplicate information?

 

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

[Murat]

Daminion saves Rating info to XMP and EXIF block only. Rating is not supported by IPTC/NAA metadata standard.

 

Daminion Rating Tag is mapped to/from:

 

 

• XMP MicrosoftPhoto Rating
  
• EXIF RatingPercent
  
• XMP XMP Rating
  
• EXIF Rating
   
  

The reason why we write Rating (and other tags) to all the possible metadata fields is providing a backward compatibility with most of the available software and online systems. For example: the old Windows Explorer versions do not understand XMP info but can read/write to EXIF. And there are plenty of services and software tools that do not understand XMP yet.

 

To simplify the User Interface and bring the Daminion release version to the market faster we don't include a customization of the mapping rules.

 

 

Could you please send me a file where IPTC and IPTC2 fields are exist. What software do you use to read this?

[kingsfan]

Rating is an example of one tag that generates duplicate IPTC blocks. In fact, if a CR2 (not tested with ORF yet) does not have an IPTC tag to begin with and I make any change to a tag that can be written to IPTC, duplicate IPTC blocks get created.

 

I would much prefer an option to NOT write IPTC (or XMP) data if they do not already exist. I am on the road now, but I will send you an example photo by end of this week.

 

By the way, this is turning into a very useable DAM software - keep up the good work!!

[Murat]

Please check the problem with 0.8.3.340 build.

 

There is a minor issue with the experimental 341 build that I sent to you and Frank. Both Adobe XMP Toolkit and ExifTool were used to write the XMP to the files.

 

We'll try to build a new minor update tomorrow with bugs fixes.

[kingsfan]

Thanks. I will wait for the next build to test; and if that too exhibits the issue, I will send you a sample photo.

 

The response on this forum is awesome and timely. Kudos to the taam behind this. I am in the software industry and I know agility in responding to market driven requests is so key - so keep up the responsiveness :-).

[kingsfan]

Follow up question -

 

Since the plan is to use EXIFTOOL, will Daminion have an option to import the latest rev of Exiftool. Examples of this functionality include Geosetter (which checks at startup), or exiftoolgui (where you can manually check).

 

I keep a standalone version of exiftool; so I am wondering if Damnion will leverage what I already have or will it use the rev included with Daminion (since I think you would want to test with the latest rev of Exiftool prior to supporting it within Daminion).

[Murat]

Daminion 0.8.3 uses ExifTool 8.18. It's not the latest version, but it works very well and covers all the functionality we need. We'll update it to the coming version.

 

We don't plan to add an option to check the newest ExifTool version (as GeoSetter)

because it's just one of the many external libriries we use to work with various media formats.

 

You can try by yourself to replace the ExifTool copy in Daminion. A common location is

C:\Program Files\Daminion Software\Daminion\MediaProcessors\ImageProcessor\exiftool.exe

[kingsfan]

Do you know if there is a new build available for me to test that the IPTC tag duplication issue has been resolved?

 

Thanks.

[Murat]

Click here to download the latest Daminion 0.8.3.344 build (not published)

[kingsfan]

I can verify that duplicate IPTC data blocks are no longer being created.

 

I understand you want to maintain compatibility with software that does not understand XMP fully yet, so I know why you want to create an IPTC section when one does not exist for a RAW file.

 

However, please consider an option to allow the user to not write to IPTC. Other DAM software such as IDImager have these optionsa, AFAIK. As I mentioned in the begenning of this thread, the I am one person trying to move away from IPTC :-)

 

Thanks.

[kingsfan]

Any thoughts on the request to give the user the option not to save IPTC? Thanks.

[Murat]

We'll not separate mapping. All the annotations will be mapped as to IPTC as to XMP. This is required for backward compatibility with various applications and services.

 

XMP has the highest priority so if a picture contains, for example, IPTC Title and XMP DC:Title fields, Daminion will check the XMP field. If it is empty then the value will be taken from IPTC.

 

We also plan to add a feature to pause or stop mapping metadata (XMP and IPTC) mapping into the files.

 

BTW why do you need to avoid using IPTC? It's transparent for program users, takes very little space in the file's header, writing/reading IPTC is fast, and it provides great compatibility with various third-party apps and services.

[kingsfan]

IPTC tags are a thing of the past. They have not kept up to date with newer tags and the industry (this community and Daminion need to do their part :-)) is trying hard to adopt XMP.

 

In order to provide backward compatibility feel free to keep the default of writing to IPTC fields, but PLEASE give the user an option to not write IPTC. There is nothing wrong with giving the user the choice, is there?

 

From the EXIFTool Authors site is this quote:

 

"This is an older meta information format, slowly being phased out in favor of XMP."

 

Why then are we continuing to use it? Unless software and services start providing means to adopt newer standards the mechanisms to phase out the old ones will linger forever.

 

Thanks for listening :-)