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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Photo Mechanic and Adobe Bridge/PS IPTC Data Compatibility
Michael Silverwood, Photographer
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Exeter | NH | USA | Posted: 4:49 PM on 09.11.06 |
| ->> I use Photo Mechanic exclusively to ingest, sort and caption my photos - and have recently started using Adobe Bridge to compliment it for some editing, etc. I noticed that ALL of the IPTC fields in PM don't carry over fully to Bridge and vice versa. For example, if I fill the fields in completely in PM and then open an image in Bridge or PS CS2 and view the IPTC data, Bridge/PS CS2 doesn't recognize much of the data, or if I use Bridge/PS CS2 to completely fill in the IPTC data, some of the fields in PM are empty...ARRGH!! What am I doing wrong? I realize that Adobe offers up many more data fields than PM. This worries me, because I try to be complete with my IPTC information; just because I use PM, what happens if I submit a photo to AP or some other entity, and they use Bridge, Nikon View, ACDSee or whatever - how can I be confident that the complete IPTC data set as I intend will be seen by the other party? You would think that everyone would be on the same page. Any comments/suggestions??? Thanks! |
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Samuel Lewis, Photographer
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Miami | FL | USA | Posted: 6:48 PM on 09.11.06 |
->> Part of this sounds like a known issue with CS2's handling of IPTC data. For instance, if I use PM to enter the IPTC Catagory field (with something obvious, like "Sports"), after editing the image in CS2, the contents of that field will be reduced to three characters--"Spo"--because that's what CS2 thinks the Category should be.
My own approach has been to edit/apply the IPTC data with PM after running the images through CS2.
Hope this helps. |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 7:04 PM on 09.11.06 |
->> Adobe PS CS2 is using a newer style of XMP encoding following the recommendations of the IPTC4XMP working group in their IPTC Core specification. Photo Mechanic does not use this scheme yet.
Translation: There's a number of different ways to store meta data, and not every one does it the same way.
This isn't because they are lazy. It just happens that we're in a period of time when the encoding of meta data is in flux. So you basically have to grin and bear it because adoption by all software vendors can be arduously slow. You would think everyone would be on the same page, but there is no mandate for software manufacturers to implement these standards. And you might be surprised to know that PACA also has a meta data standard, and CEPIC also has announced it's intentions to come up with a standard. Three standards for meta data? Most people don't even know about one of them. You probably have never neard of PACA or CEPIC.
To answer your question, there is no guarantee that any single user will be able to read all the encoding. For example, you can get CS to write to files the way that CS2 does, but only if you download the IPTC Core panels from the IPTC website (I'm sure you rushed to do this already). But that means newer fields (like "contact e-mail") won't be readable by older browsers like PM or iView pre v3.
GOOD LUCK!! AND KEEP SHOOTIN FOR THE STARS! |
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Michael Silverwood, Photographer
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Exeter | NH | USA | Posted: 10:40 PM on 09.11.06 |
->> Thanks for the info Samuel and Allen - Unfortunately (for me!) most of the technical stuff on this is making my head hurt ;^)
I have reviewed the IPTC website previously but your explanation puts it all together - how silly of me to think everyone would be on the same page!
So, my gut tells me based on the current situation that I should consider captioning in Adobe even though it will be significantly more involved and time consuming than in PM.
Knowing how great Camera Bits' Support is, I should guess that they are already working on a new version! (sorry for the shameless plug..!) |
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Michael Silverwood, Photographer
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Exeter | NH | USA | Posted: 10:58 PM on 09.11.06 |
| ->> Given the info that Allen provided, and checking the IPTC site again, I went back into Photo Mechanic - I checked the Preferences and low and behold there is a IPTC/XMP tab. With my new found intelligence I immediately saw and better understood the options. I reset the defaults to read embedded XMP before IPTC, and Add both IPTC and IPTC4XMP and voilla! the data I had entered in Bridge was now visible in PM and vice versa. So it looks like it was Operator Error all along! Just another reason why Photo Mechanic is awesome! |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 8:13 AM on 09.12.06 |
->> Thanks Michael, this was an issue for me too. So now I have changed my PM and will try it out.
Allenor anyone else, do you have a recommendation about entering data in PM or CS2 for best and reliable workflow? |
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