Structured keywords / hierarchicalSubject from Capture One to Photo Mechanic 6

[BBob]

Hello.

I am running a trial period of Photo Mechanic Plus version 6, build 6045 on Windows 10x64, and Capture One version 22 (15.4), with sessions.

I am currently trying the most basic file type, ie. raw files (.NEF) with xmp sidecar file to exchange metadata.

I want to be able to edit metadata, color tag, rating, and keywords and hierarchical keywords in both applications and synchronize in both directions.

My problem is that the structured keywords, when read from the C1 generated xmp file, is next to unreadable (visually) in PM.

The reason is that C1 writes one structured item into the hierarchicalSubject for each level, and PM shows all items in the keyword box, plus each level's single term.
In my example with A|B|C in the hierarchy, Capture One shows three items in the GUI A B C which is very readable, but PM shows 5 items = 8 terms , i.e. A, B, C, A | B, A | B | C

C1 keywords:

Code: [Select]

Birds   Woodpecker    Spotted Woodpecker
PM keyword box:

Code: [Select]

Birds, Woodpecker, Spotted Woodpecker, Birds |
Woodpecker, Birds | Woodpecker | Spotted Woodpecker
see also screenshot attached



XMP file from C1

Code: [Select]

   <dc:subject>
    <rdf:Bag>
     <rdf:li>Birds</rdf:li>
     <rdf:li>Woodpecker</rdf:li>
     <rdf:li>Spotted Woodpecker</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Bag>
   </dc:subject>
   <lightroom:hierarchicalSubject>
    <rdf:Bag>
     <rdf:li>Birds</rdf:li>
     <rdf:li>Birds|Woodpecker</rdf:li>
     <rdf:li>Birds|Woodpecker|Spotted Woodpecker</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Bag>
   </lightroom:hierarchicalSubject>



Question: Do Adobe products also populate the lightroom:hierarchicalSubject tag in the xmp as C1 does?

If so, would you (camera bits) consider to change the behaviour in PM such that "duplicate" terms are omitted, so that a readable list of terms are shown, e.g.

Code: [Select]

Birds | Woodpecker | Spotted Woodpecker
in my example?

But even if the usage of this xmp tag is C1 specific, would you consider to improve on this, or even generally work more on Capture One compatibilty more than you already did (e.g. for color tags)?

I've read through many forum posts where most often it was stated that the poster (from camera bits staff) does not know how C1 is doing things. This puzzled me a little bit, but I have some hope that PM will have more interest to be compatible with existing major raw developers, especially as PM is now also positioned as a DAM-like application with its added PLUS catalogs and thus is (or can be) used as a central image hub, and by nature of a hub it should be very compatible with many adjacent systems. Can you comment on this please?

Thanks and regards,
BBob


P.S.
This includes btw. the strong opinion that PM should be doing only the standard embedding into JPG and other non-raw files (as opposed to write to xmp files, optionally).
C1 has a strong opinion to never write into these files (except on export), they refuse to alter these original files because they want to avoid destroying them.
Do they have a valid point with this opinion? Well, even PM which is considered to be strong as a metadata application, fixed two bugs only this year where embedding metadata into such files could have corrupted them (TIFF in Build 6552 and HEIC HIF in Build 6474). So, one could argue that C1 has a point in writing to xmp sidecar files even for jpgs and alike (though this does not justify that they do not include an option to write to original files).

[Kirk Baker]

Bob,

The only thing I'm seeing that C1 is doing odd is that it is putting the partial paths into the hierarchical subject field.  Perhaps that can be adjusted to omit the shorter paths?

-Kirk

[BBob]

Thanks for the reply, Kirk.

Maybe they do this to accomodate any Adobe product, but that's guessing.

No, it cannot be configured in C1.

Regards
BBob