Closed: Not recognising embedded IPTC/XMP of Photomatix Pro processed files

[Hayo Baan]

PhotoMechanic does not seem to recognise the embedded IPTC/XMP info of files processed by Photomatix Pro.

When you resave these files in Photoshop, the information reappears though. Exiftool is able to find all information as well (without having to resave in PS first). So the information sure is in the files, PM just doesn't see it in an unaltered Photomatix Pro file.

Not seeing the IPTC/XMP is one thing, but it becomes real troublesome if you accidentally add or change IPTC/XMP information or rate/label/tag the file; then all originally embedded IPTC/XMP data gets removed completely and unrecoverably.

Hopefully this can be fixed soon.

Thanks,
     Hayo Baan

[Kirk Baker]

Hayo,

PhotoMechanic does not seem to recognise the embedded IPTC/XMP info of files processed by Photomatix Pro.

When you resave these files in Photoshop, the information reappears though. Exiftool is able to find all information as well (without having to resave in PS first). So the information sure is in the files, PM just doesn't see it in an unaltered Photomatix Pro file.

Not seeing the IPTC/XMP is one thing, but it becomes real troublesome if you accidentally add or change IPTC/XMP information or rate/label/tag the file; then all originally embedded IPTC/XMP data gets removed completely and unrecoverably.

Hopefully this can be fixed soon.

We've never seen a Photomatix Pro modified file before.  Are these RAW files?  Can you send us a sample or two?  Please click on my name to the left of this message, then click on the 'personal message' link.  I will respond with upload instructions.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

To clarify: I'm talking about the tif files generated by photomatix from a set of files. I haven't yet checked to see if the same problem exists with jpgs but I'll do that too and upload the results.

[dennis]

Hi Hayo,

From the TIFF file you uploaded, it looks like Photomatix isn't properly writing their TIFF file and PM doesn't like it.  Because PM edits files "in place" (unlike something like Photoshop which writes an entirely new file), PM is picky about files being properly (legitimately) formatted.  We may be able to do something to handle this but really Photomatix should write proper files.

Without going through the debugger I can see two problems right away:

1) The TIFF tags are supposed to be sorted in increasing numerical order and they are putting the ICC profile tag (0x8773) before the XMP tag (0x02bc).  The ICC profile tag should be the last one in their file (after 0x8769 for the Exif data).

2) The XMP data does not have a package wrapper.  It is embedded just like an XMP sidecar file but XMP that is embedded within a file (TIFF/JPEG/PSD etc) needs to have the wrapper.

I briefly looked at their JPEG and #2 is also a problem.  Maybe if you read IPTC before XMP it will pick that up, but the old IPTC IIM record is a pain to properly write (and update) because it is buried inside of Photoshop's JPEG marker for historical (non-sensical) reasons.

I'll try to contact HDRsoft directly to see if they can fix their TIFF and JPEG writers.  There may be additional issues besides the two above.

I will have to dig deeper in the debugger to see what else is wrong and what we can do to salvage the data they have.

As far as us fixing PM, I'll see what I can do but the saying "garbage in, garbage out" comes to mind here.  Photoshop obviously is more permissive about bogus files (having seen plenty of trash and corrupted files over its history), and it sucks up what it can then writes a properly formatted file.  Exiftool is just showing you the data it finds and I suspect if you used it to modify the file it may have issues.  Because PM only edits metadata and not the pixels or other unknown metadata (to preserve it if possible), it is a more difficult situation and therefore it relies on files being properly written.  There are several "tweaks" I have made over the years to deal with bogus files but apparently not enough to handle these Photomatix files.  So in the meantime I suggest you process them through Photoshop to load/save (and hopefully you won't lose any data in the process - looks like the data Photomatix writes is pretty basic with no proprietary info).

Thanks for the heads-up!

--dennis

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Dennis,

Yeah, it sounded like Photomatix Pro was writing not fully correct files to me too. It would be great if they fixed this (and perhaps kept more of the exif intact as well), or if you could find a way to safely read and update the information still contained in the files.

For now my work-around to force PS to re-save the files works (I've even created a droplet for it to speed things up). I just need to remember doing so before tagging/rating, etc. the files.

Let me know if you've come anywhere close to a solution with HDRSoft.

Thanks,
    Hayo

[dennis]

Hayo,

I contacted HDRSoft by email last Wednesday but haven't heard back.

I can tell you that the XMP in the TIFF file only has their proprietary "Tone Mapping" settings (Method, Brightness, Compression, Contrast, WhiteClip, BlackClip, ColorTemperature, Saturation) and no IPTC4XMP metadata.  However this is stored in the old IPTC IIM record.  So if you were to load IPTC first in your PM IPTC/XMP preferences for these files then it finds the IPTC data, and PM was able to update it.

But really they should correctly write the tags in increasing numerical order, add a package wrapper to the XMP, and put the IPTC data in the XMP along with their proprietary settings.

HTH...

--dennis

[mklass]

I don't know if this is a related issue, or a completely seperate on.

I have PM 4.6.7 running in Win Vista 64.

I have PM set up with the recommended setting for compatibility with Capture 2 NX, with regards to ratings, color class and reading EXIF/IPTC data.

I edit a NEF in CNX, save it and also save a JPG of the same name. So far so good.

I then open the JPG in onOne Perfect Resize 7 to resize the image, the resave the JPG. Back in PM, all of the EXIF data is gone from teh JPG (but obviously still in the NEF since it wasn't edited again).

Is there anyway to get the EXIF info back into the JPG without manually editing it with an EXIF editor?

Mick

[Kirk Baker]

Mick,

I don't know if this is a related issue, or a completely seperate on.

I have PM 4.6.7 running in Win Vista 64.

I have PM set up with the recommended setting for compatibility with Capture 2 NX, with regards to ratings, color class and reading EXIF/IPTC data.

I edit a NEF in CNX, save it and also save a JPG of the same name. So far so good.

I then open the JPG in onOne Perfect Resize 7 to resize the image, the resave the JPG. Back in PM, all of the EXIF data is gone from teh JPG (but obviously still in the NEF since it wasn't edited again).

Is there anyway to get the EXIF info back into the JPG without manually editing it with an EXIF editor?

There is no such feature in Photo Mechanic, but I'd expect that ExifTool should be up to the task.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Mick,

I don't have onOne resize so I can't test this for you, but have you looked at the jpg with a tool like exiftool? If that tool doesn't find the exif data, it is not there anymore. It could be that onOne perfect rezise simply strips the exif data. Perhaps there is an option in the software to keep the exif data?

Hope this helps,
    Hayo

[mklass]

I will post a message to onOne and see what they say. Opening the image in EXIFTtool shows that all the EXIF, IPTC, XMP and Maker info is gone.

Mick

[Hayo Baan]

I will post a message to onOne and see what they say. Opening teh image in EXIF stool show that all teh EXIT, IPTC, XMP and Maker info is gone.

Mick

Hi Mick,

That is really bad of onOne! They should really leave those things alone! I hope they (and HDRSoft) listen to your complaint and fix their code.

[mklass]

Well, onOne readily admits that this is a fault in Perfect Resize 7 and that it will be corrected in the next update. No date on that, yet, but they are usually pretty good about fixing things. (Must be that air software companies breath in Portland

Mick