Which encoding settings for non-PM users?

[heavymeister]

We started using PM for sorting incoming pictures and checking their IPTC fields. We run Windows XP Professional and PM 4.6.3. Our default settings of IPTC encoding in PM is "Latin1 Western European" and "write as unicode". We also set PM to "Read embedded XMP before XMP" since some files that have been IPTC'ed with Adobe Bridge showed only XMP fields.

From time to time we get messed up Umlaute (ü,ö,ä) from some of our photographers. The guys with faulty IPTC work on Windows and Mac and mostly use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom.
What settings should they use in order that we can receive correct Umlaute in PM?
I have no idea about where to set the default encoding in Adobe products nor in Windows nor in Mac. Anyone know?
Or is there a global setting in PM that will allow correct display of IPTC independent from the software used to iptc the files?

Thanks for you help,

HM

[Kirk Baker]

We started using PM for sorting incoming pictures and checking their IPTC fields. We run Windows XP Professional and PM 4.6.3. Our default settings of IPTC encoding in PM is "Latin1 Western European" and "write as unicode". We also set PM to "Read embedded XMP before XMP" since some files that have been IPTC'ed with Adobe Bridge showed only XMP fields.

From time to time we get messed up Umlaute (ü,ö,ä) from some of our photographers. The guys with faulty IPTC work on Windows and Mac and mostly use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom.
What settings should they use in order that we can receive correct Umlaute in PM?
I have no idea about where to set the default encoding in Adobe products nor in Windows nor in Mac. Anyone know?
Or is there a global setting in PM that will allow correct display of IPTC independent from the software used to iptc the files?

If you can force everyone to use XMP exclusively, you shouldn't have any issues at all.  It is the legacy IPTC data that can have variable character sets used within without specification of the character set used to create the data.  Adobe's apps won't write out IPTC encoded in Unicode, nor will they read IPTC data that has been encoded in Unicode properly.  Adobe's apps will always write (and read) legacy IPTC in whatever character set is the default on the system that the data is written (or read) from.

You can temporarily change the encoding used to read the IPTC data while in the IPTC Info dialog.  Just change the "IPTC Encoding" popup menu to the character set you think may have been used to create the legacy IPTC data and you'll see the data reinterpreted in the character set you chose.  Watch for characters you expect (like your accented characters) to be correct and see if they're correct now.  If not, try changing the IPTC Encoding repeatedly until you arrive at one that works.  Once you have that figured out, you can change the Default IPTC Encoding in the IPTC/XMP tab of the Preferences dialog to handle the rest of the images you received by that photographer.

As you can see, the above process would be tedious, but there is nothing that can be done for legacy IPTC data that does not specify the encoding used to create the data.  XMP is a much better choice since it is always Unicode encoded (UTF-8 encoding) and should always preserve your accented characters.

-Kirk

[heavymeister]

We started using PM for sorting incoming pictures and checking their IPTC fields. We run Windows XP Professional and PM 4.6.3. Our default settings of IPTC encoding in PM is "Latin1 Western European" and "write as unicode". We also set PM to "Read embedded XMP before XMP" since some files that have been IPTC'ed with Adobe Bridge showed only XMP fields.

From time to time we get messed up Umlaute (ü,ö,ä) from some of our photographers. The guys with faulty IPTC work on Windows and Mac and mostly use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom.
What settings should they use in order that we can receive correct Umlaute in PM?
I have no idea about where to set the default encoding in Adobe products nor in Windows nor in Mac. Anyone know?
Or is there a global setting in PM that will allow correct display of IPTC independent from the software used to iptc the files?

If you can force everyone to use XMP exclusively, you shouldn't have any issues at all.  It is the legacy IPTC data that can have variable character sets used within without specification of the character set used to create the data.  Adobe's apps won't write out IPTC encoded in Unicode, nor will they read IPTC data that has been encoded in Unicode properly.  Adobe's apps will always write (and read) legacy IPTC in whatever character set is the default on the system that the data is written (or read) from.

Any idea how to do this technically? What should I tell our contributers to set up in Bridge/Lightroom? We have Bridge CS3 for Windows here, but I couldn't figure out in the Preference which setting would create compulsory XMP/IPTC usage.

You can temporarily change the encoding used to read the IPTC data while in the IPTC Info dialog.  Just change the "IPTC Encoding" popup menu to the character set you think may have been used to create the legacy IPTC data and you'll see the data reinterpreted in the character set you chose.  Watch for characters you expect (like your accented characters) to be correct and see if they're correct now.  If not, try changing the IPTC Encoding repeatedly until you arrive at one that works.  Once you have that figured out, you can change the Default IPTC Encoding in the IPTC/XMP tab of the Preferences dialog to handle the rest of the images you received by that photographer.

That is exactly what I tried in the first place, but it did not yield a working result on some files.

As you can see, the above process would be tedious, but there is nothing that can be done for legacy IPTC data that does not specify the encoding used to create the data.  XMP is a much better choice since it is always Unicode encoded (UTF-8 encoding) and should always preserve your accented characters.

-Kirk

So you would suggest rather using XMP than the legacy core IPTC in the future? We are looking at IPTC'ing some 50.000 photos from last year that are located in a file system. What PM settings would you suggest to be sort of fool proof for a proper use in the future and maybe in a database (which we are looking into to aquire)??

Kirk, thanks a lot for your great support.

HM

[Kirk Baker]

We started using PM for sorting incoming pictures and checking their IPTC fields. We run Windows XP Professional and PM 4.6.3. Our default settings of IPTC encoding in PM is "Latin1 Western European" and "write as unicode". We also set PM to "Read embedded XMP before XMP" since some files that have been IPTC'ed with Adobe Bridge showed only XMP fields.

From time to time we get messed up Umlaute (ü,ö,ä) from some of our photographers. The guys with faulty IPTC work on Windows and Mac and mostly use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom.
What settings should they use in order that we can receive correct Umlaute in PM?
I have no idea about where to set the default encoding in Adobe products nor in Windows nor in Mac. Anyone know?
Or is there a global setting in PM that will allow correct display of IPTC independent from the software used to iptc the files?

If you can force everyone to use XMP exclusively, you shouldn't have any issues at all.  It is the legacy IPTC data that can have variable character sets used within without specification of the character set used to create the data.  Adobe's apps won't write out IPTC encoded in Unicode, nor will they read IPTC data that has been encoded in Unicode properly.  Adobe's apps will always write (and read) legacy IPTC in whatever character set is the default on the system that the data is written (or read) from.

Any idea how to do this technically? What should I tell our contributers to set up in Bridge/Lightroom? We have Bridge CS3 for Windows here, but I couldn't figure out in the Preference which setting would create compulsory XMP/IPTC usage.

Adobe's apps all create XMP now and have done so for several years now (CS1 on up.)

You can temporarily change the encoding used to read the IPTC data while in the IPTC Info dialog.  Just change the "IPTC Encoding" popup menu to the character set you think may have been used to create the legacy IPTC data and you'll see the data reinterpreted in the character set you chose.  Watch for characters you expect (like your accented characters) to be correct and see if they're correct now.  If not, try changing the IPTC Encoding repeatedly until you arrive at one that works.  Once you have that figured out, you can change the Default IPTC Encoding in the IPTC/XMP tab of the Preferences dialog to handle the rest of the images you received by that photographer.

That is exactly what I tried in the first place, but it did not yield a working result on some files.

Did some of the files come from a different source?  Once you find the correct encoding, all IPTC from a given source should work.

As you can see, the above process would be tedious, but there is nothing that can be done for legacy IPTC data that does not specify the encoding used to create the data.  XMP is a much better choice since it is always Unicode encoded (UTF-8 encoding) and should always preserve your accented characters.

So you would suggest rather using XMP than the legacy core IPTC in the future? We are looking at IPTC'ing some 50.000 photos from last year that are located in a file system. What PM settings would you suggest to be sort of fool proof for a proper use in the future and maybe in a database (which we are looking into to aquire)??

Definitely standardize on XMP instead of legacy IPTC.  IPTC may never go away, but you can be certain that internationalization headaches will never go away and new fields are never going to be added.  XMP is the future (and for many organizations, the present standard.)

Set PM to write XMP (and IPTC if you like),  set PM to prefer XMP over IPTC when reading.

-Kirk