IPTC not shown in other software application

[heavymeister]

We are using PM to IPTC or update IPTC data on photos that we receive from photographers. Some colleagues also work with Adobe Bridge CS3 to the same. Now our company is using a new CMS (Woodwing) for a magazine workflow. We check in only photos that are being used in production. Now we encounterd that the updated IPTC data (either with PM or Bridge) is not shown in the CMS - just the initial IPTC that came with the photos from the photographers. We made some tests and found that the updated IPTC is only shown in the CMS when we save the update along with the file in Photoshop.
We need the IPTC caption field very badly for the automatic byline creation in the magazine production workflow.

Is there a way/setting in PM to "force" the IPTC update into the file the same way as saving the file in Photoshop does?
We are talking all jpeg workflow, PM 4.6.5, Windows XP Professional, Bridge/Photoshop CS3 on various Dell machines.

Thanks for any help!

[Kirk Baker]

We are using PM to IPTC or update IPTC data on photos that we receive from photographers. Some colleagues also work with Adobe Bridge CS3 to the same. Now our company is using a new CMS (Woodwing) for a magazine workflow. We check in only photos that are being used in production. Now we encounterd that the updated IPTC data (either with PM or Bridge) is not shown in the CMS - just the initial IPTC that came with the photos from the photographers. We made some tests and found that the updated IPTC is only shown in the CMS when we save the update along with the file in Photoshop.
We need the IPTC caption field very badly for the automatic byline creation in the magazine production workflow.

Is there a way/setting in PM to "force" the IPTC update into the file the same way as saving the file in Photoshop does?
We are talking all jpeg workflow, PM 4.6.5, Windows XP Professional, Bridge/Photoshop CS3 on various Dell machines.

It's likely that this CMS doesn't understand IPTC or XMP at all.  Based on your description, I'd say that the only information the CMS is picking up on is the EXIF Description tag.  PM does not update or create that tag at all.

You could use ExifTool in a batch operation to do this quite effectively so that you wouldn't have to manually go into Photoshop and re-save the images.

HTH,

-Kirk

[heavymeister]

The Woodwing CMS handles standard IPTC and XMP. It shows all the IPTC data from the original file before it was updated with PM or Bridge. It does not see changes of the IPTC that were done without saving the whole file and thus recompression. I looked a little bit around and it seems that other applications or databases and stockphoto agencies (like Topixx) suffer from the same malfunction. It was discussed in some stockphoto newsgroups and the only solution people came up with is re-saving the file after IPTC update. This might work when you deal with only few files, but we handle 70.000 files per year. Our previous workflow was pretty in favour of PM and still is up to the point when we add photos to the CMS. Adobe does not see a fault  in its file handling nor do I see a malfunction in PM. I just was hoping someone could offer a useful workarond/solution that avoids re-saving updated IPTC with Photoshop.
Anyone?

[Kirk Baker]

The Woodwing CMS handles standard IPTC and XMP. It shows all the IPTC data from the original file before it was updated with PM or Bridge. It does not see changes of the IPTC that were done without saving the whole file and thus recompression. I looked a little bit around and it seems that other applications or databases and stockphoto agencies (like Topixx) suffer from the same malfunction. It was discussed in some stockphoto newsgroups and the only solution people came up with is re-saving the file after IPTC update. This might work when you deal with only few files, but we handle 70.000 files per year. Our previous workflow was pretty in favour of PM and still is up to the point when we add photos to the CMS. Adobe does not see a fault  in its file handling nor do I see a malfunction in PM. I just was hoping someone could offer a useful workarond/solution that avoids re-saving updated IPTC with Photoshop.

What application wrote the IPTC data into the photo before PM or Bridge enters the picture?

-Kirk

[heavymeister]

Our photographers use a whole variety of applications: lightroom 2/3, PM, Fotostation, Bridge, View NX, etc.
All we usually update is the caption field from where we automatically generate a byline for the photo or later info for the barrier-free PDF tags for handicaped people.

[heavymeister]

By the way: what is the difference in respect of header data handling between updating IPTC and saving IPTC via file saving?
It seems that some applications don't see the updated IPTC in the header unless it is saved. Can anyone guide me to a page where the details are explained?

[heavymeister]

We are using PM to IPTC or update IPTC data on photos that we receive from photographers. Some colleagues also work with Adobe Bridge CS3 to the same. Now our company is using a new CMS (Woodwing) for a magazine workflow. We check in only photos that are being used in production. Now we encounterd that the updated IPTC data (either with PM or Bridge) is not shown in the CMS - just the initial IPTC that came with the photos from the photographers. We made some tests and found that the updated IPTC is only shown in the CMS when we save the update along with the file in Photoshop.
We need the IPTC caption field very badly for the automatic byline creation in the magazine production workflow.

Is there a way/setting in PM to "force" the IPTC update into the file the same way as saving the file in Photoshop does?
We are talking all jpeg workflow, PM 4.6.5, Windows XP Professional, Bridge/Photoshop CS3 on various Dell machines.

It's likely that this CMS doesn't understand IPTC or XMP at all.  Based on your description, I'd say that the only information the CMS is picking up on is the EXIF Description tag.  PM does not update or create that tag at all.

You could use ExifTool in a batch operation to do this quite effectively so that you wouldn't have to manually go into Photoshop and re-save the images.

HTH,

-Kirk

I checked this with an exif viewer application and it indeed seems that the "caption" we see in Woodwing is the information from EXIF Description tag instead of the IPTC caption. We should see a solution by the manufacturer soon.
But I am still trying to understand the "mechanics" of this. Is there a documention of the EXIF standard? From where does it pull the information written in the EXIF Description tag? And why does saving the file update this tag?

[Kirk Baker]

We are using PM to IPTC or update IPTC data on photos that we receive from photographers. Some colleagues also work with Adobe Bridge CS3 to the same. Now our company is using a new CMS (Woodwing) for a magazine workflow. We check in only photos that are being used in production. Now we encounterd that the updated IPTC data (either with PM or Bridge) is not shown in the CMS - just the initial IPTC that came with the photos from the photographers. We made some tests and found that the updated IPTC is only shown in the CMS when we save the update along with the file in Photoshop.
We need the IPTC caption field very badly for the automatic byline creation in the magazine production workflow.

Is there a way/setting in PM to "force" the IPTC update into the file the same way as saving the file in Photoshop does?
We are talking all jpeg workflow, PM 4.6.5, Windows XP Professional, Bridge/Photoshop CS3 on various Dell machines.

It's likely that this CMS doesn't understand IPTC or XMP at all.  Based on your description, I'd say that the only information the CMS is picking up on is the EXIF Description tag.  PM does not update or create that tag at all.

You could use ExifTool in a batch operation to do this quite effectively so that you wouldn't have to manually go into Photoshop and re-save the images.

I checked this with an exif viewer application and it indeed seems that the "caption" we see in Woodwing is the information from EXIF Description tag instead of the IPTC caption. We should see a solution by the manufacturer soon.
But I am still trying to understand the "mechanics" of this. Is there a documention of the EXIF standard? From where does it pull the information written in the EXIF Description tag? And why does saving the file update this tag?

EXIF <> IPTC

They are not the same, nor is one a subset of the other.  IPTC data is saved in JPEGs in a 'Photoshop' marker.  (It's just been done that way since Photoshop started the method long ago.)

Photoshop just happens to update the EXIF description tag with the contents of the IPTC Caption field when it re-saves a JPEG.  PM does not re-save the JPEG from scratch when it updates or inserts IPTC data, thus keeping you from suffering a generational loss each time metadata is updated.

As for EXIF documentation, there are several sources:

http://www.google.com/search?q=exif+documentation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

-Kirk