IPTC settings for both Adobe & Nikon Capture NX2

[bazography]

I’m a long time PM user but I’m new to Nikon Capture NX2. I have always used the preferences recommended in the PM user guide for Adobe products as Photoshop is my main editor, but now with Capture NX2 occasionally in the mix I’m wondering if I need to alter my IPTC preferences.

I don’t shoot raw often (maybe 10-20%). When I do have NEFs to process I plan to ingest using PM as usual, which is when I do the majority of my keywording etc. I have no interest in using Nikon Capture for metadata, it will strictly be used to process raw files to TIFs or JPGs.

I did some metadata testing with the above workflow using my current IPTC preferences set for Adobe products. The metadata in the resulting TIFs and JPGs from Nikon Capture appeared to be fine. However, there must be a good reason PM recommends different preferences for Nikon Capture and Adobe, so I’m still a bit concerned (or slightly paranoid perhaps...) that I might be missing an issue, or that issues could crop up down the road.

I know that I can create a snapshot of 2 sets of IPTC preferences and switch between Adobe and Nikon settings as needed, but I just know that I would end up creating more problems as I’d constantly be forgetting to switch it back. If one set of preferences will work in my situation that would be ideal.

So can anyone tell me what (if any) issues might occur if I use Adobe IPTC settings with Nikon Capture? By sticking with PM for all metadata editing does that mean I shouldn’t run into any problems? I want to make sure I get this right from the start... don’t want any surprizes down the road.

[Hayo Baan]

Hello bazography,

I use PM, NX2, and Photoshop extensively and have never run into any problems with IPTC/XMP being out of sync.

I do take care not to change any of the metadata outside PhotoMechanic (it's much easier within PM anyway), but even if you accidentally do, this is either not a problem at all, or PM can be used to put things right easily. My settings are a bit different from the ones as suggested by Kirk, but I think mine work better in a mixed environment like this.

The only problem with combining Adobe software with e.g. Capture NX2 is the sidecar file Adobe uses for storing raw file meta data (Note: there's actually no problem with non-raw files; PM, NX2, Adobe all read and update the embedded XMP just fine). This file is not recognised by NX2, but it is the only place where Adobe will put it's meta data updates (it will read them from the embedded info just fine too though). Luckily PM can read and update both just fine and in fact is capable of synchronising them when they weren't the same.

Thinking about this, I have come up with the following IPTC strategy (see attached screenshot for PM's settings):

• have PM read the sidecar first.
• If there's no sidecar, use the embedded XMP data (XMP data is more "complete" than pure IPTC, and is in fact used by both Adobe and NX2)
• If there's no embedded XMP, use the embedded IPTC

By doing this, PM will automatically take care of those cases where you (accidentally?) alter meta data with an Adobe product; these will be seen by PM (and when you then update any meta data within PM, it will synchronise the sidecar and embedded XMP/IPTC). The only case (but I don't think this will ever occur under normal circumstances) where you may get meta data out of sync is when you use NX2 to alter the meta data of a raw file that already had a sidecar (i.e., was previously edited by an Adobe product); in this case the meta data alterations by NX2 will be ignored by PM and Adobe. But I think this will not be a relevant case as 1) you will not likely edit a file in both NX2 and e.g. ACR, and 2) you don't use NX2 for editing meta data anyway.

Hope this helps,
Hayo

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[bazography]

Hayo,

Thanks very much for taking the time to post such a detailed response. It definitely helps clear things up for up me. Sounds like I don't need to worry, especially as I have no need to ever read or write metadata with Nikon Capture. Your settings seem to be the safest way to go when using both Photoshop and Nikon Capture, so I'll update my preferences.

Cheers!