HEIC and XMP not working anymore

[mikaelc]

Hi

a couple of days ago I noticed something that broke my workflow for iPhone images. Normally I export a selection of iPhone images in HEIC format and use PM to add metadata, the next step in my workflow is to import the images into Capture One. This time C1 did not see the metadata.

After some research I found this line in the release notes for Version 6.0 Build 5781 (04/19/2021):

- Added: XMP is now embedded directly into HEIC and HIF files rather than using an XMP sidecar file.

Which is nice I suppose, but as C1 does not recognize embedded metadata in HEIC this presents a problem to me.

Would it perhaps be possible to add a preference to create an XMP sidecar for HEIC, the functionality is obviously already in PM.

Obviously C1 could also start to recognize embedded metadata in HEIC files but as PM already has the functionality to write the XMP sidecar it seems fairly simple to allow for both variants: embedded and sidecar.

For the time being I have downgraded to the PM version just before the latest update which gave me XMP sidecars back.

Thanks!

//Mikael

[dennis]

Mikael,

HEIC files are a standard (container) format that is designed to hold XMP.  Both Canon and Sony embed XMP into HEIC files but this is typically limited to just the rating (unless you add an IPTC template).

The problem with XMP sidecars for HEIC is that if you shoot RAW+HEIC then the XMP would "belong" to both the HEIC and the RAW file (e.g. ARW).  While this may make sense if these are joined in PM (to keep metadata the same), it is possible to separate these and then if you make an adjustment to just the HEIC for example, the RAW (e.g. ARW) would also be affected.  Therefore the XMP belongs in the HEIC, similar to DNG (there is not supposed to be any XMP sidecar for DNG - it is intended to be embedded).

It sounds like C1 needs to recognize the embedded XMP.  We don't have any plans to revert to XMP sidecars.  We initially used XMP sidecars until we were able to create the necessary code to both expand existing XMP in an HEIC file and to add XMP to an HEIC file that doesn't already have XMP (so far all HEIC files created by cameras we know of - Canon and Sony - come with XMP already embedded).

If you need an XMP "sidecar" then you can always do a Save from IPTC Info dialog.  This would "temporarily" create an XMP file.  Definitely not ideal.  Lightroom sees the embedded XMP in HEIC just fine (but unfortunately it doesn't have the "brains" to update the HEIC file with new XMP).  Photoshop cannot even open an HEIC file yet (last time I checked).

--dennis

[mikaelc]

Hi

thanks for the explanation, it all makes sense. Unfortunately I was not aware of the technical issues behind the implementation, I have therefore relied on this functionality for building a workflow where I could use HEIC all the way. From my perspective all the pieces aligned when both C1 and PM delivered HEIC compatibility and my thought was that I finally had reached a kind of milestone.

Well, here's hoping that C1 will implement HEIC embedded metadata sooner rather than later, in the meantime I'll hold on to the latest version of PM that creates sidecars – at least for a while. If C1 is too slow in implementing this I will consider going back to JPEGs.

//Mikael