IPTC image regions

[gverhoev]

Hi all,

The 2019.1 IPTC standard introduced IPTC Image Regions. Shapes within an image can be marked up as rectangle, circle or polygon, and any existing IPTC Photo Metadata field can be added to a region. In addition, two new properties, Image Region Content-Type and Image Region Role, were added to provide characteristics of a region.
Is Photo Mechanic going to support those?

Related to this: the IPTC website (https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/software-support/#pid13) tells me that Photo Mechanic is only supporting a subset of IPTC core fields, while the IPTC Extension fields in XMP encompass only the IPTC 2008 Standard fields (and not, for instance, the 2014 or 2017 Standard fields). Is there a reason for this? Is there any plan to support the IPTC standard in its entirety?

Thanks for your insights!
Geert

[Kirk Baker]

Geert,

The 2019.1 IPTC standard introduced IPTC Image Regions. Shapes within an image can be marked up as rectangle, circle or polygon, and any existing IPTC Photo Metadata field can be added to a region. In addition, two new properties, Image Region Content-Type and Image Region Role, were added to provide characteristics of a region.
Is Photo Mechanic going to support those?

We have no plans to support those at this time.

Related to this: the IPTC website (https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/software-support/#pid13) tells me that Photo Mechanic is only supporting a subset of IPTC core fields, while the IPTC Extension fields in XMP encompass only the IPTC 2008 Standard fields (and not, for instance, the 2014 or 2017 Standard fields). Is there a reason for this? Is there any plan to support the IPTC standard in its entirety?

No one has asked us to support them.  It's a lot of work to do so.  If enough people wanted it then we would likely support more fields.

-Kirk

[Bob M]

I would certainly like the "alt text" field to be supported.

[gverhoev]

Geert,

The 2019.1 IPTC standard introduced IPTC Image Regions. Shapes within an image can be marked up as rectangle, circle or polygon, and any existing IPTC Photo Metadata field can be added to a region. In addition, two new properties, Image Region Content-Type and Image Region Role, were added to provide characteristics of a region.
Is Photo Mechanic going to support those?

We have no plans to support those at this time.

Related to this: the IPTC website (https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/software-support/#pid13) tells me that Photo Mechanic is only supporting a subset of IPTC core fields, while the IPTC Extension fields in XMP encompass only the IPTC 2008 Standard fields (and not, for instance, the 2014 or 2017 Standard fields). Is there a reason for this? Is there any plan to support the IPTC standard in its entirety?

No one has asked us to support them.  It's a lot of work to do so.  If enough people wanted it then we would likely support more fields.

-Kirk

Hi Kirk, I understand that it is much work, but standards are there to be followed, no?
What good is it to have a standard like IPTC if the software tools are not 100 % following that standard? This only leads to a potential loss of metadata between photographer, agency, supplier, and publisher.
I raise this issue as an academic because the long-term archives we use are very strict about established standards. If image regions are created according to the IPTC standard by software X, and PM cannot decode them, we won't be able to use PM as our image viewer. As an individual consumer, I am happy with the possibilities within PM+ as these images will seldom leave my own hard drive, but in the greater scheme of metadata consistency, it would be great if PM could stick to (and support) all fields of the latest IPTC standard.

[Kirk Baker]

Generally, we prioritize our work based on user demand.  We have added a "Like/Dislike" system.  If a lot of people want this to be added, they can comment on (and Like) this request.

The IPTC comes up with a lot of fields that over the years we have supported (at great expense) and find that a number of them see limited use by the majority of users.  We will have to weigh whether image regions are worth supporting or not.  At the very least, we will continue to preserve them if they're present.

-Kirk

[riecks]

Geert:

From my observation and testing of quite a few image management programs, I've found that there are a very small number of programs that support "ALL" of the current IPTC metadata properties. Even Adobe Bridge seems to have stalled in adding support for new fields after the IPTC Extension updates of 2008.

However, it is important to note what Kirk said when he stated, "we will continue to preserve them if they're present." 

Since the release of the IPTC Core — done in cooperation with Adobe — all new fields have been added as XMP properties. There have been a few rare exceptions, but most everything I have tested "preserves" existing XMP values, even if the application does not have a place in their data entry for a specific field!

Indeed, when I tested Photo Mechanic 6 recently (using the new Interoperability Test Suite https://getpmd.iptc.org/interoptests-iptcpmd.html) I found a few fields that were not supported but were still persisted (which is better than finding them removed/deleted). 

You can verify this for yourself (with PM or other applications) by taking a copy of the most recent IPTC Reference JPEG (located at: https://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/examples/IPTC-PhotometadataRef-Std2021.1-large.jpg), opening it in Photo Mechanic, changing a few values and clicking OK to write these changed values to the image. You can then submit that image file to Text #3 on the Interoperability Test page.  You should mostly see cells filled with green squares. Cells with red in them indicate that a value is no longer present when compared to the original reference jpeg.

If you want more info on these tests check out the step-by-step instructions at: https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/interoperability-tests/

Hope that helps.

David Riecks (for transparency, note that I am currently "Co-lead" of the IPTC Photo Metadata Working Group).

[dennis]

Geert & David,

Thank you David for pointing out that just because PM cannot create or display IPTC regions doesn't mean that we are destroying them.  All XMP metadata that PM cannot edit is preserved, and there is plenty of this besides what is in IPTC's "jurisdiction."

Photo Mechanic is a tool for up-front editing of photos (and I don't mean "pixel" editing ala Photoshop). It is meant to be used to quickly cull and add important metadata about a photo.  Further post editing (like Photoshop) is expected to be done in other applications (we can't do everything).  The addition of IPTC regions we consider to be the domain of another such 3rd party application.  It would take a lot of work for us to implement the creation of IPTC regions, and our customer base would rather we spend that time on other features that are more useful to them.  We may, however, at some point enable the display of IPTC regions so that Photo Mechanic could be used to browse photos that have this extra data embedded.

HTH.

Regards,

--dennis