Nikon NEF and IPTC

[theim]

Hi Kirk,

I'm a new PM user.  I've been reading the forum posts and from what I've read, it appears it may be safer for me to use PM as a renaming tool and a viewer (being able to view NEF and JPG files as one while tagging, grading, selecting, etc. is fabulous), but not for embedding IPTC info in the NEF files.

I say this because recently I have started having problems with Windows Explorer - it crashes as I am browsing folders rather randomly.  This happens even after a reboot with Windows Explorer being the first and only application open.  This started happening after I used the IPTC Stationery Pad to add some keywords to some NEF files.

I've only altered NEFs in one folder (and a few subfolders below the one folder), so I could use PM to undo those changes, and see if it helps.  However, it took me a while to create the keywords so I'd rather not undo the changes if not necessary.  I added them in the first place, as I have a growing collection of photos that I'd like to catalog with DAM software.  I have a trial version of iView MediaPro I'm testing.

Is it possible that altering the IPTC info in the NEFs is causing Windows Explorer to crash?  I should add that I'm using Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002, Service Pack 1 on a machine with an AMD Athlon processor.

Thanks and best regards,
Tom

[Kirk Baker]

Tom,

I'm a new PM user.  I've been reading the forum posts and from what I've read, it appears it may be safer for me to use PM as a renaming tool and a viewer (being able to view NEF and JPG files as one while tagging, grading, selecting, etc. is fabulous), but not for embedding IPTC info in the NEF files.

I say this because recently I have started having problems with Windows Explorer - it crashes as I am browsing folders rather randomly.  This happens even after a reboot with Windows Explorer being the first and only application open.  This started happening after I used the IPTC Stationery Pad to add some keywords to some NEF files.

I've only altered NEFs in one folder (and a few subfolders below the one folder), so I could use PM to undo those changes, and see if it helps.  However, it took me a while to create the keywords so I'd rather not undo the changes if not necessary.  I added them in the first place, as I have a growing collection of photos that I'd like to catalog with DAM software.  I have a trial version of iView MediaPro I'm testing.

Is it possible that altering the IPTC info in the NEFs is causing Windows Explorer to crash?  I should add that I'm using Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002, Service Pack 1 on a machine with an AMD Athlon processor.

Do you have something installed that makes Windows Explorer do things like show metadata contained within NEF files?

I would suspect that if you never view those folders/subfolders containing the modified NEFs with Windows Explorer (meaning view a whole bunch of folders that aren't the folders with the modified NEFs) and it still crashes, then the source of your crashes lies elsewhere.

If you use the 'Revert TIFF-based RAW photos to original' tool, you can put the metadata into XMP sidecar files so you won't lose any data that you entered.

HTH,

-Kirk

[theim]

Thanks, Kirk.  I'll give that a try.