Location data in .XMP side car file not visible in the IPTC data

[Ubylive]

Hi, following my increasing frustration with the very bad quality of the iPhone 13 Max Pro jpgs taken in low light conditions where most of the times they get heavily damaged by the computational photography algorithms (too much sharpening etc.) I started to do some test taking pictures with the iPhone in RAW. In this case the Iphone saves .DNG files. In my normal workflow I use Graphiconverter to do the Reverse Geotagging as I find that the results are usually better than what I get from the Photomechanics database and after this 1st step I use Excire to automatically apply keywords to the pictures. If I apply this workflow to .CR2 RAW pictures taken with my Canon 5D Mark IV everything works correctly and Photomechanis shows in the IPTC metadata the location and the keywords which have been written previously by the other 2 applications in the XMP file.

But when I checked the .DNG created by the iPhone and the related .xmp created by the other 2 applications,  I noticed that the keywords created by Excire are correctly shown in the IPTC information of Photomechanic while instead Photomechanic is not showing anything in the Event and Location metadata area. I see that the geographic location has been stored in the .xmp data for these DNG. Additionally I noticed that the xmp files coupled to the .CR2 are hidden in the Photomechanics contact sheet visualization while they remain visible in the contact sheet which contains the .DNG (which is pretty annoying).  I'd like to ask you if you can check why the localization information is this case is not shown in Photomechanics. ... I attach as an example one .DNG file and the associated .xmp containing the geolocalization data which is not visualized in the IPTC information.
Below the geolocalization info contained in the xmp file.

<photoshop:City>Detroit</photoshop:City>
<photoshop:State>Michigan</photoshop:State>
<photoshop:Country>United States</photoshop:Country>
<mediapro:Location>Masonic Temple, Temple Street, Midtown, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, 48201, United States</mediapro:Location>
<Iptc4xmpCore:CountryCode>US</Iptc4xmpCore:CountryCode>
<Iptc4xmpCore:Location>Masonic Temple, Temple Street, Midtown, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, 48201, United States</Iptc4xmpCore:Location>

Thank you for the support !

[ODThomas]

Photomechanic uses the correct method of reading metadata, in that it reads the metadata from the xmp files for non DNG files and reads the metadata from the actual DNG files. This is in the Adobe DNG specification.

I think iirc you need to tell PM to read the xmp files for DNG, if they exist.

I’m sure I will be corrected if this is incorrect.

[ahoward]

I think iirc you need to tell PM to read the xmp files for DNG, if they exist.

There is no option to read XMP sidecar files for DNG files. Photo Mechanic will only read/edit the embedded metadata.

[Kirk Baker]

But when I checked the .DNG created by the iPhone and the related .xmp created by the other 2 applications,  I noticed that the keywords created by Excire are correctly shown in the IPTC information of Photo Mechanic while instead Photo Mechanic is not showing anything in the Event and Location metadata area. I see that the geographic location has been stored in the .xmp data for these DNG. Additionally I noticed that the xmp files coupled to the .CR2 are hidden in the Photo Mechanic contact sheet visualization while they remain visible in the contact sheet which contains the .DNG (which is pretty annoying).  I'd like to ask you if you can check why the localization information is this case is not shown in Photo Mechanic. ... I attach as an example one .DNG file and the associated .xmp containing the geolocalization data which is not visualized in the IPTC information.

It is non-standard for XMP sidecar files to be produced when updating metadata for DNG files.  The specification says that all metadata should be embedded in the XMP file.  You'll need to adjust your software (or request that the developer add support) to embed metadata in the DNG file.  Photo Mechanic will not read or associate XMP sidecar files for DNG files.  That is why you see those XMP sidecar files in the contact sheet.

The Adobe XMP specification is publicly available and Adobe even has an open-source library for reading and writing XMP to DNG files.  There is no reason any software developer should make their software incompatible with the specification.

-Kirk

[ODThomas]

I think iirc you need to tell PM to read the xmp files for DNG, if they exist.

There is no option to read XMP sidecar files for DNG files. Photo Mechanic will only read/edit the embedded metadata.

Thanks for the correction.

[Ubylive]

Ok thank you all for the support and clarification. I will get in touch with Lemke software about embedding the metadata in the .DNG.

[Ubylive]

Just to complete the topic, it turned out that in GraphicConverter inside the Metadata option  is possible to force the embedding of the metadata in .DNG. This solves completely the issue.

[ahoward]

Just to complete the topic, it turned out that in GraphicConverter inside the Metadata option  is possible to force the embedding of the metadata in .DNG. This solves completely the issue.

Thank you for following up and posting your solution for others that might come across the thread to see.