set GPS coordinates or Reverse Geocode breaks Panasonic GH6 Raw files

[mastix]

I have shot many thousands of images on a two months trip in UK and Ireland. Just downloading now and classifying the images. Now I am classifying the  Panasonic GH6 RAW files. Some of them have already GPS data that I embedded using my mobile Phone and the Panasonic app, but many don't. So my workflow was reading the ones taht got the data or if none had it look at the location spot in Google maps and enter that in the search box in set gps coordinates search in the right Google Maps set and then apply to all with reverse geocode checked . In some files that have the metadata i select them and just go to Tools and Reverse Geocode.

I don't know which step of the process is breaking the raw files, but the originals (without any GPS manipulation or reverse Geocode) can be opened without problems by Photoshop or Silkypix. But some of the ones manipulated (not all) cannot and in Bridge only an icon appears and nothing in Silkypix (I guess they don't even show non-readable files) When I try to open those files from Adobe Bridge I get this message "Could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document"

It has happened too many files and it got under the radar because in the Photomecanic 6 browser can be opened, and you can see the thumbnails . It is once you try to open it with Adobe bridge, photoshop or silkypix that you detect the error.

So I will have to start from scratch and do it in Lightroom. It is a pity because I really like the quick and efficient way that this can be done in Photo Mechanic but if the raw files get broken this is a big NO NO to go. I hope they can find the problem and fix it in the future

[Stenis]

PhotoMechanic is updating FILES and Lightroom is updating a DATABASE. That is a big difference. Are you really able to roll back a batch update of a lot of images in Lightroom? Have you really tried that to verify? Doing it the Lightroom way have other drawbacks. From what i remember (haven´t used Lightroom för a long time) Lightroom by default do not update XMP-in the files. I think that still is an active choice in Lightroom. The risk with that approach is that LR becomes a single point of failure if your database gets corrupt. I must say I prefer the FILE-updates all days in the week because updating the files is no single point of failure solution but a solution for spreading the risks.

Before starting a session with a lot of anticipated general updates it is good to have a fresh backup to lean on from a backup system that easily manages to restore the files.

[mastix]

I would prefer 100 times going the PhotoMechanic route .It is MUCH FASTER workflow and as you say it updates the files so it embeds that info inside the file and not in the DATABASE. The problems is that it breaks the raw files. Those Panasonic RAW files get corrupted and are not longer readable nor by Adobe Photoshop/Bridge nor silky pix anymore. So some of the actions I have outlined corrupt the files. As i cannot wait to this issue be solved that could take days or months I will have to go the slow Lightroom route.

Believe me I hate it but slow is slow and a broken file is a broken file so the decision is clear.

[ahoward]

I downloaded a sample RW2 file from this camera and added GPS data. I made sure to embed metadata in the file rather than put it in an XMP sidecar file. After doing this, the raw file was able to open and render in Photoshop and Lightroom without an issue.

In regards to "uncorrupting" the file, Photo Mechanic has the option Revert TIFF-based RAWs to original, which is in the tools menu. Without having the file its hard for me to say, but in the description of the tool it says "If you are experiencing problems with other RAW processing software after embedding IPTC or XMP metadata into TIFF-based RAW photos using Photo Mechanic, this tool will undo any edits and revert the RAW photos to their original state before they were edited with Photo Mechanic." So there's a pretty good chance that Photo Mechanic can already do what you are asking in regards to "undo". It also gives the option to backup the embedded metadata to sidecar XMP so you won't actually lose the metadata you are stripping from the embedded.

Once you do this if it fixes the issue of the image rendering in other software and you can then repeat whichever action corrupts the file and reproduce the issue and then provide me with the exact steps to reproduce the problem, then we can look into a fix.

Please also note which build of Photo Mechanic you are on and what operating system you are using.

Quick edit: Even if you can't reproduce it, a copy of just the damaged file would be great as well, but being able to start with a file straight from the camera would be helpful for us.

[mastix]

Please tell me where to send you the faulty files with some of the ones with the previous one that did not get damaged. I hope it can give you some clue on what is happening . The damage to some files (not all) has affeted a few different conversions but I still have no clue what may have triggered.

 I am working now with Lightroom and saving GPS data to the raw files (I guess XMP is used ) is working flawlessly. Not a single file is damaged.

I do not convert anything to TIFF yet. I am only entering GPS data and reverse geocoding to some. Then some of the files appear not readable and not being able to open with any program.

As I am very busy now with tens of thousands of video and photo files I have little time to experiment which of the actions is harming the RAW files: It will take me at leart 8-12 weeks of intensive work to process all the files taken in 2.1/2 months of work on the field.
For now on I will stick with Adobe to keep working forward but once I finish I will take a deeper look and make different experiments to see what is the exact route that damages the files.

My photomechanic version is 6.0 build 68.90 Windows 10 working on a solid disk of 2Tb.

As I said in the time before my tests down the road I can provide you with damaged files and some with  correlative previous numbers that were not damaged and of course the original files before conversion if it helps you to find out why this is happening

Kind regards

Cristian

[Stenis]

Why don´t you want to write the geodata to XMP?

[ahoward]

Why don´t you want to write the geodata to XMP?

Not sure if your question was for Camera Bits or for maxtix, but just to clarify since additional troubleshooting happened by email: the problem is with embedding metadata in general into the RAW file and had little to do with GPS coordinates itself. Disabling Photo Mechanic from modifying the RAW file in the IPTC/XMP settings (and therefore making metadata changes in sidecar XMP files) prevented the issue from happening, and we are able to correct the issue with the "broken" files by using the "Revert TIFF-based RAWs to originals" option.

[Stenis]

OK