PM creating XIP files?

[msbc]

I've just gone through some folders and applied ratings to Canon 10D RAW files - .CRW. Looking in the folder I see PM is creating a new file for every image file with a .xip file extension. A sample contents:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IMAGEPREFS>
   <rotation>0</rotation>
   <PROCROPRECT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECT>
   <PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
   <tag>0</tag>
</IMAGEPREFS>

What's this for?

Mac OSX 10.5.7 and PM 4.6.1

[Kirk Baker]

I've just gone through some folders and applied ratings to Canon 10D RAW files - .CRW. Looking in the folder I see PM is creating a new file for every image file with a .xip file extension. A sample contents:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IMAGEPREFS>
   <rotation>0</rotation>
   <PROCROPRECT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECT>
   <PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
   <tag>0</tag>
</IMAGEPREFS>

What's this for?

Mac OSX 10.5.7 and PM 4.6.1

CRW files are a format that we cannot modify directly for purposes of tagging, rating, cropping, and color classification.  So PM creates an XIP file when you perform any of those soft-edits on that file format.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

Noteworthy is that XIP files are created for e.g. GIF files too (can't embed metadata there either).

Cheers

[msbc]

I've just gone through some folders and applied ratings to Canon 10D RAW files - .CRW. Looking in the folder I see PM is creating a new file for every image file with a .xip file extension. A sample contents:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IMAGEPREFS>
   <rotation>0</rotation>
   <PROCROPRECT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECT>
   <PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
   <tag>0</tag>
</IMAGEPREFS>

What's this for?

Mac OSX 10.5.7 and PM 4.6.1

CRW files are a format that we cannot modify directly for purposes of tagging, rating, cropping, and color classification.  So PM creates an XIP file when you perform any of those soft-edits on that file format.

-Kirk

Hi Kirk,

Why create another file type - one that isn't even documented in the PM manual? Why not create/update the XMP sidecar (which already existed for my CRW files)?

How does the XIP file fit into a Lightroom or Aperture workflow?

[Kirk Baker]

Marc,

I've just gone through some folders and applied ratings to Canon 10D RAW files - .CRW. Looking in the folder I see PM is creating a new file for every image file with a .xip file extension. A sample contents:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IMAGEPREFS>
   <rotation>0</rotation>
   <PROCROPRECT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECT>
   <PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
      <left>0</left>
      <top>0</top>
      <right>65536</right>
      <bottom>65536</bottom>
   </PROCROPRECTDRAFT>
   <tag>0</tag>
</IMAGEPREFS>

What's this for?

Mac OSX 10.5.7 and PM 4.6.1

CRW files are a format that we cannot modify directly for purposes of tagging, rating, cropping, and color classification.  So PM creates an XIP file when you perform any of those soft-edits on that file format.

Why create another file type - one that isn't even documented in the PM manual? Why not create/update the XMP sidecar (which already existed for my CRW files)?

How does the XIP file fit into a Lightroom or Aperture workflow?

Photo Mechanic wrote out XIP files before Photo Mechanic was capable of writing out XMP files.  And if Photo Mechanic were to write out the same data to XMP files, Adobe's software wouldn't use it anyway.  The only data that overlaps is the rating and label fields in XMP.

We may change this in the future.  But in the meantime, the presence of the XIP files shouldn't cause any problems in other software.

-Kirk

[msbc]

Kirk,

Can you clarify when/why the xip file is needed when tagging CRW's?

I just ran some tests. I have 3 files in a folder - image.CRW, image.THM and image.XMP. I rated image.CRW with PM. PM created image.xip

I checked for the Rating tag in all of the 3 image files with exiftool - it shows up in image.THM and image.XMP
So PM is adding the tag to the XMP!

I injested the files into Lightroom and the Rating value is displayed.

So, why the xip file in this case - whats it doing?

[Kirk Baker]

Kirk,

Can you clarify when/why the xip file is needed when tagging CRW's?

I just ran some tests. I have 3 files in a folder - image.CRW, image.THM and image.XMP. I rated image.CRW with PM. PM created image.xip

I checked for the Rating tag in all of the 3 image files with exiftool - it shows up in image.THM and image.XMP
So PM is adding the tag to the XMP!

I injested the files into Lightroom and the Rating value is displayed.

So, why the xip file in this case - whats it doing?

It also stores the Crop information (all of the soft edits are written when any of them change) so when you tag a CRW file, the soft edits are written out to an XIP file.

-Kirk