Hebrew support

[kobiwolf]

Hello again \


does photo mechanic support Hebrew ?

i m trying to to write a caption in hebrew but fotostation cannot recognize the font

Thanks

Kobi

[Kirk Baker]

Kobi,

does photo mechanic support Hebrew ?

i m trying to to write a caption in hebrew but fotostation cannot recognize the font

You'll need to change your IPTC encoding to UTF-8, and it is useful to also use XMP for your metadata.  Any application that can understand XMP and UTF-8 encoded IPTC should be able to display Hebrew characters.

You can make the necessary changes in the IPTC/XMP tab of the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.

-Kirk

[kobiwolf]

Dear Kirk,

thank you for your help.

i dont find utf-8 in my encoded list.

how can i change to xmp ?

[Kirk Baker]

i dont find utf-8 in my encoded list.

how can i change to xmp ?

Open the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.  Click on the IPTC/XMP tab.  Make sure the "Write IPTC as Unicode" check box is set.

In the "When writing IPTC/XMP:" section, set the popup menu titled "JPEG, TIFF, PSD, DNG photos:" to "Add both embedded IPTC and IPTC4XMP".  For TIFF-based RAW photos, don't embed anything, and check to see that the popup menu has changed to "Always create and/or update XMP sidecar file with IPTC4XMP".

That should do it.

-Kirk

[kobiwolf]

ok

what about the encoding ? leave it as unicode? still didnt dinf the utf-8 should i leave it as it is ?

Thanks

Kobi

[Kirk Baker]

Kobi,

what about the encoding ? leave it as unicode? still didnt dinf the utf-8 should i leave it as it is ?

Unicode in PM is UTF-8.  UTF-8 is just the technical term for the particular variant of Unicode that PM uses.

So just leave it as Unicode.

-Kirk

[Claire]

Hi,

I am using 4.6 and I have also been trying to get Hebrew to work with Photo Mechanic/Fotostation. I caption the photos in Hebrew in Photo Mechanic and then take them to Fotostation. When I try to read the info in Fotostation v5 the text is unreadable.

I went through the instructions that you have on this post and I have tried every single variable of encoding and it still does not work for me. I have ticked "write IPTC as unicode" but you said to use "Unicode" as the default encoding in Preferences but this is not available as a preference for me and no other default encoding settings work. Any ideas?

Kobiwolf, did you get this to work and if so what are your settings?

[Kirk Baker]

Hi,

I am using 4.6 and I have also been trying to get Hebrew to work with Photo Mechanic/Fotostation. I caption the photos in Hebrew in Photo Mechanic and then take them to Fotostation. When I try to read the info in Fotostation v5 the text is unreadable.

I went through the instructions that you have on this post and I have tried every single variable of encoding and it still does not work for me. I have ticked "write IPTC as unicode" but you said to use "Unicode" as the default encoding in Preferences but this is not available as a preference for me and no other default encoding settings work. Any ideas?

Kobiwolf, did you get this to work and if so what are your settings?

What kind of files are you working with?

Try not embedding IPTC at all, only use XMP.  XMP has always been written in Unicode UTF-8 format.

-Kirk

[Claire]

Hi Kirk,

We are working with jpeg files from the camera, its for news. I had heard that xmp did not work with Fotostation but I tried like you suggested.

I found that if Fotostation v5 has its IPTC settings as "read Unicode" then it works with Photo Mechanic settings with "write as Unicode" ticked and IPTC settings. If Fotostation v5 has its IPTC settings as "read Hebrew" (as our agency and our windows computer do) then it works with Photo Mechanic setttings with "write as Unicode" not ticked and XMP settings.

So we thought the problem was solved with using XMP settings in PM, but when we sent the image through to our agency via PM's FTP, they STILL say that the captions are gibberish. The only difference is they use Fotostation v6. We sent them 4 test files using different PM settings (IPTC/XMP) and none of them worked.

Just to clarify:
We want to use Photo Mechanic 4.6.2.1 on a Mac OSX 10.5 intel with Hebrew encoding on (the only encoding that works at all)
We tested the photos on our Windows XP, Fotostation 5 (and it works with XMP)
Our agency uses Windows, Fotostation 6 (and it doesn't work with XMP or IPTC)

I feel like I am at a dead end now as I have nothing to test on as the text works now with our Fotostation v5.

Do you think it is something to do with PM's FTP?
Do you know if there is any difference between Fotostation 5 and 6 that could affect the text?

Thanks for your help,
Claire

[Kirk Baker]

Claire,

We are working with jpeg files from the camera, its for news. I had heard that xmp did not work with Fotostation but I tried like you suggested.

I found that if Fotostation v5 has its IPTC settings as "read Unicode" then it works with Photo Mechanic settings with "write as Unicode" ticked and IPTC settings. If Fotostation v5 has its IPTC settings as "read Hebrew" (as our agency and our windows computer do) then it works with Photo Mechanic setttings with "write as Unicode" not ticked and XMP settings.

So we thought the problem was solved with using XMP settings in PM, but when we sent the image through to our agency via PM's FTP, they STILL say that the captions are gibberish. The only difference is they use Fotostation v6. We sent them 4 test files using different PM settings (IPTC/XMP) and none of them worked.

Just to clarify:
We want to use Photo Mechanic 4.6.2.1 on a Mac OSX 10.5 intel with Hebrew encoding on (the only encoding that works at all)
We tested the photos on our Windows XP, Fotostation 5 (and it works with XMP)
Our agency uses Windows, Fotostation 6 (and it doesn't work with XMP or IPTC)

I feel like I am at a dead end now as I have nothing to test on as the text works now with our Fotostation v5.

Do you think it is something to do with PM's FTP?
Do you know if there is any difference between Fotostation 5 and 6 that could affect the text?

I'm sorry but I'm not all that familiar with FotoWare's products.  We do not have copies of their software.

As for differences in the files after uploading, I'd suggest that you download the files you uploaded and try them with your Fotostation 5 version.  If it works fine, then I'd guess that the people using Fotostation 6 don't have it configured the way you think it should be configured.

Have you tried the Hebrew and Microsoft Hebrew encodings in Photo Mechanic instead of instructing PM to write IPTC as Unicode?
If you can get me a sample JPEG file with a fair representation of Hebrew characters in the IPTC data the way Fotostation writes them out then perhaps I could figure out what specific encoding they're using.

Please click on my name to the left of this message, then click on the 'personal message' link.  I will respond with upload instructions.

-Kirk

[Claire]

UPDATE: I managed to fix this issue after many days of struggling.

The problem was that under "when writing IPTC/XMP" don't "Add both IPTC and IPTC4XMP" instead just "Add embedded IPTC4XMP" and use XMP settings, ticking off "embed IPTC" and use Hebrew as the encoding. These settings work if your agency/newspaper uses FS 6 with Hebrew encoding on. Hope this helps someone.

[Kirk Baker]

UPDATE: I managed to fix this issue after many days of struggling.

The problem was that under "when writing IPTC/XMP" don't "Add both IPTC and IPTC4XMP" instead just "Add embedded IPTC4XMP" and use XMP settings, ticking off "embed IPTC" and use Hebrew as the encoding. These settings work if your agency/newspaper uses FS 6 with Hebrew encoding on. Hope this helps someone.

I'm glad you found a solution.  Thanks for following up with your reply.

-Kirk