Workflow question PM -> CO5 -> CS4 -> EM2

[tob]

Hi guys,

I've got a question about keeping the Color Tag and Star Rating consistent between the apps in my workflow:

Ingest, color tagging and rating with Photo Mechanic (PM)
Raw converting of the tagged and rated images with Capture One 5 Pro
Retouching with Adobe Photoshop CS4
Catalogue the retouched images and raws with Expression Media 2

Currently the situation is:

Star Rating is kept from PM to CO5, color tagging is lost
Star Rating is lost in EM2, color tagging is kept (Canon Raws .CR2), and EM2 sets the Mac OS X color flag in Finder

Haven't checked the situation with the jpeg and psd files yet, will do this later.

Any idea how I can avoid losing either color tagging or star rating between the applications?

Cheers
Michael

[Kirk Baker]

Michael,

I've got a question about keeping the Color Tag and Star Rating consistent between the apps in my workflow:

Ingest, color tagging and rating with Photo Mechanic (PM)
Raw converting of the tagged and rated images with Capture One 5 Pro
Retouching with Adobe Photoshop CS4
Catalogue the retouched images and raws with Expression Media 2

Currently the situation is:

Star Rating is kept from PM to CO5, color tagging is lost
Star Rating is lost in EM2, color tagging is kept (Canon Raws .CR2), and EM2 sets the Mac OS X color flag in Finder

Haven't checked the situation with the jpeg and psd files yet, will do this later.

Any idea how I can avoid losing either color tagging or star rating between the applications?

Do all of the applications in your set of apps support XMP data?  The reason I ask is that generally XMP is used to store 5-star ratings, color labels, and tags.  The data may not be getting 'lost', it just isn't being put into your output files.  If CaptureOne 5 Pro isn't putting the XMP data into the JPEGs (or TIFFs, or whatever format you're saving to) then the rest of the applications down the line aren't going to see that data.

-Kirk

[tob]

An update from my side.

I managed to keep the star rating throughout the workflow. It was my fault, because I forgot to set the tick to include the rating in the advanced output options.

So now I get color tags and star rating via xmp from PM to EM2.
One thing I haven't managed so far is the missing color tag in CO5.
Does anybody know if CO5 is able to read and use the color tag from the embedded metadata or a xmp sidecar?

Cheers
Michael

[tob]

One thing I haven't managed so far is the missing color tag in CO5.
Does anybody know if CO5 is able to read and use the color tag from the embedded metadata or a xmp sidecar?

I finally opened a support case at Phase One and got the answer that color tags are proprietary in CO5. The information about color tags is written to .cos files, which also contain information about the raw conversion settings. I really hope that Phase One will change this bad habit in a future update, especially as they now own Expression Media.