IPTC fields > 32 characters written by PM, truncated by Lightroom

[ramblinwreck]

Hi PM folks,

I am running Photo Mechanic version 4.6.8 and I run Mac OS X 10.7.3 on my Intel-based Mac.

I've imported some images into a Lightroom catalog that have had metadata (keywords, captions, location info, etc) applied in PM. I'm noticing that the location fields that are greater than 32 characters (in PM) are being truncated to 32 characters by Lightroom. I think this thread explains the underlying issue:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=3618.0

While I appreciate PM being more flexible than Adobe in this case, the current situation means that I might lose metadata without warning going from PM -> Lightroom, which is obviously a bad thing. I just happened to spot this while poking around in some file metadata after importing to Lightroom.

Questions:

1. Is there some way for me to use PM to find my images with Location metadata with more than 32 characters, so I can revisit these images' metadata before importing into Lightroom?

2. Is there an option to tell PM to follow "strict" IPTC-IIM character limits to ensure max interoperability with Adobe products (i.e. to avoid the truncation issue)?

3. (For the Lightroom users out there) Has anyone else found a way to make Lightroom handle > 32 character location field, and/or have better ideas on how to solve this problem? [It may well be that I'm jamming too much information in the Location field, and there is some other more appropriate field I should be using. That I can fix going forward, but I still have to solve the issue for all my previous images.]

Thanks
Chris

[Kirk Baker]

Chris,

I am running Photo Mechanic version 4.6.8 and I run Mac OS X 10.7.3 on my Intel-based Mac.

I've imported some images into a Lightroom catalog that have had metadata (keywords, captions, location info, etc) applied in PM. I'm noticing that the location fields that are greater than 32 characters (in PM) are being truncated to 32 characters by Lightroom. I think this thread explains the underlying issue:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=3618.0

While I appreciate PM being more flexible than Adobe in this case, the current situation means that I might lose metadata without warning going from PM -> Lightroom, which is obviously a bad thing. I just happened to spot this while poking around in some file metadata after importing to Lightroom.

Questions:

1. Is there some way for me to use PM to find my images with Location metadata with more than 32 characters, so I can revisit these images' metadata before importing into Lightroom?

No.

2. Is there an option to tell PM to follow "strict" IPTC-IIM character limits to ensure max interoperability with Adobe products (i.e. to avoid the truncation issue)?

No.

I'm sorry but we have no solution for you at this time.

-Kirk

[ramblinwreck]

Questions:

1. Is there some way for me to use PM to find my images with Location metadata with more than 32 characters, so I can revisit these images' metadata before importing into Lightroom?

No.

Kirk, how about this:

- select images in contact sheet
- use IPTC stationary pad to put {location:32} into some unused field (e.g.Edit Status)
- Use Find function: "All of the words", leave search field blank, "Selected photos", "IPTC data", select "Edit Status" field
- Find
- Select Others (invert)

This appears to select all images with a location field larger than 32 characters at which point I can tag/color as an indication it needs attention. Is this not doing what I think it is doing?

2. Is there an option to tell PM to follow "strict" IPTC-IIM character limits to ensure max interoperability with Adobe products (i.e. to avoid the truncation issue)?

No.

I'm sorry but we have no solution for you at this time.

Please consider making this in a preference in the future. I'm surprised I'm one of only a few to be hit by this. Perhaps I'm unusual in that I use PM to apply metadata on the front-end of a workflow that involves Adobe products - I thought this was pretty common practice. If the above method doesn't work for locating my "too long" locations, then I'm in a world of hurt. Actually, even if it does work, I've got hours of work ahead of me to trim up my Location info.

I'll put in a feature request for Adobe also.

[Kirk Baker]

Chris,

Questions:

1. Is there some way for me to use PM to find my images with Location metadata with more than 32 characters, so I can revisit these images' metadata before importing into Lightroom?

No.

Kirk, how about this:

- select images in contact sheet
- use IPTC stationary pad to put {location:32} into some unused field (e.g.Edit Status)
- Use Find function: "All of the words", leave search field blank, "Selected photos", "IPTC data", select "Edit Status" field
- Find
- Select Others (invert)

This appears to select all images with a location field larger than 32 characters at which point I can tag/color as an indication it needs attention. Is this not doing what I think it is doing?

That's a great idea.  I hadn't thought of that.  Should work fine, but requires modification of your metadata which is likely not what you would want to have to do.

2. Is there an option to tell PM to follow "strict" IPTC-IIM character limits to ensure max interoperability with Adobe products (i.e. to avoid the truncation issue)?

No.

I'm sorry but we have no solution for you at this time.

Please consider making this in a preference in the future. I'm surprised I'm one of only a few to be hit by this. Perhaps I'm unusual in that I use PM to apply metadata on the front-end of a workflow that involves Adobe products - I thought this was pretty common practice. If the above method doesn't work for locating my "too long" locations, then I'm in a world of hurt. Actually, even if it does work, I've got hours of work ahead of me to trim up my Location info.

I'll put in a feature request for Adobe also.

We'll consider adding a 'strict' field length limit feature.

-Kirk

[ramblinwreck]

Hi Kirk,

Just wanted to follow-up on this. I posted on an Adobe board and received a very helpful reply. Turns out that Lightroom populates both the IPTC:Sub-location field (32 chars max) *and* the XMP:Location field (allows >32 chars).

I was seeing the truncation because I had the Photo Mechanic XMP/IPTC preference for JPGs set to "Read embedded IPTC before XMP". Once I changed this to "Read embedded XMP before IPTC" the truncation problem went away. Problem solved.

So, this was completely a case of me not fully understanding what Lightroom was doing, and now that I do, I really appreciate PM's flexibility. Thanks for the quick replies.

Here's the Adobe thread if anyone is interested:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4219068

Thanks,
Chris

PS: There is a screenshot of an example IPTC/XMP preferences tab in the PM manual with the description "The following settings will maximize compatibility with Adobe products". Perhaps I should RTFM.