Writing Tags and Catagories to IPTC

[dhull]

I want to write my tags to the IPTC keyword field so that they will show up in other browsers (specificaly Bridge) and so that they are in the file which is where I think they should be. I find no documentation on how this works. My question is what gets written when “Write Tags To Files” is executed.

I would have guessed that it would be the tags only, yet it would appear (from experimentation) that it is whatever is at the bottom of the tree (regardless of whether it is a tag or a category) that gets written when the "Write Tags To Files" trigger is pulled. I can continue to experiment with this but I am wondering if anyone has a definitive answer or if someone can point me to a reference where the "Write Tags to Files" feature is documented.

[Chris Bishop]

Two quick points
Raw files are not written to. The "tags" data stays in the database.
An excellent book has been written by the original developer of the product, before it was bought by Adobe to become "Photo Album". the title of the book escapes me at the moment (I'm at work), but a search of these forums will find it. Thats where I got to know of it.
Chris Bishop

[TonyW]

The book is Organize your Photos by Michael Slater but although very helpful it doesn't, as far as I know, deal with this topic. In fact the details of what Write Tag Info to Files does is not too clearly explained anywhere I've yet found. A few things I have seen. Apparently there were some problems with PSE3 that got fixed with PSE4 so if you're using PSE3 it might not work right. It only writes what it considers keywords to the IPTC field - if you use the Star ratings they don't get written. And as Chris says it only writes to some file formats.

If you get it figured out please post your findings here :)

Tony

[dhull]

Well, I did some more experimenting and looking and here is what I have concluded (BTW: I do own the Michael Slater book):

1. The program doesn't write anything to RAW files. Apparently not even to DNG which is a bit surprising since that is Adobe's format.

2. For JPEG’s, it appears to write whatever is "Tagged" to the photo into the keywords field in the IPTC metadata. That means that if you drag a "category" label to a picture that if not at the bottom of the tree it will write that as well. For example take the tree:

Cars (CAT)
---Ford (SUB CAT)
------Fiesta (TAG)
------Mustang (TAG)
------Crown Victoria (TAG)
------Town Car (TAG)
------Explorer (TAG)
---Chevy (SUB CAT)
---Chrysler (SUB CAT)

If you drag, "Mustang", "Crown Victoria" and "Cars" to a photo, it will write all of these regardless of whether the thing is a Tag or a Category and regardless of whether it is at the bottom of the tree or not. It would appear that only categories can be nested. It also appears that if entries in the bottom of the tree are all subcategories, they will be written as well as long as these tags or subcategories have been dragged to the picture (it doesn't only write tags).

3. If a tag, Category or Subcategory haven't been dragged to the picture (so that it show under the thumbnail), it won't get written. For example, in the case above, if you drag "Explorer" to the photo "Explorer" gets written but not "Ford" or "Cars". Similarly, if you drag "Cars" to a picture, "Cars" gets written but nothing below it (unless one of the things below it have been dragged over to the picture)

4. While Michael Slater neglected these details in his really excellent book, he did put some details on his web site which I found about an hour after writing my original post.

http://www.photofanatic.com/topics/embed_tags.php

[TonyW]

Thanks for all that info. Very helpful as is the Michael Slater link - best description I've run across yet

Tony

[Chris Bishop]

Great link.I have read it before, but it answered a problem I have been pondering over all day.
Anyone any ideas about a program to edit or delete embedded IPTC data?
I may need to start again, with hindsight.
Chris Bishop

[dhull]

I did a bit more work on this with respect to handling of RAW files, specifically DNG and CR2 (Canon 20D variant). While it is clear that PSE4 doesn’t write any Metadata to these types of files, it will read it in on import if it is there already. I ran a test to see just exactly what if the IPTC core metadata PSE4 would pull in. I have listed this info below. It is the same for DNG and CR2 (and probably others as well but I don’t have them to try).

The following IPTC fields were pulled in:

Description
Description Writer
Headline
Instructions
Keywords
Author (Creator)
Author Title
Credit
Source
Document Title
Date Subject Created
City
State / Province
Country
Transmission Reference
Copyright Info

I tested this by adding all of these items to a test file in Adobe Bridge and then importing the file to PSE4. You can also do this on a previously imported RAW file by updating metadata in bridge (or some other program that allows metadata edits) and then hitting “update thumbnail” in PSE4. There were a couple of fields that are available in Bridge that didn’t come over (ISO Country Code for one) but most everything does seem to be imported.

It would be nice if in a future version of PSE, Adobe would add the capability to edit the IPTC fields. I remember reading somewhere that this feature was left out deliberately to keep the “unknowing” from accidentally messing up their tags. However the option to allow edits could be a selectable option in the preferences that way people who did want to add info to a batch of files could do it. There is a good argument against allowing the edit of tag info since the way PSE is set up does provide a “controlled vocabulary” for tagging so maybe they could allow edits on everything but tags as a preference option.

[dhull]

Chris –

With regard to editing the ITPC metadata, you have obviously discovered that PSE doesn’t allow this. This is one thing that I would like to see Adobe address in a future version of PSE, along with a batch rename function more like what they put in Bridge.

If you have just a few photos that you want to edit, you might try one of the competing organizers. Most of these can be downloaded on a 30 day free trial which might be long enough to get done what you need to get done. Examples would be iView, iMatch, idImager, ACDSee, Extensis Portfolio. Of these iView is the easiest to use in my opinion (but not always the most stable). If you have access to Photoshop CS2, Bridge does this nicely. If there is a standalone program that just edits the metadata I would also like to know about it. I have tried most of the programs listed and continue to use PSE because it’s UI is so nice and the program is very stable.

For people interested in DAM (Digital Asset Management) which is the broad category into which programs like Organizer and all the others I listed above fall, here is a good link:

http://www.thedambook.com/

Eventually we all start to collect a truck load of photos and start wondering how to protect, preserve and organize the files this guy adds a lot of insight.

[troush]

I use IMatch and it does allow editing of IPTC data. I think Collin Walls (he particiaptes on the adobe forums) wrote something... Let me see..

Ah yes, check here...

http://www.colinwalls.com/photography/software/index.htm

-Trish

[Chris Bishop]

I use a Fuji S9000 (S9500) which is not in the same league as your Canon. Consequently iViewMedia Pro doesn't write to it's RAW files. I've yet to try it's DNG files from the Fuji.
I have The DAM Book, and it's changed my outlook on archiving.
Elements (v3) doesn't write to DND, so I'm looking for an alternative. It might be iViewMedia Pro and Lightroom.
We'll see.
Chris Bishop

[Wayne Dreier]

Anyone any ideas about a program to edit or delete embedded IPTC data?

I found this message on a search for metadata but there did not appear to be an answer. I have done some experimenting with such data and now find I cannot delete all of the garbage I entered while testing. Any ideas about how to get rid of all of that useless stuff?

[Chris Bishop]

http://www.colinwalls.com/photography/software/index.htm
contains strip iptc which worked for me
Chris Bishop

[Wayne Dreier]

http://www.colinwalls.com/photography/software/index.htm
contains strip iptc which worked for me

Fine but I run a Mac; Strip IPTC only seems to be available for a PC.

Anyone else have an idea? I have downloaded iView Media Pro for a 21 day trial period. It did indeed strip the IPTC stuff that I entered but does not seem to allow me to save the stripped file back to my hard drive. I have to save it as part of a catalog. The original image still has the "garbage" I entered when testing.

If I can embed the information in a file should I not also be able to delete it from the file to restore it to the way it was when it came from the camera?

[bshor]

Does the new PSE5 allow such editing?