On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 at 08:21:32 -0800 David Owned wrote:

>I have some jpeg's that have had the IPTC Metadata modified using iView
>Media Pro V2.0.1. I am attempting to re-modify in PS CS by using a Meta
Data
>Template that I have saved previously. The Meta Data template information
>refuses to be amended to the file ! The PS Browser (where I am working
from)
>go's through all the correct motions - but when I examine the file info the
>Metadata has not been changed from the original meta data written in iView

David:

I've not had time to investigate this thoroughly, but I had just tested
iView Media pro 2 with both TIF and Jpegs and found that the results were
not showing up at all in PS CS.

>From talking briefly with Marc Pawlinger (one of the Adobe Engineers) at
Photoplus, I think I may have a clue as to what is going on.

Since version 7, Photoshop has been writing metadata into both IPTC and XMP
formats. These "containers" within the header of the file hold essentially
the same info when you save a file in Photoshop to TIFF or Jpeg (not sure
for other formats).

However, since most imagedatabases (at least at this point in time) that
rewrite metadata to files, only "write" to the IPTC portion of the file,
there can be problems. Pawlinger said that Photoshop essentially does
something equivalent to a "check sum" operation on the file when it opens it
up, and PS is suppose to display the "freshest" metadata. What I didn't get
a chance to ask is exactly HOW photoshop can tell which is the freshest.
According to FOLDOC.org, a "check sum" is:

"<storage, communications> A computed value which depends on the contents of
a block of data and which is transmitted or stored along with the data in
order to detect corruption of the data. The receiving system recomputes the
checksum based upon the received data and compares this value with the one
sent with the data. If the two values are the same, the receiver has some
confidence that the data was received correctly."

(For those unfamiliar with IPTC, see
[http://www.ControlledVocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html] for a
little history and explanation).

This is just conjecture on my part, but if there is no standard for
indicating whether or not the IPTC data has been modified, or if iView Media
Pro is doing this in a "non-standard" way; then Photoshop CS may be ignoring
the metadata that is written to the IPTC and opening that which was written
with XMP. In other words, if iView Media Pro 2 doesn't indicate that it has
"modified" the IPTC data in a way that PS CS like, then Photoshop CS (and
PS7) may be only looking at the data that was last written to the file when
it was saved in Photoshop.

In your specific situation, are you attempting to attach a "Meta Data
template" by associating an XMP file with the Jpeg in Photoshop? If so this
might not be working as that file is attached as a "sidecar" to the image.
Typically this data would get "embedded" in the file if you were to open and
resave the file. Speculating somewhat here, there may be a confusion on
Photoshop's part when it opens the file trying to decide which data is the
freshest, or there may be a safeguard in place to prevent the metadata
within the IPTC from being overwritten, by external "sidecar" XMP data.

In older versions of photoshop, if you went into the "File Info" feature,
and tried to use the "load" function, you would get a warning that the
existing metadata would be overwritten. Perhaps something similar is
happening with the XMP data, preventing the action from completing this
task?

If you are open to other approaches you might want to investigate the use of
the Image Info Toolkit (http://www.ImageInfoToolkit.com/). The new version
1.5 has a unique feature which allows you to "concatenate" (overlay) the
IPTC data even during "batch" processes. As an example, you could write your
data within iView Media Pro, and then at a later point ADD (not overwrite),
additional keywords, captions, special instructions (ie any of the standard
IPTC fields) to your image. In addition, if you are using Jpeg files, IIT
will not "recompress" the image data of the Jpeg, so the quality (data
integrity) of the image file doesn't degrade.

Hope that helps.

David
--
Creating an image database? be sure to visit
(http://ControlledVocabulary.com/)!
Read a review of the Image Info Toolkit utility at:
(http://ControlledVocabulary.com/imagedatabases/imageinfotoolkit.html)
--
David Riecks (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
http://www.riecks.com , Chicago Midwest ASMP member
http://zillionbucks.com "The Webhost for your Creative Business"

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