Synchronizing IPTC/IIM and XMP metadata in JPEG images

Excerpt of "IPTC Core Implementation Guidelines", section 2.2.1 available on http://www.iptc.org/IPTC4XMP/:
The basic functionality of this synchronising mechanism [between IPTC/IIM metadata in IRB and XMP metadata] is:
- To move metadata from the IRB to a new XMP packet in case an image file is opened with such an IRB but without an XMP packet. If the file is saved both the IRB and the XMP packet will be stored to the header section of this file.
- To move metadata from the XMP packet to a new IRB in case an image file is opened with an XMP packet but without an IRB. If the file is saved both the IRB and the XMP packet will be stored to the header section of this file.
- To update the metadata values of the IRB respectively the XMP packet from the newer source to the older destination. Which set is newer or older is detected by a hash value over each block of metadata. (More detailed information is available from Adobes XMP web pages at www.adobe.com/xmp and in the software development kits.)
I have checked for Adobe XMP web site and searched in "XMP Specification, January 2004" and I have not found explanations about this "hash value over each block of metadata" mechanism.
Moreover, it seems that it does not work regarding to the following simple experiment:
- 1. add metadata to a JPEG image using Photoshop CS (which adds both IPTC/IIM data in IRB and data in XMP)
- 2. edit these metadata using an "IPTC/IIM-only and non-XMP-aware" editor like IrfanView, XNView or any other one
- 3. go back to Photoshop CS which displays the "old" XMP metadata ignoring changes done previously using the IPTC-only editor.
Of course this experiment works using an "XMP-aware" editor like iView Media Pro or PixVue in step 2.
So it seems very easy to get images with IPTC/IIM and XMP metadata not synchronized when the image workflow uses different programs to edit metadata.
Am I missing or misunderstanding something ?
I have found a radical method stripping XMP metadata (in a step 2 bis...) using David Crowell's JStrip, see
http://davidcrowell.com/jStrip.aspx
Do you know any other best method to keep IPTC/IIM and XPM data synchronized when an image workflow uses different metadata editors and some of them are not XMP-aware ?
Patrick Peccatte
www.softexperience.com

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Can I automate the writing of XMP metadata into JPEG and TIFF files?

I have written an ASP.NET 3.5 website application on behalf of an annual international photographic competition. Entrants will be uploading digital photos in either JPEG or TIFF format. Ideally, I would write entrant identity and image title information into the XMP metadata for each image immediately after upload - but so far, I have failed to find any way to do this in ASP.NET.
Thousands of images are involved, so I need to find a way to automate the metadata insertion, perhaps with some sort of script that uses a text file (extracted from the SQL Server database on my website) as the source of the metadata for a batch of images. Is this the sort of task that can be done by writing a script for Bridge CS3? Are there any scripts already in existence that I could use? I am a total beginner in this area.
I use a Win XP PC, though I have a colleague who, I think, has CS3 on his Mac (running under the Leopard OS), so scripts for either platform might be usable.
David

You are the man X!
Ok here is another version with a check for the dll.
#target bridge
   if( BridgeTalk.appName == "bridge" ) {
addInfo = new MenuElement("command", "Update Entry Details", "at the end of Thumbnail");
addInfo .onSelect = function () {
     main();
function main(){
var csv = File.openDialog("Please select CSV file.","CSV File:*.csv");
if(csv != null){
loadXMPScript();
csv.open("r");
while(!csv.eof){
   strInputLine = csv.readln();
   if (strInputLine.length > 3) {
      strInputLine = strInputLine.replace(/\\/g,'/');
   inputArray = strInputLine.split(",");
   var csvFile = new File(inputArray[0]);
   var title = inputArray[1];
   var author = inputArray[2];
if(!csvFile.exists) {
alert(csvFile + " Does not exist"); //////////Check if file exists
return;
if(csvFile.exists){
var file = new Thumbnail(csvFile);
try{
var xmpFile = new XMPFile(file.path, XMPConst.UNKNOWN,XMPConst.OPEN_FOR_UPDATE);
}catch(e){
      alert("Problem opening xmp for update:-\r" + file.path +"\r" +e.message);
      return;
try{
var xmp = xmpFile.getXMP();
}catch(e){
      alert("Problem opening xmp data:-\r" + e.message);
      return;
xmp.deleteProperty(XMPConst.NS_DC, "creator");
xmp.deleteProperty(XMPConst.NS_DC, "title");
try{
xmp.appendArrayItem(XMPConst.NS_DC, "creator", author, 0,XMPConst.ARRAY_IS_ORDERED);
xmp.appendArrayItem(XMPConst.NS_DC, "title", title, 0,XMPConst.ARRAY_IS_ORDERED);
}catch(e){
      alert("Problem writing xmp data:-\r" + e.message);
      return;
if (xmpFile.canPutXMP(xmp)) {
xmpFile.putXMP(xmp);
}else{
alert("Can not write new metadata to " + csvFile.spec);
xmpFile.closeFile(XMPConst.CLOSE_UPDATE_SAFELY);
unloadXMPScript();
function loadXMPScript()
   var results = new XMPLibMsg("XMPScript Library already loaded", 0, false);
   if (!ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript)
      try
         ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript = new ExternalObject('lib:AdobeXMPScript');
         results.message = "XMPScript Library loaded";
      catch (e)
         alert("Could not load AdobeXMPScript \r" + e.message);
         results.message = "ERROR Loading AdobeXMPScript: " + e;
         results.line = e.line;
         results.error = true;
   return results;
function unloadXMPScript()
   var results = new XMPLibMsg("XMPScript Library not loaded", 0, false);
   if( ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript )
      try
         ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript.unload();
         ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript = undefined;
         results.message = "XMPScript Library successfully unloaded";
      catch (e)
         results.message = "ERROR unloading AdobeXMPScript: " + e;
         results.line = e.line;
         results.error = true;
   return results;
function XMPLibMsg (inMessage, inLine, inError)
   this.message = inMessage;
   this.line = inLine;
   this.error = inError;

[svn:osmf:] 14140: Change ManifestParser to pick up stream metadata and xmp metadata.

Revision: 14140
Revision: 14140
Author:   [email protected]
Date:     2010-02-11 17:07:31 -0800 (Thu, 11 Feb 2010)
Log Message:
Change ManifestParser to pick up stream metadata and xmp metadata.
Modified Paths:
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/.flexLibProperties
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/ManifestParser.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/Media.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/metadata/MetadataNamespaces.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/net/httpstreaming/HTTPStreamingUtils.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/net/httpstreaming/f4f/HTTPStreamingF4FStreamInfo.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMFTest/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/TestManifestParser.as

Revision: 14140
Revision: 14140
Author:   [email protected]
Date:     2010-02-11 17:07:31 -0800 (Thu, 11 Feb 2010)
Log Message:
Change ManifestParser to pick up stream metadata and xmp metadata.
Modified Paths:
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/.flexLibProperties
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/ManifestParser.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/Media.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/metadata/MetadataNamespaces.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/net/httpstreaming/HTTPStreamingUtils.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMF/org/osmf/net/httpstreaming/f4f/HTTPStreamingF4FStreamInfo.as
    osmf/trunk/framework/OSMFTest/org/osmf/elements/f4mClasses/TestManifestParser.as

PdfA1b - Subject Mismatch between Document Info and XMP metadata

As far as I can tell, when generating PdfA-1b files I am completely compliant with the spec. Yet when I try to preflight verify my output I get the following error: "Subject mismatch between Document Info and XMP metadata".
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   /Author (Author)
   /Subject (Subject)
   /Keywords (Key Words)
   /Creator (Creator)
   /Producer (Producer)
   /CreationDate (D:00010101000000)
   /ModDate (D:00010101000000)
Here is my XMP Stream:
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    Producer
    Title
    Subject
        Author
    Creator
    0001-01-01T00:00:00.0011111
    0001-01-01T00:00:00.0022222
    1
    B
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vs
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It seems like it should be fine.
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You have a disconnect with regard to how Document Info fields are to be mapped to XMP Dublin Core (dc) data fields:
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[nobody claims this is intuitive, but it is indeed specified reasonably well]]
The following is not required in your case, but for your info I include it anyway:
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Your best source for this is the actual PDF/A-1 standard (ISO 19005-1, can be purchased form www.iso.org).
A very good companion for such type of topics are the TechNotes from the PDF/A Competence Center (see www.pdfa.org), downloadable free of charge.
HTH.
Olaf Drümmer

Embed video and photo in a jpeg image?

How do I embed video and photo in a jpeg image? Is photoshop the right tool for this task?
I have photoshop CC installed. Any tutorial or tips in this regard would be greatly appreciated.
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A recent version of Powerpoint

Import XMP Metadata Kills My Image Edits

I imported a batch of JPGs from a recent trip and happily used LR to rank them, add labels and adjust them in the Develop module. Later, when LR was not running, I used another program to modify some of the embedded meta data in these JPGs (in particular the dates).
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Last history state? See
Loading metadata resets Develop settings.
>I can go back to Develop and "back up" because the history is all there, but this would have to be done file by file,
Don
Don Ricklin, MacBook 1.83Ghz Duo 2 Core running 10.4.8 & Win XP, Pentax *ist D
http://donricklin.blogspot.com/

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I'm not a big fan of trying to do much editing on JPEG images aside from non-exposure/white balance type stuff. I'll crop and straighten, etc.
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Jim,
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Crystal Generated PDFs with XMP Metadata attached to Image

Using Crystal Reports 11 with the .NET runtime. I'm adding images into my document. Those images have XMP metadata attached. However, when the final PDF is generated, I do not see that metadata in the resulting PDF. It seems Crystal Reports is stripping it. How can I get crystal reports to retain the metadata of that image in the resulting PDF document.
(When you open a PDF document in a text viewer, you can see the metadata of the image as well as the metadata for the PDF itself)
(Also I'm adding the image by using the insert image feature. Then I use format graphic to specify the path to that image.)

CR does not export the XMP Metadata into PDF at this time. Perhaps a great suggestion to post in the SAP Idea Place.
- Ludek
Senior Support Engineer AGS Product Support, Global Support Center Canada
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How to insert xmp metadata into jpeg files?

Hi
Is it possible to automatically insert the metadata
with the script using text extracted from my database.
I have to insert the metadata into lots of images which are uploaded to a site.
Thanks
[signature deleted bu host]

A scripting tool you may use, although complex, is ImageMagick. It allows loads of image manipulate but also handles data.
Another options is DBGallery, which will very easily allow XMP data to be written to hundreds or thousands of files at a time, but not via script (it's a Windows application). You can see a quick screenshot tour of it's IPTC/XMP capabilities here.
Hope this helps,
Glenn
Developer of DBGallery: The Photo DATAbase

??Setting XMP metadata in an image.....Possible with CF??

Hello All:
     Does anyone know if it is possible to write xmp or iptc data to an image using ColdFusion 8?
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     Any Ideas, tutorials, examples?
Thanks in advance!
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Cool! Thanks Paul, I am checking it out now and it looks to be what I need.
I also found http://jempbox.org/ but it appears no one is working on the project and it did not seem complete.
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Image Document Service Connector: Can't retrieve metadata from jpeg image

I'm using SES 10.1.8.4 with the Image Document Service Connector.
I've entered some metadata IPTC in a buch of images (with picasa, for instance) and added a new file datasource combined with a new pipeline as explained in the Patch Set Readme (p7514463_101840_WINNT)
After indexing, I can't retrieve nothing of my images with a simple search.
Did anybody make tests with this new feature ?
Thank you in advance,
Patrick.

Ok, I havn't read all your code because it's quite a lot and I might have the answer for you already.
Maybe the problem is that your Nokia is still connected to your computer.
I had the same problem on my Nokia 6021. I installed my app through the Nokia PC Suite. And it showed all the devices, but it couldn't find any services on any of the devices. Which was strange because most devices have some standard services running. The problem was that after installing the app, the Nokia was still connected/paired with the PC. After deleting the pairing, services magically appeared.
I hope this solves your problem (more than six months after your post ;) ).

Making copies of RAWs and XMP files of select images into a new folder

I have a group of 120 or so select images from a group of 3000, the selects
three starred and red labeled. Now I would like to make a copy of those
select RAW files and their XMP files and place in a new folder in order to
burn a DVD of just those selects. How do I do this with LR? Export doesn't
seem to offer this option, I can't seem to copy and paste like a typcial
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then it moves them from their original location.
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Windows XP.
David Madison

Not currently from Within LR. Among other things Drag and Drop out of LR, which give you a copy w/o XMP sidecar on a Mac, is broken for Windows.
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Don Ricklin, MacBook 1.83Ghz Duo 2 Core running 10.4.9 & Win XP, Pentax *ist D
http://donricklin.blogspot.com/

[ANN] GeoIPTC 1.0 : geocode your images using metadata standards (IPTC and XMP)

Hello,
GeoIPTC is an innovative tool to add geographical identification to your images (geocoding) according to IPTC and XMP metadata embedded in images.
GeoIPTC reads all IPTC and IPTC Core metadata embedded in an image, isolates localisation data (City, Location, Province/State, Country Code and Country Name), then sends a request to a Geocoding Web Service and finally gets latitude/longitude coordinates.
To say it briefly: GeoIPTC gets geographical information from the postman address embedded in image.
Main features
* Gets full sets of image standard metadata
* Automatically gets longitude/latitude from widely used Geocoding Web Services like Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps or GeoNames.
* Locate automatically images on Maps Services like Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest
* Generate automatically KML or KMZ placemarks and locate single (one image) or multiple (many images) placemarks on Google Earth with full IPTC/IPTC Core metadata
* Set automatically single or multiple images with appropriate Exif GPS coordinates
More information and download:
http://www.geoiptc.com/EN/Index.html
With best regards
Patrick Peccatte
www.softexperience.com

Note the last paragraph in the original post which explains how Flickr handles resolution changes without breaking the rectangles. Perhaps a more straightforward approach would be to store both the rectangle coordinates for each rectangle AND the image's width and height at the time the rectangles were created. Then if the image is scaled, the rectangles can be scaled accordingly. For example, if a rectangle is at x=100,y=200,w=50,h=70, the "original dimensions" are 1000x2000, and the image's current dimensions are 500x1000, then an application could assume the image has been scaled down by (500/1000=) 0.50, and so the x,y,w,h of each rectangle could also be multiplied by 0.50 (x=50,y=100,w=25,h=35). I'd recommend storing floating-point values so that multiple scalings don't make the rectangles "creep".
Of course, it is possible that really the image was cropped rather than scaled, but fairly unlikely you would happen to crop it the same percent in both directions. Even if an image is cropped, someone could manually repair the rectangles by sliding and scaling them until the fit back on the faces (unless most of the faces were cropped off).
A rectangle-aware application could scale and translate the rectangles during a crop or scaling operation, but other applications could still survive scaling if they at least preserve the XMP tags as-is.

Examples of web photo galleries that display xmp metadata

Hello, I am wondering if anyone knows of an online image gallery that displays xmp metadata for the images displayed?
Thanks,
Bob

Something you may want to consider is DBGallery (http://grrsystems.com/DBGallery). This product stores iptc/xmp data in a MySql database as well as in the image file (using Adobe's XMP Toolkit). Websites can access this data using any number of ways: PHP (google 'accessing mysql with php'), MS Access, and many others. Unfortunately right now there isn't an extremely easy means to access it directly from html like in the sample above: "< div class="content">DESCRIPTION: %FILEINFO% "; although finding someone to put together a little PHP to get close to this easy wouldn't be difficult (elance.com, etc).
DBGallery itself allows that data to be extracted and placed in emails and pdf's (see a sample at http://grrsystems.com/DBGallery/DBGallery_Sample.pdf). It also generates websites with Title and Description, but the websites are fairly basic I'm afraid (see
http://www.grrphotography.com/Collections/WorldPlaces/index.htm)
Dropping any images with iptc/xmp data into DBGallery gets their data into the database because the metadata is automatically read and added to the database.
If there are questions about this option reply here or email me at [email protected]
Best Regards,
Glenn Rogers
Designer of DBGallery: Photo DATAbase System
http://grrsystems.com/DBGallery

Cannot write exif and tiff metadata in image file

Hi,
I have a public XMP text file containing exif and tiff metadata: http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/ and http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/.
I want to write these XMP data in an image file and it doesn't work. I don't get any exceptions, just the metadata are missing in the image file.
C#
using (var xmpFiles = new XmpFiles())
      if (!xmpFiles.OpenFile("test.jpg", handler.FileFormat, OpenFlags.OpenForUpdate))
          xmpFiles.OpenFile("test.jpg", FileFormat.Unknown, OpenFlags.OpenUsePacketScanning | OpenFlags.OpenForUpdate);
     using (var xmpCore = new XmpCore())
          xmpCore.ParseFromBuffer(xmpPublic.ToString(), ParseFlags.None);
          if (xmpFiles.CanPutXmp(xmpCore))
               xmpFiles.PutXmp(xmpCore);
     xmpFiles.CloseFile(CloseFlags.None);
Public XMP:
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description xmlns:_ns_2="http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/" rdf:about="">
    <_ns_2:ImageLength>4252</_ns_2:ImageLength>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description xmlns:_ns_3="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/" rdf:about="">
    <_ns_3:ApertureValue>8/1</_ns_3:ApertureValue>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
Result XMP in image file:
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""/>
</rdf:RDF>
Does anyone can help with that problem?
Thanks,
Alexandra

I found the answer by myself.
According to the last guidelines from metadata working group, exif and tiff data should not be saved as XMP data in jpeg images anylonger because jpeg natively supports exif data.
"The most recent (as of mid-2010) XMP specification describes the usage of Exif/TIFF properties within XMP itself. Both Exif ( http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/) and TIFF ( http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/) namespaces have been defined so that corresponding Exif properties can be stored. This is particularly useful if Exif properties need to be stored but the file format does not support native Exif (e.g. PNG). [...]However, this document changes this earlier XMP guidance and recommends that Exif and Tiff device properties only be mapped into XMP in the case the file format does not support Exif natively."
See http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org/specs

Synchronizing IPTC/IIM and XMP metadata in JPEG images

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