PSP X2 Ultimate IPTC Problems

[dave9999]

JPEG images that have several IPTC fields with entries have problems.
1. Fields that have entries in the image file do not display in Organizer, Image Information (Advanced) screen.
2. Those files do not retain the IPTC information when saved even though the Save EXIF information is selected.

Does anyone else have problems with displaying and preserving the IPTC information in this version of PSP?

[Tim Morrison]

What fields are going missing?

[dave9999]

It seems that entries in Tags, Caption and all IPTC fields in JPEG files are not displayed in Organizer for files that contain all data from the camera (Pentax K10D). I usually enter fields such as the location fields, caption, author, keywords, and similar soon after download. I know the additional entries are there because I see them in other tools (Exifer, MS Pro Photo Info, EXIFUTILS).

I do see some of the information using the image information page for an open file. However, there seems to be some mismapping of entries and fields from the files, such as an Author entry in the Description Field for Creator Information/Advanced Creator Information.

After performing some processing with PSPX2 and saving as a new file, the Tags, which are identical to keywords, and all IPTC fields appear in the organizer.

I have looked at the information in the files using EXIFLIST and find that similar information is contained in the files before and after PSPX2 saves. However, some information such as Print Image Matching, 3 unknown fields and the Maker Notes are missing from the post-PSPX2 file. In addition, an IPTC 1: Addressing section and its fields (Dataset 1 Record Version, and Coded Character Set) that are present in the original file are not in the post-PSPX2 field.

All in all it seems the PSPX2 has problems recognizing the IPTC information in the files that come from the camera. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated, since I use the EXIF and IPTC information to catalog the photos.

[Tim Morrison]

I'm sorry, but all of that is well beyond my knowledge of the subject. I've tried to sort out which of the fields you mention are IPTC, which are EXIF and whether some are neither, maybe metadata specific to your camera, but can't make head nor tail of it.
It would seem that their are two main problems -
1. IPTC data is not showing up in the Organizer.
2. Some metadata is being lost after re-saving an image.
Both of these are problems that would need to be bought to the attention of Corel by using the 'E-mail Corel' tab at http://support.corel.com/.

[Ron P.]

The IPTC information is not read by all photographic programs, let alone correctly. Some allow entering this information, some display it and use it for cataloging, along with the EXIF data, and others simply don't display it at all. Since IPTC is meta-data, I think of it just like data fields in a database program. If you've setup any complex relational databases, you'll know that if some fields are wrong, then the data kinda gets screwed up. This may be what's happening with PSP Pro reading your IPTC data. It's not fitting Corel's field setup.

I used Windows Explorer>Properties, and completed the Summary information for a photo. The Summary is a very basic IPTC. I then tested this in all the image programs I currently have installed. These include, PSP Photo X2, Corel PhotoPaint x4, PI 11-13, PhotoShop Elements 5, Picasa, and IrfanView. Most all of these ignored and did not display that information. There is an exception that when the image is moused-over the "tool-tip" that appears, will have some of that info.

With that said, using IrfanView, which does allow entering a lot of IPTC data, I completed almost all the fields. I then opened this in all the above. Since this thread is specific to PSP X2, all that information was displayed correctly.

Again this probably depends on what program was used to enter or alter the IPTC data.

[dave9999]

Thanks for the interesting contributions. I agree that there are issues among the various programs used to view/display these data. I was hoping for a simpler approach, but will proceed to put together something that works for me.

All in all PSP X2 seems to retain the IPTC data once entered. I discovered this while doing additional detailed diagnostics about the problems I reported in the first post. Nevertheless, I suspect I will continue to use other applications to ensure my final photo files contain the information I want them to have.

I may give Infranview a try to see if that does anything for me.