PSP Captions

[fishersman]

I have PSP X3 and have a question about the iptc captions. When I want to caption the picture, I add it in the box on the Organizer page. If I go back to the picture, the caption does not appear in the box, only in the IPTC data field. Is this the way it is supposed to work? If I go into help, it tells me if I want to modify or delete captions to modify the text in the box, but it isn't there. Captions are not visible anywhere when I just look at the photo. It's kind of a pain to have to search for it. I am running Windows 7.

[teknisyan]

Hello fishersman,

I'm Abiel from Corel Support. I tried to add a caption on one of the images and the same thing happens on my end as well, let me verify if this is a bug in the software and if there is a work around that we can perform to rectify this.

[fishersman]

Thanks. Any insight would be appreciated.

[teknisyan]

Hello Fisherman,

I appreciate your patience. I tested some steps and it fixed the issue that I'm having, please follow the steps from this KB Article 762111. The steps if for PSP X2 Ultimate but you can still follow the steps for Windows Vista if you are using Windows 7.


Hope that helps.

[fishersman]

The procedure was for X2, I am using X3. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. I did go and delete those files and it made no difference. I then tried completely uninstalling the program and re-installing it. Still the same. The captions do not appear in the caption box. The only way to read them is to actually drop down the advanced info and read the IPTC data. The caption appears on the Description line. Is the caption SUPPOSED to appear in the caption box? It sounds like it should.

[LeviFiction]

The caption is supposed to appear in the caption text box. Mine does.

Now, you didn't say so so I need to make sure, are you hitting the apply button after adding the caption? This technically isn't necessary but interestingly enough my caption is only added to the IPTC when I don't hit Apply, the green check button underneath the Photo Size label, and move onto a new image. Can't say it'll make a difference for you but the captions are supposed to remain there.

[teknisyan]

HI Fisherman,

Yes the steps is for PSP X2 Ultimate but you can still follow the steps for Windows Vista if you are using Windows 7 or just search for the file ImageDB.db then delete it. That should be it.

[fishersman]

The caption is supposed to appear in the caption text box. Mine does.

Now, you didn't say so so I need to make sure, are you hitting the apply button after adding the caption? This technically isn't necessary but interestingly enough my caption is only added to the IPTC when I don't hit Apply, the green check button underneath the Photo Size label, and move onto a new image. Can't say it'll make a difference for you but the captions are supposed to remain there.

Yes, I tried it using the apply and not using it. When I hit the reply, the caption disappears out of the box immediatley and appears in the adv info description box.

I started to play with this some more and discovered that if I pull up the picture using "Collections" the caption stays in the box, whether I use the apply or not. If I pull up a picture using the "computer" the caption disappears out of the box, but remains in the IPTC data. If I pull up a picture captioned previously with the "computer", I do not see it in the box. But if I delete it and re-add it in using the "collection" it stays. Captions done either way appear in other programs such as Piccassa or Microsoft photo tools, but captions made in Piccassa do not appear in the text box, only the adv info field. If I make a caption in PSP that stays using a photo selected out of "collections" and then modify it using another program or the exact same photo but using the photo seleted out of "computer", the caption that I put on using the "collection" setting is in the box, but it is different than what is in the IPTC data.

It appears that the captions that are in the caption box are being kept elswhere. To put captions in that box, PSP is not reading from the photo, but in some sort database file I would guess.

[LeviFiction]

You're correct, it does have it's own database file. In fact that's why the instructions Abiel gave you had you deleting a database file. Though I guess you didn't know that.

It's actually been known around here for some-time that Paint Shop Pro doesn't use the IPTC or EXIF data at all when first cataloging photos. Outside of the name and date. And will never update itself should either of these change. Instead it keeps a database of its own settings and obviously updates the other information but purely for your benefit and not the benefit of the organizer itself.

This is nice in the sense that a simple database is easier to search than the actual photos on your hard drive when doing a search for tags and information. But also lacking since it doesn't use any of the information that's actually part of the image either when first doing its cataloging. So anything you do in the organizer is saved to an external database file, but should you need to re-install PSPX3 due to a computer failure your entire database is lost and you have to start over from scratch.

I can understand not reading the files after they've been cataloged but not reading them when first cataloging them for the first time makes no sense to me. And as a result they don't have an option to re-catalog an item to check for changes in the EXIF and IPTC data.

[fishersman]

That all makes sense now. I did'nt buy PSP for the captioning, it was just something I thought I would use because I can't stand Picassa. My wife does most of the captionng anyway. As long as what I put there stays with the photo, I guess it really doesn't matter if it shows up later in this program. I guess when accessing a "collection" it uses the database. When accessing the same photo via "computer" it doesn't. That's strange I think. But again, I didn't buy it for this so I guess I can live with it.

Thanks for the help.

[Papa Ben]

I'm new to PSP and I'm using the trial version to see how the captions work. From what I am reading here, the problems with captions disappearing are a showstopper for me. I type a caption into the caption field, then click the "commit" check box and the caption disappears from the caption box. It does appear in the IPTC Description box but why does it not show up as a caption where I entered it. Furthermore, when I use ExpressLab to edit the photo, some of the EXIF/IPTC data seems to disappear. If the software works like this, I don't think I can use it.

Please tell me I have just misunderstood something here. Many thanks in advance for your patience with a "newbie."