Metadata problem in X7 with Windows 8

[JudyM]

I use "image information" quite a lot and like to add extra information in comments section and keywords.Also data such as creator and copyright.

If I have created an image in eg Version 9 - X6 on my Windows XP machine, I am finding that I am unable to read this information in X7 which I have installed on my newer PC which has Windows 8 operating system.
All the EXIF information is blank, as is creator.

Also Information which I add in Windows Explorer [XP] is also missing although some is visible in the properties pane in Library Explorer.

As my XP machine is dying, am I doomed to lose access to all this information?

[Tadjio]

Judy, can you attach one JPG example and tell us what information you expect which is 'missing'?

[hartpaul]

I just tested on XP machine. in X6 wrote some data creator, file name, and a couple of other entries. and saved it.
Reloaded and was able to view that information.
Loaded it in Irfanview and was not able to see that in the IPTC data. Wrote some data in Irfanview, file name and some other data added . Wrote it.
Reloaded in Irfanview and was able to read that data and not Corel X6.

Loaded the file into X6 and was able to read the Corel data added and not the Irfanview data added - they seem to be using different parts to save their data and are not compatible.
Loaded the image to X7 and theh X6 data was all readable in X7.
Have not tested to see if that can be read in the Win 7 version of X7.

[JudyM]

Well I did some more experimentation

This time I created an image in Version 9 using Windows XP.
I added a title, comments author and copyright.

Creator info written in Version 9

In Windows XP I added keywords, author, title and comments.
These appeared in the Exif data.

If I then reopened the file in PSP X [also XP]
The Exif data remained, In the Creator information, the title, author and copyright had disappeared...other info remained.

I then opened in X6 in XP
All of the added Creator info had disappeared.
The Exif file had lost any reference to comments or keywords.

When I then took the same file over to my Windows 8 machine.
In PSP 9 I had lost creator information artist name and copyright.
EXIF data was as in XP

PSP X6 and X7 showed similar results in Windows 8 as in XP

From this I can only deduce that it is not specifically a X7 problem at all but a bit of a combination of differences in Windows and PSP program versions.

For more permanent metadata addition, I can only see that it is better to add it in a Windows application.
{I tried Infranview too ]

I'd like to know what others think.

[hartpaul]

The only time I have used the comments section and other IPTC data was when I was dabbling in microstock libraries and was uploading about 30 images.

Otherwise it is too much trouble - having taken over 395 000 images between Sept 2002 and june 2008 alone, if I was adding that data to every image it would be a full time job.

Instead I have information stored in the file name eg cldsbch110331a026 is as much as I need = 26th image shot on 31 st March 2011 of clouds at a beach. It will be in a folder labelled 110331aCloudsBeach.
I also have a master folder where one image from each shoot is placed so that looking at thumbnails of that can be quickly used to identify where other similar images can be found and since they are in chronological order can easily locate them.

To use a database such as in Manage mode to store locations and whereabouts of each image would take up so much space and time that it is non functional for me especiallye when the images are located on 3 external hard drives as well as more current one on the main computer's data drive.

There was (perhaps still is) a program called Google desktop back when my main drive was only 40 Gb and it scanned and stored in a database locations of all files. That took a large storage space and as I started moving stuff around, left gaps and bad links and became unsuitable and unweildy to manage. As such I have become suspicious of any database managing programs for large amounts of data.

When I first started taking digital images I had not realised that I would eventually be producing many thousands of images but started early in organising images in unique dated folders from the start.