Metadata not saved to many jpg files

[barneagle]

I have noticed that, while for the majority of photos the Catalog Labels that I have applied are recognised by Windows Explorer, for many photos the "Tags" column in Windows Explorer is blank. (Star Ratings that I have applied in PSu do appear in Windows Explorer.)

When I select any of the affected photos and apply the "Save metadata to file" (Ctrl+S) option I still don't see any Tags in Windows.

In Preferences>>Synchronize settings:
I have "Automatically write out Catalog changes to the image file" checked
"According to the XMP standard" is selected
In the Write Settings section:
"Replace keywords with Catalog labels" is selected
and the items that are checked are:
Write catalog data to IDimager ICS scheme
Write hierarchical keywords
Write People Labels to XMP:IPTC
Write Object Labels to XMP:IPTC
Write Event Label to XMP
Write delimited keywords (with / as the delimiter)

[G8DHE]

Metadata has many different standards!! Way too many. I suspect that the problem is that the ones that Windows shows aren't the same as the wider range that PSU uses see here for a good explanation of what uses what https://www.carlseibert.com/xmp-iptciim ... preferred/

[barneagle]

Thanks G8DHE for your reply.

I've now remembered that I've encountered this (or a similar) issue before. If I remember correctly, I found a workaround using ExifTool to edit the metadata so that Windows does see the tags. (The magic ExifTool command is '-xmp-microsoft:all= -m')

The issue arises for me when I copy photos to my phone for use in the excellent F-Stop Gallery Android app, which also fails to see the tags

I wonder if it would be possible for PSu to have a configuration option whereby metadata was saved in a format that doesn't confuse Windows?

[G8DHE]

If that is the command line then no reason you can't do it yourself.
Open the Preferences gear wheel lower left, select "Other settings", Add your own "External application" with the command line needed inside a batch file I have several set up for doing various actions from within PSU, including a call to EXIF etc,

External Applications.jpg (182.44 KiB) Viewed 2536 times

[barneagle]

That's an interesting suggestion. Thanks, Geoff.
When I have time, I'll try to see if I can do it. I may need to come back for help in knowing exactly what to put in the batch file. Up to now, I've been using ExifToolGui, selecting all the photos in a folder, then entering that command in the ExifTool Direct box.

[Hert]

Windows (11 fwiw) shows all labels here. Make sure that you are writing your labels.
Always best to keep all Sync settings at their default. The default is what offers max interoperability.
If after this you still don't get labels displayed, then check if you are writing everything.

1. Reset your sync setting with the button in Preferences.
2. For a file with catalog labels assigned, save metadata to file (Ctrl+S) and check the properties in Windows Explorer

If not all is there then:
1. Check in the Category's details to make sure that the top level Category (eg People) is not configured to be "private".
2. Check in the Catalog Label's details to make sure that the catalog label is configured to be written as keyword
3. Check in Windows Explorer to make sure that the file can be written

WindowsTags.png (459.64 KiB) Viewed 2464 times

[barneagle]

Thanks Hert.

> Windows (11 fwiw) shows all labels here.
Windows Update on my HP laptop has for many months said "Windows 11, version 22H2 is on its way to your device. There’s nothing that requires your attention at the moment. Once the update is ready for your device, you’ll see it available on this page." I wonder whether I'll ever get it!

Windows Explorer in Windows 10 shows File Properties just like in your screenshot for most of my photos, but not all. After I apply the ExifTool command (-xmp-microsoft:all= -m) to anomalous photos then Tags are shown in File Properties just as one would expect.

> Always best to keep all Sync settings at their default. The default is what offers max interoperability.
> 1. Reset your sync setting with the button in Preferences.
I have done this. The only change that I have then made is to check "Write delimited keywords" (with / as the delimiter).

> 2. For a file with catalog labels assigned, save metadata to file (Ctrl+S) and check the properties in Windows Explorer
I've tried this with a selection of photos. With photos where Windows does not show tags it doesn't make a difference. (I've just found that for a photo for which Windows did previously display the tags, the tags are now not shown after applying Ctrl-S! See the end of this post.)

Many of the Categories were created when I imported photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery. I have created other Categories by typing a name in the Labels pane, choosing the CREATE NEW option, and then simply assigning a parent. Apart from the name and parent I have always accepted default details for every Category/label.

> 1. Check in the Category's details to make sure that the top level Category (eg People) is not configured to be "private".
For the People category "Accessibility" is "published."

> 2. Check in the Catalog Label's details to make sure that the catalog label is configured to be written as keyword
Quite a few of the problem photos have a member of our family tagged. Her Catalog Label is People>_Our family>[her name]. I have checked that the "Metadata settings" section of the Details window for her label says "Create keyword for this label".

> 3. Check in Windows Explorer to make sure that the file can be written
I have no reason to doubt this.
I have just checked a few of the photos that I applied Ctrl-S to yesterday and Windows shows that the files were "modified" yesterday.

----------------------------------------------------
As an experiment I have just applied Ctrl-S to two photos that were taken seconds apart and are very similar. I have in the past applied the same labels and ratings to them. I would almost certainly have done this for both photos at the same time. Before today Windows showed the tags for one of them but not the other. After applying Ctrl-S just now Windows is showing the tags for neither. This seems very odd.

I shall ask on the ExifTool forum whether anyone can see whether there are clues in the metadata to indicate why Windows shows the tags for some but not others.

[barneagle]

On the ExifTool forum Hert and others have helped me to identify corrupt metadata entries in problem photos and have encouraged me to think about my workflow. I then realised that the problem does not affect recent photos (those taken in the last 30 months), so it seems likely that something in my earlier workflow must have caused the corruption.

[gcoupe]

I've just come across this discussion thread because I've discovered that some of my photos are showing tags in Windows properties and others are not. This goes for photos taken on the same day. For example, these two photos taken with my Android phone and imported into PS. Also, the photo with the missing tags also has a missing Title...

Screenshot 2024-11-21 194901.png (548.19 KiB) Viewed 784 times

The two photos have some tags in common, and I've saved the metadata to the files with Ctrl+S. Accessibilty of top-level categories is Published. What's going on? Any ideas?

[gcoupe]

Something else odd that is going on...

The photos on my PC are synced to the OneDrive cloud. When PSU writes the Title and Tag fields in Windows Properties, then the photo in the OneDrive cloud will have the full complement of tag metadata displayed. If PSU does not write into the Title and Tag fields, then the photo in the OneDrive cloud will only have some of the tags showing.

Here's an example; the two photos here have the same six labels (tags) written to them by PSU:

Screenshot 2024-11-22 123728.png (703.73 KiB) Viewed 759 times

20241030-2114-40.jpg has the six tags showing in both Windows Properties and the OneDrive cloud:

Screenshot 2024-11-22 123339.png (1.44 MiB) Viewed 759 times

Whereas 2024030-2114-44.jpg has no tags showing in Windows Properties and only three tags showing in the OneDrive cloud...

Screenshot 2024-11-22 123554.png (1.4 MiB) Viewed 759 times

This is getting very confusing...

[gcoupe]

Further to the above post, Hert tells me that as far as he knows, Windows reads the embedded XMP to populate the Windows Properties fields, so the finger of blame would seem to point to Windows not reading the XMP metadata for some files.

Wish me luck in getting Microsoft to pay any attention to this...

[gcoupe]

I thought I would try applying a tag to a file directly via the Windows Properties screen. However, when I tried adding a Test tag, I got an error:

Screenshot 2024-11-22 144922.png (74.25 KiB) Viewed 750 times

This on a file that has blank Title and Tag fields.

On files where the Title and Tag fields are displayed correctly from the PSU metadata, then I can add a Tag via the Windows Property screen.

Is it the case that something (PSU?) has put a lock on the file and not released it?

I tried making a copy of the file and got the same error on the copy file.

[G8DHE]

You may find that until you close Windows Explorer, it keeps the file open for Write and hence blocks other programs trying to access the file.

[gcoupe]

Thanks, but Hert has done further investigation on a sample file. It looks as though the XMP marker holds wrong data, and while PSU can deal with this, Windows File Explorer doesn't.

Hert suggests that I use PSU to remove all XMP metadata from my collection and then use PSU to recreate clean XMP metadata. I'll give this a go (testing small batches to start with...).

[gcoupe]

Hert suggests that I use PSU to remove all XMP metadata from my collection and then use PSU to recreate clean XMP metadata. I'll give this a go (testing small batches to start with...).

This procedure works, but rather than run it on my entire collection at once, I'll use it in batches...