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P: Invalid XMP metadata written to exported JPEGs, tripping up reading software

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
May 2, 2015
46 replies
2046 views

Lightroom 6 often writes invalid XMP metadata in exported JPEGs, including for photos containing lots of brush strokes made with the adjustment brush. This trips up Google Photos, preventing it from showing any of the EXIF metadata. It may well trip up other software.

To reproduce:

1. Start with any image.

2. Use a small adjustment brush with Exposure = 100.

3. Make lots and lots of brush strokes (see the example pic below).

4. Export the image as a JPEG, including all metadata.

5. Load the image to Google Photos and observe that it doesn't show any EXIF metadata.

6. Delete all of the XMP develop settings with:

exiftool -xmp-crs:all= file.jpg

7. Upload that modified file to Google Photos and observe that it now shows the EXIF metadata.

Here's an example pic exported from step 4:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2...

If you extract the XMP metadata with:

exiftool -a -m -b -xmp file.jpg

you'll see that LR has recorded all of the develop settings twice, including all the brush strokes.

Worse, if you examine the file layout with:

exiftool -m -htmldump file.jpg > file.htm

you'll see that the APP1 Extended XMP segments recording the second copy of the develop settings have incorrect segment offsets, with the first segment of the duplicate settings having offset 0, and the following segments with offsets based on that. That's not allowed by the XMP standard, which requires all the segments to have linearly increasing offsets with no gaps. It's easy to imagine how this might trip up a program trying to read the metadata.

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7

7obi07801

Participating Frequently

Same problem! Thought I was going mad! My website relies on the EXIF data of uploaded images and it displays garbled up and useless information since the update to Lighroom 6! This needs to be fixed ASAP as it's a KEY feature for most Photographers to have accurate EXIF data in their images!

Some examples:

Camera Make (Manufacturer) : Empty (used to display NIKON CORPORATION)
Camera Model: CORPORATION (used to display NIKON D750)
Photographer: xx xx:xx:xx (used to display Photographer's name)
Copyright: shows Photographer's last name from field above (used to display camera copyright text)

7

7obi07801

Participating Frequently

Camera Make (Manufacturer) : Empty (used to display NIKON CORPORATION)
Camera Model: CORPORATION (used to display NIKON D750)
Photographer: xx xx:xx:xx (used to display Photographer's name)
Copyright: shows Photographer's last name (used to display camera copyright text)

7

7obi07801

Participating Frequently

Same problem! Thought I was going mad! I've got a website which displays the EXIF data of uploaded images and it displays garbled up and useless information since the update to Lighroom 6! This needs to be fixed ASAP as it's a KEY feature for most Photographers to have accurate EXIF data in their images!

S

SentimentalPhotos

Participating Frequently

Thanks David for looking into this. And thanks again John for your work pin-pointing this situation. Hope this gets corrected soon.

dfranzen_camera_raw

Adobe Employee

Thanks -- I sort of misread your original post.

J

JohnRolfeEllisAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, if you don't do step 6 (remove all the XMP-crs metadata), then you can't see any of the EXIF metadata in Google Photos.

dfranzen_camera_raw

Adobe Employee

John,

Just to be clear, if you omit step 6 in the steps of your original post, do you still see a problem in Picassa?

Thank you,
David

S

SentimentalPhotos

Participating Frequently

Thanks John! As you pointed out, this was "surely not intended by the developers".

J

JohnRolfeEllisAuthor

Known Participant

Good catch, I didn't notice the different GUIDs, thanks.

So this issue now falls into the same category as the other JPEG format issue: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh.... While technically conforming to the industry standard, the atypical layout of the XMP information, surely not intended by the developers, will cause LR's users significant practical problems:

1. Software like Google Photos/Picasa chokes on the XMP metadata and refuses to show any metadata at all. If Exiftool, the widely acknowledged authority on metadata, didn't properly handle LR's layout of XMP metadata, what's the likelihood of the typical mediocre software app handling it properly?

2. Duplicating the XMP-crs information twice can add a lot of bloat to files containing lots of adjustment-brush strokes. For example, it could take 1.5 MB or more to represent the strokes in a photo that's had a lot of brush work. This bug causes that to be duplicated, adding another 1.5 MB to the file size needlessly. This could be significant when publishing Web-quality photos. E.g. a high-quality 2400-wide JPEG might take 1 MB without metadata; with the XMP metadata stored properly, that would expand to 2.5 MB; with the XMP metadata stored by LR 6, it would expand a further 60% to 4 MB. Telling a user not to export any metadata isn't always an option, because she may well want EXIF camera info, keywords, captions etc. exported, and LR natively doesn't provide any mechanism for easily suppressing the develop settings only.

B

boardhead_

Participating Frequently

Actually, this is allowed by the XMP specification, which states:

"The GUID is also stored in the StandardXMP as the value of the xmpNote:HasExtendedXMP property. This allows detection of mismatched or modified ExtendedXMP. A reader must incorporate only ExtendedXMP blocks whose GUID matches the value of xmpNote:HasExtendedXMP"

The GUID of the second extended XMP doesn't match, so technically it should be ignored. ExifTool doesn't ignore it though.

- Phil

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