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josephw8931719
Participant
May 3, 2020
Question

How is caption vs notes stored in metadata

  • May 3, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 2227 views

After scanning some photos, I am working in Photoshop Elements Organizer.   I have edited the metadata for some of the pictures including tags, caption and notes.   

When I switch to a 3rd party app or exinfo.org, I can see the tags and the notes but not the caption.  

Is the caption actually saved directly to the pictures metadata and, if so, is there a particular program someone would recommend to be able to confirm it is there.   Alternatively should I just use the notes field (instead of the caption) for information like, "Trip to Grand Canyon with cousin Eddy 1974" type of content?

Thanks, for your help.   I did do some searchng before I posted but only found information about caption missing from slide shows (bummer) or a technical sounding one about Tag Ids I did not understand.

Joe

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2 replies

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
May 4, 2020

Hi Joe,

 

Your experience is the opposite of mine.

We can have a look at the structure of the metadata section of the files directly from the editor (File > File Info) or from the information panel of the organizer (With full detail option = icon on the right of the 'metadata' title) or with the IPTC panel displayed. The 'raw' section in the editor shows all the data in the metadata header'.

I also use exiftoolgui as an exif viewer.

There is generally no problems with captions between most softwares if they are stored in the 'description' field. Rare old softwares do use other non standard fields.

It's another matter for notes. For instance Lightroom does not offer notes, you are supposed to use captions, even with a very long text. Lightroom can convert organizer catalogs, in which case it replaces notes with captions.

When you have a look at the information from the editor and browse the 'raw' data section at the bottom, you'll find the convents of your notes under the field <album:notes>.

If you have written the metadata to files and you import the file in an empty test catalog, you'll see that the album:note field has been read from the file and written in the catalog.

 

In my experience, captions practically always work with different softwares, not notes. If you convert a PSE catalog to Lightroom, notes will be converted to captions and I don't know what happens if you have both a caption and a note !

 

For captions missing from slideshow, can you provide a link to such a discussion? 

 

ankitd
Adobe Employee
ankitd
Adobe Employee
May 4, 2020

Hello, 

The captions are saved to IPTC metadata of the image. You need to save the metadata to the image before viewing the captions outside Elements Organizer. You can do this by selecting the image(s) first and then selecting "Save Metadata to File" from the File Menu.

 

Thanks!

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
May 4, 2020

The captions are saved to IPTC metadata of the image. You need to save the metadata to the image before viewing the captions outside Elements Organizer. You can do this by selecting the image(s) first and then selecting "Save Metadata to File" from the File Menu.

 

Ankid,

Captions are saved both in the IPTC field and the exif field.

My experience is that you don't need to 'write metadata' to file when you edit a single file;  you need to if you want to save metadata to many files at the same time. I'd like to have an official explanation about what happens both in that situation and what happens when you 'update thumbnails' and the result is also that captions are synced back from the file to the catalog (not other fields like tags). There are a lot of complaints that 'writing metadata to tags' corrupts the original GPS location.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/gps-coordinates-are-changed-in-exif-after-a-save-metadata-to-file-in-elements-organiser

 

ankitd
Adobe Employee
ankitd
Adobe Employee
May 4, 2020

Hi Michel,

Yes, the caption is saved in both Exif and IPTC but in Elements Organizer only the IPTC caption is visible. The caption is not shown under the Exif metadata filed.  The "Save Metadata to File" operation saves information like caption, GPS info, tags to file whereas the "Update Thumbnail", updates the thumbnail and refreshes the metadata associated with the file, which as you have pointed updates the caption as well. In the case of tags, the updated tags are also reflected after the "Update Thumbnail" under the Keywords in the IPTC column in the Metadata Panel but they are not added to the existing tag hierarchy in Elements Organizer. 

I hope this answers your questions.

 

Thanks!

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