Adobe Bridge 2024 - IPTC (IIM, Legacy) activated, but some metadata are missing

[Awkward Team OkeaH]

Hi!

The agency I just started working with asks me to fill "category" and "other categories" sections in the images' metadata. Although the IPTC (IIM, legacy) is activated via settings, only these two sections are missing from the metadata tab. 

I use a Mac, with Mac OS Ventura 13.6.1. How can I activate these two sections?

Thanks!

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Look in Bridge Preferences under Metadata and select the items you wish to see in the Metadata Panel.

[gregreser]

@Erik Bloodaxe is right: make sure Categories and Suplemental Categories are selected.

The bigger issue is that these fields are not editable in Bridge (there is no text box beside them to enter data). This is probably because IPTC have defined these as depricated and no longer used.

 https://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/specification/IPTC-PhotoMetadata#deprecated-iim-metadata-prop...

Obvioulsy, the agency you are working with still uses them, so you need to find a  way to enter them. I would first ask them what software they use to create and read these fields. There is a custom metadata panel for Bridge that might allow you to use Categories and Suplemental Categories, but I haven't tested to make sure it will work.

https://exchange.adobe.com/apps/cc/103752/custom-metadata-panel 

[elianoimperato]

I selected both, "Categories" and "Suplemental Categories", in the settings panel but I still can't see the Category field in the IPTC panel.

For now I solved using the IPTC metadata panel in Lightroom but for my workflow I prefer to add all the IPTC when I'm importing the photos with Bridge. I think Adobe should take more care about these things because also pro workers are using this apps.
Is not easy to stop to use Photo Mechanic for a photojournalist... I can do everything also with Bridge, the only thing I miss and I'm searching for is an app to use the very useful Photo Mechanic function "code replacement".

[Lumigraphics]

This could all be done with custom scripting or EXIFTool but Adobe has limitations in its UI and implementation of metadata. I have to use EXIFTool (which I have integrated with Bridge using custom scripts) for some metadata functions.

[Lumigraphics]

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=5806.0

[elianoimperato]

Thank you but I'm on a MacOS system.

[Lumigraphics]

It doesn't matter. The fields you want to use are deprecated, unsupported, so you'll need to write a custom solution. That involves scripting or using another app like EXIFTool. What you want is not possible out of the box with Adobe applications.