HEIC image import into Lightroom Classic produce xmp sidecars?

[phil-likes-this]

Hi all,

maybe someone can shed light on this. I use the Lightroom App on my iPhone and Lightroom Classic (latest version) on my mac.

I realized that when I import .HEIC files into Lightroom Classic, it creates 2 files in the Masters folder: an .HEIC file and an .xmp sidecar file. My understanding is that HEIC can handle all the metadata in the file and does not need as sidecar. Is there a way to get Lightroom to consolidate this correctly?

I've tried importing directly into Lightroom Classic or via the iPhone App and CC with the same result.

I understand that I can tick "write to xmp" in the settings of Lightroom Classic - but even then, the moment you change any Metadata, a new xmp file gets created.

Many thanks and best regards,

Phil

[JohanElzenga]

Apparently this is as expected. The .heic file format (HEIF) fully supports XMP and EXIF metadata, but Adobe probably doesn't have a metadata writer for the file format and the engineers found it expedient to write .xmp sidecars.

[johnrellis]

To build on JohanEl54's reply, the HEIF format, which stores HEIC images and HEVC video, is based on the Apple QuickTime format, variations of which are used to store various video formats. LR has never had the capability of writing metadata back to these formats, unfortunately.

Now if only LR would write .xmp sidecars for videos...

[phil-likes-this]

Thanks guys, that gave me just the colour I was looking for. Will stick to jpgs for the moment and await development

Many thanks!

[JohanElzenga]

phil-likes-this  wrote

Thanks guys, that gave me just the colour I was looking for. Will stick to jpgs for the moment and await development

Many thanks!

I am a bit puzzled about that. Why is this such an issue that you would switch to an inferior file format?

[phil-likes-this]

Basically I set out by wanting to organise my photos by albums with correct time stamps. So I started with iPhoto, and then realised that its tools were too limited and I switched to Aperture. When Apple stopped Aperture and promised Photos to replace it, I bit the bullet and went for Lightroom. These changes threw up lots of compatibility issues and I'm fed up of having to deal with them - huge waste of time to just keep photos in order.
If Lightroom can't handle HEIC in a simple manner (ie creating unnecessary sidecars), I'd rather wait until it can. JPG might be old but it's the most promising route to not have to deal with another library re-juggle.

[JohanElzenga]

JPEG is not just old, it is inferior. It’s 8 bits/color and lossy compressed. You may consider using the built-in camera app in Lightroom CC and shooting in DNG.