Lost caption when importing from iPhone

[qseep]

I'm using Lightroom Classic 12.4 on macOS 13.4.1 (M1) and iOS 16.5.1.

If I take a photo with the Photos app on the iPhone, then enter a caption, then import new photos to Lightroom Classic using a USB cable, then the caption is nowhere to be found in the metadata on the imported file.

On the other hand, if I AirDrop the same photo to my Mac, the caption metadata is present (from exiftool):

[IFD0] ImageDescription : Photo caption test XZX

[XMP-dc] Description : Photo caption test XZX

Why is Lightroom dropping the captions on import? This is annoying because it's nice to be able to type captions when I take the photo. If I have to enter them later into Lightroom I might forget what I wanted to write.

BTW I do not use Lightroom CC or any Adobe cloud storage. Please do not suggest that as I do not want to pay for their cloud storage - I have enough other cloud storage.

[qseep]

I meant that I take the photos with the built-in Camera app.

If the answer is that I can add captions using the Lightroom iPhone app, I can live with that as a workaround, as long as I don't have to use cloud storage.

[qseep]

Wow, the captions do not even show up in the Mac Photos app if I import to that. Apple needs to get their act together.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252465243

[qseep]

Perhaps there is a better iPhone app for taking photos that will store captions in a proper metadata field like Caption or Title?

[GoldingD]

Apparently in MAC iOS when you save that captain, the iOS places it in a metadata field called Description. (or the MACOD does that during import)

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253512649

So, it places it in a field that LrC might not deal with.

They are not equivalent

https://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/caption-description-title-alt-how-to-add-semantic-informa...

I would imagine that some metadata editor could deal with this post process.

hmm, not a nice solution for most of us, but see:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254014186

[johnrellis]

Out of curiosity, I investigated various paths of extracting a photo from the IOS Photos app after setting the caption of the photo in the app. I used Exiftool to look for that caption anywhere in the metadata, not just the industry-standard fields.

My conclusion: The IOS Photos app is storing the caption on the side in a proprietary location rather than in industry standard fields in the photo.  The app sends the caption to Icloud, which sends it to Mac Photos, but not in an industry-standard metadata field.

Various extraction paths I tried:

Mac Image Capture > Mac Desktop: No caption was extracted.

IOS Photos app > Icloud > Mac Photos app: The Mac Photos app shows the caption.

Mac Photos app > File Export Unmodified Original > Desktop: The .heic has no caption.

Mac Photos app > File Export Unmodified Original, Export IPTC as XMP > Desktop: The .heic has no caption, but the exported .xmp sidecar has the caption in the industry-standard field XMP:Description.

Mac Photos app > File Export as JPEG > Desktop: The exported .jpeg has the caption in the industry-standard fields EXIF:ImageDescription and IPTC:Caption-Abstract.

IOS Photos app > LR Mobile: LR Mobile shows no caption.

IOS Photos app > LR Mobile > LR Cloud > LR Classic: LR Classic shows no caption.