Exif Data Removed

[Jp_508]

I do real estate & aerial drone photography, when I export images to Jpeg's for clients I have my exif data populated, not all just 'Author & Copyright info'. When I right click the image and go to details panel it does show up, however if I open a Jpeg image in another program such as paint.net and ad an arrow or create something else to add depicting the property in a aerial photo and save it the exif data changes and no longer there, says paint.net and instead of showing my copyright symbol with my name it shows 2 question marks then my name. Yes I am aware that I can do it Lr>Ps>Lr>Export Jpeg and it wouldn't be as problem but soimetimes I forget or a client calls me and asks for another detail to add. Any thoughts as to why it does lock in? Thanks for reading hope someone has some answers. 

[nikunj.m]

Hi there,

I am afraid but there is no way to lock down the metadata or the EXIF information in an image since that information is re-writable and that is what seems to be happening with your images when you are opening and re-saving the images through other applications.

It seems that paint.net is re-writing the complete JPEG file and in the process the EXIF information is getting left out.

Regards

Nikunj

[Jp_508]

Thanks for your reply....I kinda thought there wasn't anything I could do, just wanted confirmation.

[GoldingD]

Some confusion, probably mine.

So you edit the image in LRC. You also edit the Metadata. And then in LRC you export to a JPEG?

And, the image you are bringing up in the program paint.net is that image you exported in LRC?

And when you exported the image, you did not tell LRC to remove any metadata?

[Jp_508]

Yes I edit the image in Lr, add my exif data in the library module, then export as Jpeg image. Then when I open in paint.net and add something to the image I save it as a Jpeg and the exif data changes.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

"instead of showing my copyright symbol with my name it shows 2 question marks then my name."

This happens because LR and Paint.net are following different interpretations of the EXIF metadata standard. The EXIF specification only allows ASCII characters (what's shown on a US keyboard) in most of the metadata fields, and Paint.net appears to be following that interpretation. But LR follows the Metadata Working Group's specification, which calls for EXIF fields to be encoded as UTF-8 (full Unicode characters).  

The copyright symbol isn't in ASCII, so LR encodes it in UTF-8.  Paint.net doesn't recognize that encoding, and it comes out garbled as "??".

The only way to avoid this industry mess is to avoid the use of non-ASCII chartacters in the copyright field.  For example, use (c) instead of ©.

[Jp_508]

I understand, I'll change it moving forward. Thanks for the info many thx.