Photomechanic IPTC metadata lost in Photoshop

[qoq@bob]

I am ingesting RAW files with Photo Mechanic 6 from SD cards used in a Sony A7R camera and adding IPTC Metadata including Descriptions, Keywords, locations, Credits and other fields. I then use Photo Mechanic to select and rate the images with Colors and Star ratings. Then I select 10-20 images at a time to open in Photoshop. I use Camera RAW to tone the images, then open in Photoshop to crop and Save As to jpg as an edited folder for further use. After many years of this workflow working well including in January 2025, the Metadata is missing in Photoshop and does not appear in Bridge. I am using the latest MAC OS on a Macbook Pro laptop, and updated Camera Bits software and the latest in Creative Cloud apps. I asked for help from Camera Bits and they inspected sample files and reported that the problem is in the Adobe software. 

[ExUSA]

Put a RAW file and the corresponding sidecar online someplace so it can be looked at.

[Stephen Marsh]

I am ingesting RAW files with Photo Mechanic 6 from SD cards used in a Sony A7R camera and adding IPTC Metadata including Descriptions, Keywords, locations, Credits and other fields. I then use Photo Mechanic to select and rate the images with Colors and Star ratings. 

By qoq@bob

Photo Mechanic didn't directly produce the XMP sidecar file you uploaded, so there is no way to check the "before", as this looks like the "after" ACR sidecar result. EDIT: Can you confirm if Photo Mechanic is writing to a sidecar file or directly to the raw?

[qoq@bob]

I don't know how to find that out but I found two xmp files associated with that RAW file. One .XMP and one .xmp. Sharing below....

[Stephen Marsh]

One .XMP and one .xmp

By qoq@bob

Only the XMP file with the extension in UPPERCASE has the metadata from Photo Mechanic. This has to be the file named the same as the raw when opening in Photoshop for the custom metadata to be retained. If you have multiple sidecar files then this may get confusing.

[qoq@bob]

I moved the .XMP file from the RAW folder to the one with the .jpg edited photos (where there are no xmp files at all. The jpg did not open with metadata but then the RAW file did not either. I moved it back and the RAW file had metadata in Photomechanic. How do I get Photoshop to read the Metadata? Do I need to delete the camera .xmp files before opening in Photoshop?

[Stephen Marsh]

I moved the .XMP file from the RAW folder to the one with the .jpg edited photos (where there are no xmp files at all. The jpg did not open with metadata but then the RAW file did not either. I moved it back and the RAW file had metadata in Photomechanic. How do I get Photoshop to read the Metadata? Do I need to delete the camera .xmp files before opening in Photoshop?

By qoq@bob

As my screenshot shows, if there is only one valid XMP sidecar file with the same name as the image in the same folder, then that is what Adobe products will use and you will then see your Photo Mechanic metadata in Photoshop, Bridge etc.

[qoq@bob]

Interesting. I noticed that Photoshop created a new .xmp file without Metadata in the folder with the RAW files after editing. I can open the .XMP in the Photoshop jpg but I'm looking for a way to restore the seamless workflow keeping the metadata in batch editing.

[Stephen Marsh]

I can't reproduce this issue. Photoshop uses the PhotoMechanic XMP sidecar and honours the metadata while also writing new metadata to the same XMP sidecar. Perhaps you need to look into permissions on the sidecar file.

[ExUSA]

Adobe doesn't support case-sensitive file systems. So you can't have .xmp and .XMP in the same folder and have it work with Photoshop.

[qoq@bob]

Thank you for that. What I can't figure out is how to create only one xmp file. I've tried changing the settings from lower case to upper case but that still doesn't create only one xmp file. The Photo Mechanic metadata followed the RAW file through Photoshop for decades of use. I'm now wondering if the camera setting, where I embedded a byline and customized the file name might be the problem here since I see that in Photoshop but not the Photo Mechanic metadata (although I can open it but it takes a lot of clicking and navigating to do one by one image in a 3000 image shoot.