Scripting IPTC metadata in PS CS3

[_Andrew_L_Slayman_]

Has anyone else noticed the following problems when using scripts to manipulate IPTC metadata in Photoshop CS3? Found a way around them?

--There appears to be no way to access the following fields in a script:
IPTC Contact: E-Mail(s)
IPTC Contact: Website(s)
IPTC Image, Origin: Date Created (N.B. This does not correspond to DocumentInfo.creationDate, for some reason.)
IPTC Image: Location
IPTC Status: Rights Usage Terms

--Whenever I use a script to manipulate the metadata of ANY field (e.g. title, headline, keywords, etc.), any content in the fields listed above is deleted.

Anyone working on a solution? (That means you, Adobe.)

Thanks,
Andrew Slayman

[Paul Riggott]

You could always access this data from Bridge or Photoshop via BridgeTalk.

var myEmail = md.read("http://iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/xmlns/", "Iptc4xmpCore:CreatorContactInfo/Iptc4xmpCore:CiEmailWork");
var myURL = md.read("http://iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/xmlns/", "Iptc4xmpCore:CreatorContactInfo/Iptc4xmpCore:CiUrlWork");

Etc..

[_Andrew_L_Slayman_]

Paul R.,

Many thanks for the suggestion. Never used BridgeTalk, so that will take some figuring out.

But the situation turns out to be more complicated than I thought. Basically, whenever I run a Photoshop action on a batch of PSD images selected in Bridge, it blitzes the five fields listed above. The action needn't have anything to do with metadata, and as far as I can tell the problem affects only PSDs. (DNGs and TIFFs are certainly okay.) So even if I can figure out how to use BridgeTalk, there may be no data for BridgeTalk to retrieve.

Any idea how one files a bug report around here?

Andrew

[Paul Riggott]

Another way of getting the data direct from Photoshop would be to use one of Xbytors functions...

#target photoshop
function parseMetadata(xmp, tag) {
var re = new RegExp('<' + tag + '>(.+)</' + tag + '>');
var m = xmp.match(re);
if (!m) {
re = new RegExp("<[^:]+:" + tag + ">(.+)</[^:]+:" + tag + '>');
m = this.xmp.match(re);
}

return (m ? m[1] : '');
};

var xmp = activeDocument.xmpMetadata.rawData;
alert(parseMetadata(xmp,"Iptc4xmpCore:CiEmailWork"));