AcDsee Photo Studio and ITPC metadata

[brianw]

I'm evaluating ACDsee Photo Studio Standard as a photo organiser and I've come across a problem.

Previously I've been using Zoner Photo Studio 17 which seems to operate similarly to ACDsee in that it embeds ITPC data such as description, location, keywords, categories etc directly into the image files. So to evaluate ACDsee, I've imported my image archive and created a catalog but I've discovered that while ACDsee sees the Exif & IPTC metadata, for some reason it is not reading the IPTC categories that I had previously created and embedded into the images in the IPTC Category field. In ACDSee, that field is blank for all of my images even though every other image viewer I have can see the Categories I've created (Eg. XnView, IrfanView, Adobe Bridge - even Photoshop itself).

Have I missed something?


Brian W

[Glen Barrington]

I just checked the fields in the IPTC standard, and I don't see a categories field.

https://www.iptc.org/std/photometada...rencetable.htm

I DO see a Keywords field. Could that be what you mean? I did a test, by manually adding ITPC keywords to some photos, and ACDSee definitely uses the IPTC keywords field for IPTC keywords. I don't know if this is an error on ACDSee's part or on Zoner's part.

I don't know very much about Zoner Photo Studio, and I haven't heard anything about import errors with it and ACDSee. You might want to look at the IPTC data for the old Zoner pictures in a metadata editing program, such as ExifToolGUI or PhotoMe and see if the Zoner pictures have stored that info in the location where the other programs can pick it up. In a pinch you can use the exifTool program's batch capabilities to manually move the keywords to the keyword field.

If everything looks OK to you, I'd check with ACDSee Tech support, I'm sure they will want to hear about potential problems with something like this. You can reach them at this location.

https://acdsystems.desk.com/customer...tal/emails/new

Sorry I can't be of more help, but if you want to make a sample photo available, I could try to see if I get the same results as you.

[brianw]

Hi Glen

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I've checked with both ExifTool GUI and Exif Pilot. The IPTC Category field is definitely present and populated with the data entered in Zoner (see screengrabs attached). The screengrab from ACDsee has the Category field blank. All keywords entered via Zoner appear in ACDSee correctly - it's just the Category field that's the problem.

If I decide that ACDSee is a likely candidate for a Zoner replacement, I'll take your suggestion and follow up with Tech Support.

Cheers

Brian

[GusPanella]

In the Properties > Metadata tab....
See where it says "Description"....

When I click that drop-down arrow, I see an option call "All IPTC"
Selecting this shows all the IPTC fields, including "Category".




Of note, ACD has a provision that allows you to display your preferred combination of IPTC fields, too.
Go to the same drop-down box and select "Manage Meta Data Views"

[Emil]

Hehe, this one is tricky and AC is locked in it's own trap too.

There exists an iptc tag 2:15 (link, page 30) which allows only a three character abbreviations for a predefined set of strings. Since many years this tag is deprecated but also mapped to a number of other similar tags.

Ac and Zooner, both nowadays store this data in the xmp tag photoshop:category, but while Zooner (and other programs) allows free text, AC still filters it and if the text doesn't match one of the abbreviations simply displays nothing.

Imho AC can't widen this tag to free text because it would conflict with the proprietary AC categories. A tedious conflict we already have with the AC keywords and iptc keywords, which both have there pro's and con's.

With this assessment maybe I'm on thin ice and would love to read other opinions.

[brianw]

Gus - thanks. I don't have a problem seeing the Category field. The problem is that it's blank.

Emil. I think you've probably hit on the answer and it seems that AC cannot, sadly, do what I need. It might be possible for me to remap the free text Category into a keyword (via Zoner or some other software). That may allow me to filter searches on that Category/Keyword in AC. I'll have a think about it.

[Emil]

For a workaround you could map the iptc 'categories' into iptc 'supplementalcategories', which allows free text.

 >exiftool "-xmp-photoshop:SupplementalCategories<xmp-photoshop:Category" foldername

Beware, this will overwrite all content that may already exist in 'SupplementalCategories'.
AC doesn't read changes to this tag on the fly, you will need to call "Tools - Metadata - Rebuild Thumbnails and Metadata".
Also imho this tag is not recognised by the quick search, you will need to use search pane (CTRL-SHIFT-3).

So, you may want to try this first with a couple of test images.

[brianw]

Emil - thanks for the suggestion. I've not used the SupplementalCategories field so there's nothing that would be overwritten. That may well be a workable solution.

Cheers

Brian