In article ,
wrote:
What is the suggested workaround to PS 7’s "feature" of discarding EXIF maker notes when writing JPEGs? Am I supposed to run exifutils or exifer on every directory to clean up after Photoshop? Is this problem fixed in CS?
By their very nature MakerNotes are proprietary data and can and should not be rewritten. To do so would put the files at risk of being corrupt or out of date. Some MakerNotes contain references to data outside their bounds that is no longer in the same place after the file is resaved. Since the MakerNotes are not documented, those references cannot be individually fixed or removed. Some MakerNotes contain thumbnails that would be out of date after a file was resaved. Without documentation, those thumbnails cannot be updated.
In short, Photoshop resaves as much documented data as can be saved. Undocumented, unsafe to resave data such as MakerNotes is not.
–marc
That is to say, "Adobe can’t be bothered to figure out which maker notes can be safely saved, therefore we will trash them all". Great!
Couldn’t there at least be a settable "turn off presumptuous Photoshop EXIF edits" option.
No, that is to say "Camera vendors can’t be bothered to document these tags, and Adobe knows that many of them contain data that should not be preserved or cannot be preserved."
No, there will not be a "suicide tags" option.
If you would like the tags preserved or updated, you need to lobby your camera manufacturer to document the tags.
In article ,
wrote:
That is to say, "Adobe can’t be bothered to figure out which maker notes can be safely saved, therefore we will trash them all". Great!
The fact the MakerNote data is not documented and therfore cannot be reliably read or rewritten is as frustrating to those of us who work on writing Photoshop as it sounds as if it is for you. If the data could be preserved, we would do so. It is not an issue of effort.
Some other non-camera-vendor applications did manage to decode a handful of tags, but without documentation there is no guarantee such decoding will be robust when the camera manufacturer changes the camera firmware, when decoding images from different cameras from the same manuafacturer, etc. Writing the tags back when the image data has changed is out of the question without documentation.
–marc
Yet I understand that Photoshop 6.0 DID write back that data. It would be nice if you at least gave us a choice whether to write it or not. God knows we paid enough for Photoshop.
In article ,
wrote:
Yet I understand that Photoshop 6.0 DID write back that data. It would be nice if you at least gave us a choice whether to write it or not. God knows we paid enough for Photoshop.
Photoshop 6.0 was incorrect in preserving the EXIF metadata untouched.
–marc
Murray,
In CS, EXIF support got a little worse. It overwites some EXIF data with ITPC data (and it’s not proprietary "Maker notes", either):
hanford lemoore "Photoshop CS changing my Exif Data" 11/12/03 1:38pm </cgi-bin/webx?13/3>
~Hanford
It’s odd that Photoshop can’t figure out which Maker Notes are which and which are "safe". Exif Reader and Exifer have no problem displaying the ones they understand and hex-dumping the ones they don’t.
Murray – and EXIF Reader and Exifer write back tags that cause some applications and drivers to crash! (same problem we encountered in PS 6) That’s not a good thing.
You cannot safely write back ANY maker notes that are not well documented.
Until the camera makers document the tags, we can’t do anything different.
So, again, if you want those tags supported – tell the camera maker(s) to document the tags.
All I ask is to let me choose. Give me a list of little checkboxes like Exifer has, and I can decide which maker notes types are too dangerous. Are you trying to tell me that Nikon or Canon will suddenly change what their (nonstandard) "ISO value" maker note does? Give me a break!
We will give you rational choices, but it would be hard to know where to stop if we had to provide all the irrational choices.
Yes, Canon and Nikon have both "suddenly" changed some of their proprietary tags. And if the tag is not documented – then we don’t know what it is.
All undocumented tags are too dangerous. Period. You wouldn’t know what’s in those tags any more than we would.
We’re telling you the way it is — and it won’t change until the tags are documented.
If you want them supported, then tell your camera manufacturer to document the tags.
In the ideal world, I would be grateful to Adobe for protecting me from hypothetical JPEG dangers. In the real world, where I have to complicate my workflow by running exifer or EXIFutils around each Photoshop session to reinsert Photoshop’s deletions, I just feel ripped off.
Remember, paternalism is one of the great software sins.
paternalism is one of the great software sins.
so are system crashes due to undocumented "features". talk to the camera maker.
So is crashing a printer because of an incorrectly preserved maker note in a JPEG file sent directly to the printer. (yes, this happened in PS 6)
Okay. It’s 2003. PS CS finally gives you options for keyboard mapping (a fine 1980s feature). By 2007, PS 9 (CS2?) might allow you to choose what goes into your palettes or toolbars (a fine 1990s feature). I guess by maybe 2010, EXIF Maker Notes options might be available…
I guess by maybe 2010, EXIF Maker Notes options might be available…
sure, if your camera maker documents it.
That’s right. It seems, even though I know of a half dozen totall safe maker notes I’d like to preserve in my EXIFs, it seems I have to wait until the last camera that is capable of generating unsafe maker notes disappears from the face of the earth before I can get what I want from Photoshop (I guess I could just back up to 6.0).
In the meantime I have to cobble together a bunch of bugware to do it myself.
At least you understand the process now. Good job. 🙂
Thanks for the product rationale. And I’ll remember not to buy a printer from a camera maker. It seems they know too much.
And I’ll remember not to buy a printer from a camera maker.
Actually, I love my Olympus p330n Dye-sub.
Murray – how many times do I have to say that we can only preserve them if they are documented? As long as your camera maker refuses to document the tags, we cannot preserve them.
(And if they are not documented, then they cannot be safe)
Suppose just one camera maker documented some of their maker notes. Would you preserve those? Or do all camera makers need to document all maker notes?
In article ,
wrote:
Suppose just one camera maker documented some of their maker notes. Would you preserve those? Or do all camera makers need to document all maker notes?
If one maker documented their notes, we would most like use that information if it would help us to preserve more information. A problem with most MakerNotes is the manufuacturers software assumes only it will be reading and writing these proprietary chunks of data and they often do not deal well when another application has modified that data.
–marc
We already preserve the few maker notes that have been documented (and can be preserved).
As they’re documented, we’ll see if they can be preserved or not (since we already know that many should not be preserved).
Again: tell YOUR camera manufacturer to document their tags.
I have a Canon PowerShot S50, which is listed as one of PS’s supported cameras. My EXIF information seems to be intact for JPEGs. . .so it looks like Adobe does perserve the notes of some cameras, they don’t throw them all away.
I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. . . good luck Murray – I think the key bit of advice you’ve been given is to tell your camera manufacturer to document the makerNotes.
Cheers,
Rose
The correct solution would be for the PS to let us configure which maker notes to preserve, in the same way Exifer does. They’re our JPEG files, after all.
Murray,
Photoshop is an image editor and it does what it should very well. Most of us don’t waste our time saving back to JPG’s we store our master files as TIF’s and PSD’s. If you want all your maker notes saved I suggest you contact your camera vendor as Chris has suggested or keep a copy of your original with the edit.
What is this magic field that is so important you can’t live without it anyway? Let me guess your cameras genius engineers put a standard maker note in a non standard field and you think that is Adobe’s fault.
Are you saying that maker notes read from JPEGs are preserved when those files are saved as PSDs and only discarded when the PSDs are saved as JPEGs? I save both PSDs and low-resolution JPEGs, but discard the original D100 JPEGs.
Murray,
Are you saying that maker notes read from JPEGs are preserved when those files are saved as PSDs and only discarded when the PSDs are saved as JPEGs?
No, I am saying that most of us could care less if undocumented maker notes are discarded.
You still haven’t even said which ones you need preserved.
