Old Bug Still Lingers

[Lin Evans]

The JPG EXIF template for JPG EXIF Description and JPG EXIF Comments are still dead. Use Irfanview and insert something into each IPTC category and into the jpg comments category and test all templates with PTE text. These two categories return nothing using the PTE template. We either need to find out how an editor such as Irfanview reads these and fix this in PTE or remove the categories because it's been inoperative in PTE for several years now....

Best regards,

Lin

[Gérard de Lux]

You're right, Lin, Exif function and templates need to be reworked to be reliable and useful. ExifTool is a free and powerful program which is, for example, fully integrated into GeoSetter (Geosetting program) and gives fantastic results.

Anyway, I've been able to display at leat one comment from one Exif tag ! As can be seen from the screenshot below, the 'Exif.Description' parameter displays what is in the 'Description/Comments' Exif field, which is not very logical.

The other standard fields (like Location [Country, State, City], Keywords, etc.) can't be displayed, although they could be useful, for example in the case of a travel show.

[Igor]

Lin,

Thanks, we'll try improve this feature. I remember.

[Igor]

We've extended support of EXIF text comments in future Beta 16. Please try it today later.

[sanewcomb]

Use Irfanview and insert something into each IPTC category and into the jpg comments category ....

Hi Lin,

Neither IPTC nor JPG Comment field in Irfanview are part of the EXIF standard. You'll notice that IPTC, EXIF and Comment (JPG) each have their own buttons in the Irfanview Image Properties window. You can't use Irfanview to edit the EXIF fields. You need a different program, like the one Gerard uses ExifTool or Exifer. I used to use Exifer, but now use Exif Pilot. Both involve a number of keystrokes to insert text into the Exif fields. I find Exif Pilot has a somewhat easier workflow when working with a number of slides.

If you do a search on EXIF or IPTC in the archives you'll find a couple of threads with details about these standards and the text/comment fields. One difficulty is the names of the fields are not consistent so some programs call one of the EXIF text fields UserComment and others just Comment (but this isn't the same as the JPG Comment field in Irfanview). The other threads explain the different names used for these fields.

Steve

Tucson, AZ USA

P.S. I highly encourage better support for the EXIF fields, as well as IPTC. I think inserting text directly into the JPEG image files is the equivalent to writing on the back of photographs. It may seem like a bother in the present, but those words will add so much in the future when the user or ancestor reads them.

[sanewcomb]

We've extended support of EXIF text comments in future Beta 16. Please try it today later.

Hi Igor,

P2E has always had support for both user editable text fields of the EXIF header, so your comment confuses me a bit. In P2E

EXIF Description extracts the ImageDescription field

EXIF Comment extracts the UserComment field (this is a better field for inserting captions IMO)

although in the past there were some bugs. I'm trying to remember but at one time it either ignored certain characters or chopped one char off the end of the string (so comments had to have a space padding at the end to avoid it).

I'll admit I haven't used P2E much recently but this is what I recall from past discussions.

Steve

Tucson, AZ

[davegee]

Steve,

Although I rarely use this feature the difference between Beta 15 and Beta 16 seems to be that both IPTC and EXIF comments are now catered for seperately.

Compare the two Betas/versions?

DG

[Ken Cox]

FROM MY COLLECTION

Just to refresh your memory

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7694-exif-question/page__view__findpost__p__47954

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7041-exif-data-for-pte-50/page__view__findpost__p__43950

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6648-custom-comment-function/page__view__findpost__p__41154

ken

[sanewcomb]

... the difference between Beta 15 and Beta 16 seems to be that both IPTC and EXIF comments are now catered for seperately.

Hi Dave,

Ok, it all makes sense now to me. Thanks.

Adding IPTC fields, particularly the caption field, is a great improvement for the P2E comment feature. It will be interesting to see how uniform the IPTC fields are across different photo editing programs. I can now add/edit the IPTC Caption field in Adobe PS CS2 for P2E shows.

I'm not sure but it seems like a very useful comment feature has been removed. Maybe it's just been moved but I can't find it. It allowed copying the Text Comment object from one slide to all slides and was a menu item. What this allowed one to do is create an animated comment for the first slide (when it appeared on the slide, the transparency, when and how it dissolved, etc) and apply it to all the other slides using the comment template. You can do this manually, but it gets to be a pain copying and pasting the Text Comment object for every slide, especially since you have to do this all over everytime you make a change to the Text Comment object in the Objects and Animation window. I liked being able to show a comment explaining the photo (particularly for a vacation slideshow) but only having it on the screen for the first 4 seconds or so of each slide so the viewer could see the photograph without the caption too. I guess it was too confusing for many users.

Steve

Tucson, AZ USA

[Ken Cox]

http://www.picturest.../page__hl__exif

easy thumbs takes a bit of the exif data out but irfanview doesn't

myself and a couple others brought this subject up originally - at the time most did not know what it was -- i still use it when comparing and giving info re a pict -- i think some people deliberately disable the function -- somebody might learn their secrets -- almost like using a synonym for their name -- i am proud of my family name!

ken