Svetlana: I have done some testing cirkulation metadata between Photo Mechanic Plus 6 and Photolab 5. I hope it reveals a few of the odd things I think is going on with the metadata exchange. In this test I have broken rule of not having bidirectional metadata flows. I strongly recommend that anyone that uses other metadata editing software together with Photolab never updates either metadata or any other metadata in Photolab. If you do that you won´t have any problems what I have seen at least if you stick with a flat non-hierarchical keyword look up table
Step 1 step 1:
The whole hiararchy created in Photolab 5 and all levels applied to Image:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3
Case 1.2:
Metadata saved with File – Metadata – Write to XMP
Result in Photo Mechanic:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Testnivå 3, Test nivå 1 | Test nivå 2, Test nivå 1 | Test nivå 2 | Testnivå 3
Case 1.3:
Metadata reimported with File – Metadata – Read
Result in Photolab 5:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3
Case 1.4:
Reindexing the folder where the image is stored (when there already is a list created)
Reindexing normally create a keyword list from the images keyword metadata if there is no list present originally
Result in Photolab 5:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3
Case 2.2:
Hiararchy: Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3 created in Photolab 5
Case 2.2a:
Only Test Nivå 3 applied to Image
Keyword field emptied in PM Plus 6 before export
Metadata saved with File – Metadata – Write to XMP
Result in Photo Mechanic:
Nothing was exported!!!
Case 2.2b:
The whole Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3 hiararchy was applied
Keyword field emptied in PM Plus 6 before export
Metadata saved with File – Metadata – Write to XMP
Result in Photo Mechanic:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3
Case 2.3:
Metadata reimported with File – Metadata – Read
Result in Photolab 5:
Test nivå 1, Test nivå 2, Test Nivå 3
Case 2.4:
Reindexing the folder where the image is stored (when there already is a list created)
Reindexing normally create a keyword list from the images keyword metadata if there is no list present originally
Result in Photolab 5:
Nothing is happening with the list and the hiararchy
My conclusion:
Photolab only exports the whole hiararchy
Nothing is exported if the whole hiararchy isn´t exported
An import of XMP-data doesn´t seem to populate the keyword file in this case if there is one already and doesn´t affect the hiararchy I created in the keyword list either but it might with for exemple a lot of images marked with a Lightroom hiararchy.
I also hope you will update the “Preference” with a possibility to chose whether Photolab or an external metadata editor shall be the master metadata system. If someone chose another master than Photolab writing of metadata should be inactivated and the IPTC-fields in Photolab should be inactivated too.
If the user prefers to use Photolab as master Photolab has to write to the XMP-files.
It shall also always read the the XMP-files or the embedded metadata in JPEG, TIFF and DNG (regardless which system is the master) when the user opens a folder for editing and update the database with that data. The files whether XMP-sidecars or the XMP-compatible files like JPEG, TIFF or DNG shall always be the real master container of data. That is our safety belt and life insurance. Don´t make the same mistakes like Adobe has done with Lightroom making writing to XMP an option by default.