IPTCDigest out of sync warning

[jacklail]

I often get the IPTCDigest out of sync warning.

I fix it by doing

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exiftool -iptcdigest= FILENAME
That seems to resolve the issue, but it is the proper way of handling it? Should I do something to avoid the "out of sync" state to start with?

As best I can tell, it means the legacy IPTC-IMM fields and the IPTC-XMP fields don't match. Is that correct?

I am usually working with JPG files. Exiftool version 12.52

[wywh]

Out-of-sync Photoshop:IPTCDigest caused weird date errors on a Mac so I deleted them (macOS 12.4 Monterey apps like Photos.app 7.0, Preview.app and Finder preview erroneously grab the date from 'IPTC:DateCreated' & 'IPTC:TimeCreated' or display the time as "0.00" if the time tag is missing in them instead using 'ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal' (luckily usually those dates are the same):

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exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -if '$Photoshop:IPTCDigest' -Photoshop:IPTCDigest= .
Or sync 'Photoshop:IPTCDigest':

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exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -if '$Photoshop:IPTCDigest' -Photoshop:IPTCDigest=new .
"Personally, I just remove this tag. It's extra work to keep it up to date with little return for the work."

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=13273.msg71697#msg71697

- Matti

[StarGeek]

Another link about IPTCDigest and my opinion on it.

On the technical side, you would want to make sure that the IPTC IIM and XMP tags are actually in sync before running -IPTCDigest=new, as there is no actual check done to make sure they are in sync.  The warning only will appear if the IPTC data has been changed.

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C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -IPTC:All -XMP:All -*Digest -warning y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : test
[IPTC]          ApplicationRecordVersion        : 4
[XMP-x]         XMPToolkit                      : Image::ExifTool 12.62
[XMP-dc]        Description                     : test
[File]          CurrentIPTCDigest               : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d
[Photoshop]     IPTCDigest                      : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d

C:\>exiftool -P -overwrite_original -Description="Something Else" y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
    1 image files updated

C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -IPTC:All -XMP:All -*Digest -warning y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : test
[IPTC]          ApplicationRecordVersion        : 4
[XMP-x]         XMPToolkit                      : Image::ExifTool 12.62
[XMP-dc]        Description                     : Something Else
[File]          CurrentIPTCDigest               : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d
[Photoshop]     IPTCDigest                      : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d

C:\>exiftool -P -overwrite_original -Caption-Abstract="Different test" y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
    1 image files updated

C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -IPTC:All -XMP:All -*Digest -warning y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : Different test
[IPTC]          ApplicationRecordVersion        : 4
[XMP-x]         XMPToolkit                      : Image::ExifTool 12.62
[XMP-dc]        Description                     : Something Else
[File]          CurrentIPTCDigest               : 449bce1ba1bc68f9250d18091cd40026
[Photoshop]     IPTCDigest                      : 7b041c32dffe3d70e4e2f5d6b7f0940d
[ExifTool]      Warning                         : IPTCDigest is not current. XMP may be out of sync