IPTCDigest not current, UTF-8 vanishes or UTF-8 vanishes, IPTCDigest not current

[Jan Zimmermann]

Hello,

I am new to Exiftool, no expert, but I understand it's a great tool 

I used it to check some of my photos (I run a picture ageny for historic photography) and have problems with embedded and deleted code UTF-8 and a warning "IPTCDigest is not current. XMP may be out of sync"

This is my routine

I use Adobe Bridge (actual version, Creative Cloud) for writing IPTC data in my pictures. After this Exiftool shows these lines:

Current IPTC Digest             : 0dfd247b65f9008f28260cbcca8945ce
IPTC Digest                     : 0dfd247b65f9008f28260cbcca8945ce
Coded Character Set             : UTF8
Application Record Version      : 4

Then I load my picture into Picturemaxx database, a professional database service provider for media.

Everything seems ok, the German letters ä ö ü ß are displayed correctly on the Picturemaxx page.

But when I download pictures from this database, the code UTF-8 is missing. 

And Exiftool shows these lines:

Current IPTC Digest             : 5ddd0415f8b7ffce203bee9549d45602
IPTC Digest                     : 0dfd247b65f9008f28260cbcca8945ce
Warning                         : IPTCDigest is not current. XMP may be out of sync


After download Caption-Abstract looks like this   
LŸbeck, ..., MŠrz 1957     

So – what comes first? Do I have an old IPTC digest and the new at the database marks this? How to get the "current" ITPC?

Or is the problem that Picturemaxx is deleting UTF-8? And than IPTC Digest changes?

Any ideas out there? Maybe this is the wrong group, but it's seems tot be a rare problem and I couldn't find another forum that fits.

Thanks a lot, Jan
       

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Jan,

The IPTC of the downloaded pictures has been modified, but the IPTCDigest has not been updated, which results in the warning you see.

The missing CodedCharacterSet is a problem, and this should be added back again to display the characters properly.

- Phil

[Jan Zimmermann]

Hello Phil,

thanks for Your answer. One more question: do IPTCDigest has to to be updated before I download the pictures from database or after they are downloaded?
If the second is right – which programm allows an IPTCDigest update?

I will ask Picturemaxx why the modify my IPTC data, I think it's not ok to do this...

Thanks for Your work,
Jan

[StarGeek]

The removal of the CodedCharacterSet is likely the reason the the IPTCDigest becomes out of sync, because CodedCharacterSet is part of the IPTC group (double checked, removing it does give the IPTC Digest warning).

Fixing it might be as simple as
exiftool -CodedCharacterSet=utf8 /path/to/files/
as that worked in my quick test.  Otherwise, if you're sure no other data has been removed/changed, then you can use
exiftool -IPTCDigest=new /path/to/files/

[Jan Zimmermann]

Hello, thanks for Your help

Fixing it might be as simple as
exiftool -CodedCharacterSet=utf8 /path/to/files/

I took a set of 10 Jpgs, the answer was Warning: [Minor] IPTC doesn't conform to spec: Records out of sequence
= No copies with new, correct descriptions

as that worked in my quick test.  Otherwise, if you're sure no other data has been removed/changed, then you can use
exiftool -IPTCDigest=new /path/to/files/

I took the same set
= new copies, captions etc okay with äöü etc.
But this is new:
Warning                         : Unrecognized IPTC record 247 (ignored)
And no code line UTF

And there is another courious mistake. I have just understood that there is a conflict between IPTC and XMP.
With -IPTCDigest=new all letters are ok.
But the newest medatada in the IPTC-line caption-abstract is now overwritten with older metadata – which are "saved" in the xmp data. But – and this makes it harder to understand – it happens not always. Last week I sent a set of 200 photos to a customer. I checked the caption-abstract keywords etc eveything correct. Transfer be Wetransfer. When my customer opened the set 50 photos had the older captions - the older medatada saved still saved in xmp had overwritten the IPTC fields.

the newest caption:
Current IPTC Digest             : 20f37056efb6baea6f31d79dbe7e89d5
Caption-Abstract                : Lübeck, 1957. Foto: Hans Kripgans (LN-Artikel am 1957)


the older caption, shown in a XMP line:
xmp.did:4CE653F7CA206811871FCDEA52F50F25
Description                     : Lübeck, 1957. Foto: Hans Kripgans
Subject                         : Geografie, Topografie, Fotografie, historisch, Geschichte, früher, Jahre, 1950er, 50er

Next week I will test other programs for writing descriptions – now I think, Adobe Bridge is my problem.

Thanks for reading, Jan