Lightroom ignores GPS data in GeoSetter written XMP files

[georoom]

Hi,

I'm using exiftool (V 8.72) in combination with Geosetter (V 3.4.16). I've tagged a lot of JPEG files with the option to store the gps data in xmp sidecar files (in order to keep the original images untoched).

From my point of view all entered data are stored in the xmp file. But when import the JPEG into Adobe Lightroom (V 3.6)  no gps meta data are shown. Only when I advice GeoSetter (resp. ExifTool) to write the gps data into the JPEG file Lr detects the gps information.

Is this a bug in Lightroom and/or ExifTool ?

When I compare a xmp originally created by lightroom the exif:GPS* tags are structured different to those in xmp files created by GeoSetter/ExifTool:

• Lightroom: Exacty one node <rdf:Description>, inside the Exif:GPS* attributes
  GeoSetter: Multiple nodes <rdf:Description>, the Exif:GPS* attributes are in the third one.
  

Regards
gr

[Phil Harvey]

I haven't seen this problem before.  I doubt the problem is related to the XMP formatting, but just in case could you attach copies of the XMP files that you mentioned so I can take a look?  Thanks.

- Phil

Edit: I just ran some quick tests with LR 3.5.  I can't get it to import XMP from a sidecar file when I import an image.  Is it supposed to?

[georoom]

Hi Phil,

I've attached two xmp files, one from Geosetter/ExifTool and the other one from Lightroom.

And another point: Lightroom seems to handle JPEG files different to raw (NEF) files. I have set the Lightroom options (Catalog --> meta data) to store changes in xmp, but Lr seems to ignore this for JPEGs (so the attaced lr.xmp comes from a nef image).

And one more: Perhaps this could be a problem of Lr 3.6. I have just made the upgrade from 3.5 to 3.6 and, independent of this, I started working on old JPEG files instead of NEFs.

Regard
gr

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks for posting the samples.  The difference in format is just that LR is using the shorthand format and ExifTool isn't.  This wouldn't be a problem.

The problem is probably just in getting LR 3.6 to read the sidecar XMP file.  I will download LR 3.6 and play with this myself, but it may take me a few days before I can do this.  In the mean time, I suggest you post this question in an LR forum where there may be people more knowledgeable on the topic.

- Phil

Edit: I just noticed another difference in the XMP files that shouldn't cause a problem but it is worthwhile testing:  The ExifTool XMP is enclosed in an xpacket wrapper, while the LR XMP is not.  Just for fun you could try editing the ExifTool XMP to remove this wrapper.  This definitely isn't a problem for other Adobe products, but it may be worth testing in case this changed with LR 3.6.
(this wasn't a factor -- see my next post)

[Phil Harvey]

Well, I'm a bit ahead of schedule because I got my Christmas shopping done early and dropped by work on the way home to download LR 3.6.  Here is what I tried:

In LR 3.6 I imported 2 identical D300 NEF images with the 2 different sidecar files you posted (one written by LR 3.6 and the other written by GeoSetter/ExifTool, and renamed the XMP files to match the NEF images).  Result: LR 3.6 imported the metadata from the XMP sidecar for both images, including the GPS information!

Then I repeated the test for 2 JPEG images.  Result: LR 3.6 didn't import the metadata for either image.

Conclusion: LR 3.6 reads XMP files written by ExifTool just fine, but doesnt read any sidecar XMP files for JPEG images.

- Phil

[georoom]

Thanks for your work in this this case and for ExifTool in general!

Your findings match to the information (In the case of camera raw files that have a proprietary file format, XMP isn't written into the original files. To avoid file corruption, XMP metadata is stored in a separate file called a sidecar file. For all other file formats supported by Lightroom (JPEG, TIFF, PSD, and DNG), XMP metadata is written into the files in the location specified for that data) which Adobe published on their help pages for Lr, see here: <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS638E3AC9-A04C-4445-A0D3-F7D8BA5CDE37.html>

I think, Adobe should give the Lr users the option to handle even JPGs as digital negatives, in other words, to keep the JPGs untouched and store the necessary information in XMPs. I will post this to Adobe directly.

-gr

[Phil Harvey]

The documentation you found talks about what LR writes, not what LR reads when importing.  For example, LR doesn't write metadata to RAW images, but it will read metadata from RAW images.

- Phil