# Metadata Either Not Exported or Not Showing on Exported Photos



## reidthaler (Mar 13, 2019)

I'm working with the client to have created some custom metadata fields.  . Upon doing a test with export all metadata checked, and re-importing those images, we found that the metadata is not shown on reimported JPEG images.

I just tried it myself on some of my images that don't have custom metadata, and just added metadata, exported the raw file as a JPEG, then reimported it, and I also do not see any of the metadata imported.

Please help me out with understanding with the issue is here, my client is obviously distressed having created custom keyword fields for 3000 images, and is not seen them on export.

Thanks,

Reid


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## clee01l (Mar 13, 2019)

What do you mean by "custom metadata"?   Non standard fields in the EXIF XMP, ICC or IPTC  won't be honored by most software.   A Metadata editor like the Windows app PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor  will show you every standard field in the image file header. 
The Metadata panel in Lightroom only shows subsets of the Metadata present.  The default metadata panel preset is quite abbreviated.   
You mention "custom keyword fields".  What are these?   The EXIF Standard contains one field "XPKeywords"  that is a comma separated list of every keyword assigned. Lightroom maintains a " hierarchically structured keyword"  field but this is not included in any of the standards.


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## reidthaler (Mar 13, 2019)

We created custom metadata fields, by editing a text file.  It's been a year, and I haven't been involved on a daily basis, so memory is fuzzy...

We exported them with John's Listview into an Excel sheet.

She is trying to export the images with the custom meta data fields so they can be used by the museum she is working with.
Can any program view custom metadata fields, and more importantly, can the custom fields be exported with the JPG file?


Thanks,


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## clee01l (Mar 14, 2019)

reidthaler said:


> Can any program view custom metadata fields, and more importantly, can the custom fields be exported with the JPG file?


My earlier answer: 





clee01l said:


> Non standard fields in the EXIF XMP, ICC or IPTC won't be honored by most software.


  I do not know of any software that does.   The reason that there are standards is so that continuity prevails across the board.  Perhaps John Beardsworth has some ideas...


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## PhilBurton (Mar 14, 2019)

reidthaler said:


> We created custom metadata fields, by editing a text file.  It's been a year, and I haven't been involved on a daily basis, so memory is fuzzy...
> 
> We exported them with John's Listview into an Excel sheet.
> 
> ...


Reid,

After you added the custom metadata fields, were you able to get Lightroom to even display those fields and their values?

If you go to the official Adobe Lightroom site, you can find a number of threads about Adobe adding custom metadata support to Lightroom, going back years.  

For a long time, I was interested in adding custom metadata fields to Lightroom, but I discovered that it is very difficult to do that. Custom metadata fields are different than a customized display panel for standard metadata.  The Lightroom SDK doesn't  have the necessary support, and the workarounds seem to be pretty ugly, for XMP support or embedding in JPG files.  

Also, with the exception of a few really geeky DAMs, there are no consumer-priced products that will read/write custom metadata.  Your museum client will have to use enterprise DAMs to get that support, at enterprise software prices, and IT support may be necessary for installation and configuration.

To me, it's frustrating that Adobe created the XMP standard and then proceeded to not supported a key feature of XMP in their own products.

Phil Burton


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## reidthaler (Mar 15, 2019)

Yes, we were able to see the custom fields in the metadata panel. Using John's list view, we can exported to an Excel spreadsheet with thumbnails. It's not my recommendation to print that to PDF so everything will stay locked in place, since the thumbnails are not embedded in Excel cells


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## PhilBurton (Mar 16, 2019)

reidthaler said:


> Yes, we were able to see the custom fields in the metadata panel. Using John's list view, we can exported to an Excel spreadsheet with thumbnails. It's not my recommendation to print that to PDF so everything will stay locked in place, since the thumbnails are not embedded in Excel cells


Reid,

Thank you for making me interested again in custom metadata fields.    Do you remember how you defined the custom metadata fields in Lightoom?  As an experiment have you written out the metadata to XMP files?  Did you examine those XMP fields to see if the custom metadata fields and their values are in the XMP file?  (If you wish, PM me on this topic further.  I would be happy to examine some of your XMP files to look for the custom metadata fields.  If they are in fact there, then that goes against everything I have been told about Lightroom's non-support of custom metadata fields.)  

Phil Burton


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## reidthaler (Mar 18, 2019)

I check the XMP files and they didn't have the custom fields we added.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 19, 2019)

reidthaler said:


> I check the XMP files and they didn't have the custom fields we added.


I was afraid you would say that.   I was hoping against hope that you would report otherwise.

John Beardsworth is right about discouraging plans for custom metadata.  

Phil Burton


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## reidthaler (Mar 19, 2019)

I hear you. About a year ago, I was so excited helping a client figuring out how to create an export custom data fields to an Excel spreadsheet, only to have it stuck inside of light room now.  She photographed a few thousand  museum pieces that she’s cataloging   

  She is using John’s list view which can be exported with them nails to an Excel spreadsheet. My only workaround that I can think of is to print it out to a PDF, since the thumbnails aren’t embedded in cells. 

 The other workaround would be since she’s doing all this work for a museum would be to have them subscribe to lightroom


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## PhilBurton (Mar 19, 2019)

reidthaler said:


> I hear you. About a year ago, I was so excited helping a client figuring out how to create an export custom data fields to an Excel spreadsheet, only to have it stuck inside of light room now.  She photographed a few thousand  museum pieces that she’s cataloging
> 
> She is using John’s list view which can be exported with them nails to an Excel spreadsheet. My only workaround that I can think of is to print it out to a PDF, since the thumbnails aren’t embedded in cells.
> 
> The other workaround would be since she’s doing all this work for a museum would be to have them subscribe to lightroom


Reid,

Why a PDF and not keep the data in Excel or import into Word?  

Considering the scale of the overall project, I think the museum can afford a subscription to Lightroom.  That said, the big issue here is the lack of export to other applications that might need to read this custom metadata, at least without some custom programming for the other applications.

All in all, I'm very disappointed in Adobe for creating this marvelous tool, and then walking away from it.  it's a lost cause, i'm afraid.


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## reidthaler (Mar 22, 2019)

PDF, since the thumbnails aren’t embedded in cells, so if it's sorted the thumbnails don't follow.  A pdf would  lock think down, but you could still do a search


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