Hello JD25,

Welcome to the PhotoDirector forum

I can partially confirm your findings & definitely confirm there is an issue with the way PhD interprets text tags/keywords.

To test, I began by importing 10 photos (JPG) from 10 different cameras. Each photo was tagged with 10 tags, some of which were common e.g. they were all tagged with "Imaging Resource" (the download source) and "original"

After export (including resizing), & adding the tagged photos to the project, quite a few tags were missing or incomplete in PhotoDirector. e.g. one tag "river" was displayed as "ri"

BUT, the tags are actually present and correct in the exported photos. I confirmed this by:

1. checking Windows properties


2. opening the tagged photos in Lightroom & ON1 Photo RAW


3. checking in JPEGSnoop & EXIFtool

In those checks ALL tags were present & complete.

I've uploaded the exported photos in a zip file for reference. Attached is a PDF listing the tags applied in PhD10 prior to export.

I will alert the team at CL to the issue.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Hello PIX

Thank you for your reply, I have already been in touch with the CL suuport team, and they advised exactly as you have done after I sent sample images to the support team and yes you are right that the tags are present in the file properties. What I have discovered since then but did not elaborate on in my previous message was this:

The file has tags missing in photodirector, and some partially worded tags - an example of keywords I have on a file right now are:

ca, countryside, england, forest, wood, springtime - These and the rest of the tags are indeed complete and present in the "file properties", all 24 of them. Please bear in mind the file has been exported once already to get to this stage.

If I export the file in Photodirector in this state, it will only write the first set of tags present in photodirector. Removing the 'properties' version of 24 and replacing them with the first set. The new file will then only have the previous set of keywords and the incomplete one, even in file properties.

In terms of how this is implicated in a workflow (which of course is different for everyone) this has meant copying and pasting the tags, and in most cases titles and descriptions, from the file properties window into photodriector before exporting that file again, it is not enough to have information in the file properties as photodirector only knows what it knows and will not replicate the info in file properties unless it is also in photodirector.

This is fine if you don't plan on exporting a file more than once, as the first export from the original will have the full compliment of metadata as you rightly describe. However, back when I first encountered the issue I was entering the metadata onto RAW files, editing and exporting the RAWs to TIFFs to have a completed file with preserved edits, before exporting the tif to JPEGs for web etc. The RAW would have all the tags, which would then go to the TIF file, even though most would be missing in Photodirector. Then after exporting jpegs from the TIF, the jpegs would only have written in their file properties the broken set of tags in photodirector applied to them, which has meant going back through my images and making sure both all sets match - TIFs, jepgs, photodirector and windows properties, which has been somewhat time consuming.

In my workflow now I ignore applying metadata to RAW files, and use a free software that recognises tifs and jpegs and generates keywords for the files by referencing similar images on stock sites such as as shutterstock, which saves huge amounts of time, and writes the keywords directly to the file and can be seen in windows properties. But, this all still needs to be copied and pasted onto the file as it is viewed in photodirector, if this is ignored the next export will overwrite all the data entered into the file properties. Apologies for the dissertation.

Best wishes
JD25

Hello again JD25,

At this stage, I have no news for you on this keyword tags issue, but I can confirm through repeated testing that what you've posted is correct.

You've also pointed out the further complications that occur when a PhD user:

1.imports a (RAW) photo & edits keywords tags
2. exports that photo as .tiff (alowing automatic import into into project) - missing or truncated tags
3. edits the .tiff & re-exports as .jpg - missing or truncated tags

e.g. in the original sample project I posted earlier, I now have tags in my taglist like "decidu" instead of "deciduous" & "Imaging Reso" instead of "Imaging Resource"

What you're doing seems to be a reasonable workflow, & one PhD should facilitate without this kind of error or the need for workarounds!

PIX PIX YouTube channel