IPTC File info © copyright symbol corruption

I (and others) initially blamed iView MediaPro <http://www.iview-multimedia.com/> for corrupting caption data but I'm wondering if this really is a Photoshop problem?

The problem specifically is when (for example) iView is used to save metadata back to a file; if that data includes a © copyright symbol it will be corrupted into ¬©. For example Copyright © David Gordon 2006 will appear in Photoshop's File info as Copyright ¬© David Gordon 2006.

iView discussion here < http://forum.iview-multimedia.com/viewtopic.php?t=4718&h ighlight=>

Reading this forum it seems that if any application other than Photoshop or Bridge writes the data, Photoshop will corrupt © and other symbols.

I'm using Photoshop CS2 but CS also corrupts my © symbol. Adding metadata using iView and saving the data back to the original file _always_ results in a corrupt ©. I thought Photo Mechanic <http://camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html> didn't - but it does. The problem seesm to be confined to TIFF files, JPEGs are okay.

So is this an Adobe problem, if so how do I make a fuss to get it sorted!

Thanks!

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David Gordon

It's a known issue. Unfortunately, the solution is both complex and a long time off.

See: < http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc03c04.3bc0a 4f7>

and

<http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc0aaf7/0>

In addition at copyright,

Every time I change metadata (adding template or adding data to this template in the description field etc.) in Bridge I get tons of this line in my system log:

Nov 7 23:43:39 power-mac-g5-van-omke-oudeman /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A /Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdimportse rver: _TIFFVSetField: tiff data provider: Invalid tag "Copyright" (not supported by codec).\n

Just added metadata to 10 files and the result is about 90 of this lines in the console log.

I looked up the file in my system library and it is an 'exec' alias, I have no clue in what this might be or do or how bad it is. I first thought it affected PSCS, it takes sometimes a while to shut down the application (spinning wheel keeps showing, sometimes it needs a force quit) and also after working with large amounts of big files, about 150 mb, PSCS slows down and I give it a restart.

But this is not a constant behavior.

Ian Lyons

It's a known issue. Unfortunately, the solution is both complex and a

long time off.

Thanks Ian, I think I'm getting somewhere now. Maybe I better stop kicking iView?!

So what exactly is the problem, and why won't it be fixed soon?

Thanks

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David Gordon

One problem is Photoshop only accepts Latin 1 characters in metadata fields. You can enter non alpha numeric characters but sometimes (not all...ha) it will get confused and freak out either creating funny characters, or making the metadata not viewable at all in Photoshop. One work around is to use only alpha numeric characters. Write out copyright instead of using the symbol, use only commas if anything to separate keywords and items in description. Avoid using the return key, as it can sometimes create an illegal character as well. Definitely stay away from any letters with an accent. This said, we have STILL had metadata go astray. I expect I did something to anger Photoshop, and that was its revenge. We have no 100% fool proof solution, we have been told this will hopefully be addressed in the spring with the new Photoshop. However it can cause some serious problems. I find myself having to re-enter more metadata than I would like to. I don't even bother entering or looking at Metadata in Photoshop, I view everything in iView or Cumulus.
This all said iView is definitely not your problem, its a PS bug. Good Luck