Are the "empty" Yellow- Pencils selectable?

[Gerd]

Hi,

I often see in the file-window some pics with an "empty" yellow pencil. Are they selectable so I cen get rid of them?

[Mario]

This should not happen. A pencil should only show when there is data for write-back.
What happens when you click the pen?

We need to find out when this happens, e.g. what you did before the pencil showed up.
Which metadata was modified? Did you write-back and the pencil stuck? Do you use Metadata Templates. There are many actions which cause a write-back, but all should show at least one tag in the pen tool tip.

[Gerd]

Hi Mario,

at moment I do not work with metadata ...

Here I found one, where I can not remove the yellow-pencil ... I have tried to set NO in Preferences2 - Protect Rating & Labels and then form other pics the yellow pencil disappears ...

If there are more yellow pencils , I must find out.

But not here by this PDF-file. But I found in the metadata a long list of dataentries, is that normal? (see screenshot)

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[Mario]

Reload the metadata for the pen file (Ctrl+Shift+F5). The pen will go away.
Then keep an eye on the pens and if again a pen shows up without a list of metadata to write, make a note of what you did to that file.

What do you mean with "long list"?

Do you mean the metadata panel? That's an Adobe application stuffing tons of rubbish data into the XMP records of your files. I guess you have the full history enabled in Photoshop or LR or whatever you use, and Adobe is recording every action you do as a separate history entry. I don't know what you need that for, but this is no good for IMatch. It stuffs the database.

Looking at the massive amount Adobe pushes into the XMP data, I think I will need to exclude the history data from the database. This is generating millions of entries for a medium size database. The problem is, that for users who don't use the full history setting, the file history is useful in IMatch.

[Gerd]

HiMario,

yes, I mean the big amount of entries in specific metadata-fields.

But here I have PDF's! I opened the PDF in Acrobat-Pro and saved it under a new name, rescanned the folder and now I have two PDF's with the yellow pencil.

Clicking on the pencil or Shift + Ctrl + F5 did not help ... the pencil stays!

Also removing from database and re-add did not help ... the pencil stays ...

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[JohnZeman]

Every once in awhile I'll find a few images with persistent yellow pencils.  Most times I can resolve the problem by running a script I wrote that uses ExifTool to repair the metadata in those images.  The times when a repair doesn't work I have to re-export that image from the master image to replace the corrupt one.  If you'd like to try using the script I've zipped and attached it to this message.

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[Gerd]

Hi John,

thanks, I will try it!

[Ted]

Gerd & Mario,
We have discussed that I have experienced the same condition, https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=1090.msg6473#msg6473.  Yesterday, 10/17, I thought I saw, and today I confirmed that my "empty" yellow-pencils can be gotten rid of - easily. By simply clicking on them.

An empty yellow-pencil is one that does not show up in the 'Pending Metadata Write-back' collection, and when you put your mouse over it, it does not show anything.  Previously (a week or so ago) when I clicked on them, ExifTool said there was no problem, but the yellow-pencil did not go away.  Yesterday and today when I click on them, ExifTool writes them with no errors AND IM5 makes the yellow-pencil disappear.

I'm sure that I'm using the same version of the program and that it has not been re-installed.

[Mario]

The bug with sticky pencils for file formats like AVI or PDF has been solved for build 122. I'm currently testing things.

The problem happens for files for which ExifTool can read IPTC data, but cannot write IPTC data. This causes one or more IPTC fields to remain in the "need write-back" state (even after re-importing the files when MWG compliance is enabled). I had to change a number of things to make this work properly. IMatch 5 now maintains a per file extension (!) set of attributes which tell it if the major metadata formats IPTC, EXIF, GPS, XMP, PDF can be read and/or written. IMatch uses this information, which I keep in the global metadata configuration file, to decide if and what metadata to write and migrate.

I've asked Phil about this (it's actually not clear from the documentation if ExifTool can read/write or only read a specific metadata format from/to a specific file format) and he'll may be able to add a feature which allows IMatch (and users) to query ExifTool if it can read/write a file and format. Until then I have to maintain a separate list.

As you can image this was quite a bit of work, which is why the service pack is not already out. Often small issues cause great changes. I've done lots of other things as well. I hope to ship build 5.0.122 soon.

[Ted]

Thanks Mario.  I'm eagerly awaiting .122, as I'm sure others are also.

[thrinn]

I'm eagerly awaiting .122, as I'm sure others are also.

Who doesn't? 

Manually maintaining a list of ExifTool capabilities in IMatch sounds more like a workaround than a solution to me. I can imagine postings on the line of "I want to handle files with .XXX with IMatch. Can you please add .XXX to the list of supported file formats?" - and I would prefer Mario to spend his time on other features than maintaining this list. As new versions of ExifTool will supposedly handle additional file formats, a solution where ExifTool itself provides a list of "capabilities", as Mario proposes, is certainly the best.

So let's hope that Phil will implement such an enhancement. I am fully aware that he spends a lot of time on ExifTool (without being paid for it). For me, the tight coupling between IMatch and ExifTool is a reason to donate for ExifTool.

[Mario]

You can add new file formats to IMatch at any time via Edit > Preferences > File Formats.

It is very unlikely that there will be new formats which take IPTC or EXIF data very often. Maybe a new RAW extension now and then. Once Phil has added support for a new RAW format, I need to add the format to IMatch as a "default" format anyway, so setting the options is not that much of an extra effort.
It's more the current initial phase, where we all need to check if the options are OK.

I donated for ExifTool.