Reject Rating not working as expected

[bemax56]

Learning IM5 and there is so much to learn but I think I have a problem.

I imported my 3.6 database and all is well but I decided to go back through some old pictures and cull out some borderline images.  I set some filters to limit the files (which is great by the way) and then started marking images as reject using '6' initially and then I read about the 'Del' key and started using that.  I marked about 200 images as reject and then decided to call it a night.  From the help file, I expected the reject rating to be written to the XMP file during writeback so I wrote back the files and then closed IM5.  Today, I decided to continue where I left off so I opened IM5 and selected the filters again and found that some of the files (about 50) were in the reject collection but the other files I had rejected showed up with no rating at all (a hashed line across the rating bar beneath the thumbnail).  Did I misunderstand the reject rating and the process?

To test the problem, I marked several pictures as reject and then performed a writeback and the reject rating disappears.  In some cases, there is the hashmark for a rating but in some cases, the old rating reappears.  Has anyone else seen this?

No harm done but if I need to deal with rejected files before I writeback data, it would be good to know.

By the way, Mario, IM5 is awesome and an amazing accomplishment.  Thank you for all your work.

Brian

[Mario]

Do these files perhaps have two XMP records (one embedded in the file and one in the sidecar file)?

See for example this FAQ: https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=2624.0

You did not include information about the file format, which metadata settings you use etc.
If the tip in the FAQ above does not solve this problem, please post some additional info: file format, metadata settings (if non-standard), the log file (see IMatch help on log file for details) and the output in the ExifTool output panel:

Open the ExifTool output panel (<F9>,<O>)
Change the rating of a file and perform a write-back for that file.
The output in the panel shows which files IMatch is updating, which data is written etc.
Copy into a text file and attach to your reply.

[bemax56]

Mario,

Thank you for the quick reply.  I suspect that the information in the FAQ is what is happening.  The files in question are NEF files and I used to rate and label them with View NX2 (Nikon's Raw viewer/converter).  View NX2 would have embedded those ratings in the NEF file since it does not use XMP sidecars.  More recently, I have been using a different program to rate and label and it does produce sidecar files. 

I will try the options suggested in the FAQ when I get home tonight and let you know the outcome.

Thanks for the help.

Brian

[Mario]

Nikon software always insisted on embedding XMP inside NEF files - which creates an archival nightmare of course. Their NX-D software is a relabeled SilkyPix and it does use XMP in sidecar files as far as I know 

IMatch can use the embedded XMP data when you configure it accordingly. But since almost all other applications out there can't, you may be better off by sticking to the standard and using XMP sidecar files. Make a few tests and see what works out best for your workflow.

[bemax56]

It took me longer than I expected to report back, but your suggestions were correct.  I changed the settings in IMatch to prefer the data from the XMP sidecar files and that fixed the issue.  My other programs also favor the sidecar files, so the only program that writes to the NEF is ViewNX2 which I don't use for rating any longer.  So I should be fine.  Thank you for the support.

[Mario]

If you have used a mix of software, you may have two XMP records for your files: one embedded, and one in the sidecar. It is advisable to have only one XMP record, so you may want to remove the embedded XMP record from your images (there is a preset for the ExifTool Command Processor in IMatch for that).