Nikon RAW XMP tags

[jch2103]

Using IM 2023.3.2, I'm finding that when I try to add XMP Ratings that they vanish after a file writeback. (I'm using a Nikon Z6, which writes a '0' Rating in the raw XMP tags.)  Preferences/Metadata 2/Settings has 'Ignore problem XMP tags in embedded XMP data = Yes', which I didn't change. I recall seeing a Forum discussion about problem tags but didn't think that related changes to IM would have this impact.

But when I open these same images in my editing program (DxO PhotoLab 6) the ratings do appear...
Metadata Analyst output for one image:
IMatch Version    2023.3.2
Analyzed File    D:\Pictures\Nikon Z6\2023_0926\DSC_6480.NEF
Embedded XMP record (NIKON Z 6 Ver.03.60 ) and XMP sidecar file (Ver.03.60) found.
Embedded XMP rating is 0.
Sidecar file rating is 3.
Embedded XMP problem tags ignored by IMatch setting.

But the File Window doesn't show the raw file Rating (after writeback). See attached. The output JPG images do show the Rating, as expected.

[Mario]

Please send me one of these files so I can have a look. support email address
IMatch should just ignore the embedded rating. The new version ignores more tags, including the time stamps with the wrong time zone offset Nikon writes.

[jch2103]

Yes, with the expansion of raw xmp tags in IM, I wouldn't have expected this behavior. To my knowledge, nothing about Nikon firmware has changed since my last successful use of Ratings in IM. Here's a link to the same raw image as discussed in the above post: https://1drv.ms/i/s!AtlBwiIf8wQzgZpESoTfQz8FXgADhg?e=fqfItS

Looking back, it appears that raw images that I added to IM ~8/28 were OK re Rating, but images added ~9/23 weren't.

[thrinn]

I downloaded your file and can reproduce what you reported.
And when I set the rating, the pen icon shows a long list of tags pending for writeback, all of them related to GPS. I can not even see if Rating is also in the list because only 11 tags are displayed. But the three dots at the bottom indicate that there are even more tags requiring a write back.

[thrinn]

Additional info:
After write back, the pen icon disappears. When I now execute a DB diagnosis, I get the following warning:

Code Select Expand

Checking Metabase:
        should be pending: [2922] ''.
      Warning: 1 files marked as pending for write-back which have no data to write-back. Fixed.
Completed.
(2922 is the OID of the test file). After the diagnostics run, the pen icon reappears, showing again the bunch of GPS related tags.

[jch2103]

I added the accompanying XMP file for the above image: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtlBwiIf8wQzgZpFB7wK-SRwX_rl-A?e=dzRtXV  The XMP image has a Rating of 3; the NEF has a Rating of 0. As noted, no rating shows in the File Window image. I've also attached Metadata Analyst results for this image. 

@thrinn: Thanks for the additional investigation. 

[Mario]

Thanks for providing the sample files and for testing.

I could reproduce the problem. My fault, of course.
I was too clever. Or not clever enough...

The "filters" responsible for detecting unwanted tags in the ExifTool output during metadata ingest worked - but under some conditions only for the first of the n tags to exclude.
Which was of course not a problem as long as there was only one tag to exclude/ignore - the hard-coded "rating=none" found in some RAW files.

Now that Nikon started embedding incorrect date created time stamps and IMatch has to ignore more XMP data in the RAW, the problem showed under some conditions.

I have fixed that for the upcoming release. See release release note #2062 for further information.

Ps.: I see that the NEF contains location metadata in the XMP record.
This is caused by a bug reported here. This bug is still open and I will look into it over the weekend (today is Saturday).

[jch2103]

Excellent. Thanks!