Question about XMP files

Jeremy Henderson

• March 13, 2021 16:21

Hi - I have a question about using CaptureOne with Photo Mechanic.

If i ingest NEF files into PM, keyword them etc, I understand that this creates an XMP file. If I import my images into CaptureOne, it reads the XMP file. Does it copy that data into the catalog, such that if I then lost the XMP file the metadata would still be in the catalog?

Maybe this is a dumb question... thanks anyway !

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  Ian Wilson

  Moderator

  • March 13, 2021 16:55
  • Edited

  

  That depends...

  Look for this setting in the Image section of Preferences.

  

  If you change the drop-down to Load, and have the box checked for Prefer Sidecar XMP... I think it will overwrite the metadata in the Capture One database with the metadata in the XMP sidecar file. So then if the XMP file was lost, the metadata would be in the database anyway. But with the setting I have here with None in the drop-down, it won't copy metadata from the XMP.

  But I don't use XMP files now, so check whether I am right. There is an article in the online resources here

  https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002544898-Metadata-in-XMP-sidecar-files 

  that would repay study, and you could experiment with a file or two that has an XMP sidecar file, and see what happens.

  Ian

  Edited to add: by the way, I think that Full Sync can be a bad option, because it uses a lot of resources checking all the time, and because you can, if you are not careful, get into a frustrating spiral where you change something in Capture One (a star rating for example) and it changes itself back again because it syncs again with what an XMP file says.

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  Jeremy Henderson

  • March 13, 2021 17:18

  Thanks - I'll give that document a thorough read and do some experiments !!

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  OddS.

  • March 13, 2021 20:43

  > Jeremy Henderson: I'll give that document a thorough read and do some experiments !!

  C1 will save ("sync" in C1 lingo)  metadata to a new sidecar xmp, but that new xmp file will not get more metadata information than what C1 actually has in its database.

  As far as I have noticed, C1 does not load all Photo Mechanic's metadata (embedded or in sidecar), thus I believe you will suffer loss of metadata in a PM perspective. If C1's take on metadata is all you need, you should be able to replace lost xmp files and be happy.
  

   

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