I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed this before now, but when I enter the extended (though non-UTF) character “é” (ASCII code 233, according to the Notepad++ character panel) into various string metadata fields that get written by DOpus as IPTC in addition to EXIF and/or XMP, the IPTC tags apparently store it as “é”. Anything I can do about that?
Are you seeing that in Opus or in another program that's reading the tags?
It's a UFT-8 encoding, which is generally standard.
If it's displaying like that in Opus, which image/file formats and tags are involved?
PNG file format. All metadata strings displayed normally (as entered) in Opus, but when using ExifTool to export all tag data to UTF-8 JSONs, only the IPTC strings contain the mangled characters:
"IPTC:SpecialInstructions": "M André Z Eckenrode <instructions>",
"IPTC:ObjectName": "M André Z Eckenrode <title>"Let me do some research, there may be an ExifTool switch or option for exporting tags that I’m neglecting to use.
May be related: Text Corruption in PSD image metadata -- I'm not sure but I think the conclusion was that Opus, Photoshop and File Explorer all agree and handle UTF-8, but not all tools do.
@mazeckenrode
I get a similar problem when using the copyright symbol ASCII 169 in the IPTC copyright field, It sometimes appears as “é”. It has been happening for years. I use a macro to insert the text into the field using SETATTR Meta.
Unfortunately I cannot reproduce the problem at will which is annoying, but I guess I see it two of three times a week. I simply delete the "Ã" and all is well.
I mainly use JPEG, TIFF and PSD images, and the problem occurs in all three formats.
Well, I’ve tried using the ExifTool command switch -L (for Latin/cp1252 encoding) with my JSON export command line, but it made no difference as far as the substitution of “é” for “é” / “©” for “©” / “É” for “É”, or the UTF encoding used for the JSON file, and by my reading of the ExifTool FAQ on encoding, it shouldn’t matter anyway. It may behoove me at this point to seek some guidance from the fine folks over at ExifTool’s forum, but if anybody else here has other relevant information, I’m open.
Got it figured out. I needed -charset iptc=utf8 in my ExifTool command line, which results in the correct IPTC strings extracted to JSON.
I came across this on forum dealing with how Photoshop deals with metadata.
Blockquote
IPTC XMP metadata
IPTC XMP metadata is encoded in UTF-8 encoding. In UTF-8, the character "©" is not encoded as the single byte A9h (as it is in Windows Code Page 1252). Rather, it is encoded as the two byte sequence C2h A9h.[Only ASCII characters get single-byte representations in UTF-8.]
Thus, the encoding used by Photoshop for "©" in IPTC XMP metadata (C2h A9h) is appropriate.
Any XMP interpreting program should render this on screen as "©".
IPTC IIM metadata
IPTC IIM metadata ("legacy" IPTC metadata) can use several encodings. The encoding used should be indicated by a data item, CodedCharacterSet.
IPTC IIM metadata generated by Photoshop indicates the encoding as UTF-8. Thus, the encoding used
by Photoshop for "©" in IPTC metadata (C2h A9h) is appropriate.
Fully-observant IPTC IIM metadata XMP interpreting programs should render this on screen as "©".
> Blockquote
And indeed if you insert those characters into the Copyright field in Photoshop, the copyright symbol appears and Opus interprets it as such and displays a single character .
My problem seems to be that in some cases Opus does not interpret the Copyright symbol as one character and displays “é”.
Anyone any ideas?
I thought the issue was the opposite, that other programs sometimes display the copyright symbol as that after you edit the tags in Opus or Photoshop?
If you have files with tags that display incorrectly in Opus, but are correct in File Explorer and Photoshop, then please sent them to us and we'll take a look.
The next time I get such a file I will pass it on, but it is not an everyday occurrence. Therefore there may be a delay.
Your uploaded photo, as downloaded from here, contains no metadata whatsoever (verified by ExifTool). I seem to recall it being pointed out to me previously that direct image uploads to this forum are automatically stripped of all metadata. If you want the metadata preserved, I think you need to put it in a ZIP file or equivalent, and upload that.
Nice photo, though. Hopefully not a copyright issue, being uploaded here. Just sayin’.
No issue to look at there then.
But mazeckenrode is also right, the forum will strip out metadata for images posted as images. (Which is a good default, so people don't reveal their GPS coordinates in particular!) They need to be zipped to preserve metadata.