We deliberately ignore the Exif UserComment field if it contains more than 512 characters. From memory this is because photos created on iPhones store their entire metadata chunk in text form in that field, often kilobytes in length, and showing it in the comment field in Opus seemed unhelpful. 512 seemed like a sensible cut-off, because a metadata chunk will usually be more than that and almost all comments will be less.
I assume you mean EXIF:XPComment? When I use DOpus to write what it refers to as COMMENT, it ends up in both XMP:UserComment and EXIF:XPComment, but nowhere else for me.
Either way, my experience with 513+ character comments doesn’t seem to bear out what you’re saying. As stated in my first post, if I use DOpus to write it to begin with, it gets displayed via tooltip and Set Metadata just fine. If I use ExifTool to update it, it disappears from view in DOpus. If I copy/paste the updated string to COMMENT again, it’s once again visible in DOpus.
Does DOpus maybe have some way to distinguish between a 513+ character string written by itself to COMMENT in zTXt and one written by another tool?
No, the limit applies no matter which tool writes it. My only guess is that when you write it in Opus, you're actually setting the "Image Description" rather than the comment, which is a different field.
The 512 char limit applies to Exif:XPComment, Exif:UserComment and Xmp:UserComment as Opus treats these fields interchangeably.
- In the file display this value is shown in the
Comments,User DescriptionandDescriptionfields. - In the metadata pane it's the
Commentfield in the Extended Properties section. - The Set Description command will also set this field for an image file.
There's also Iptc:Caption, Exif:ImageDescription and Xmp:description which Opus also treats interchangeably. No 512 char limit applies to this field.
- In the file display these are shown in the
Image Descriptioncolumn. - In the metadata pane it's the
Descriptionfield in the Document Properties section.
I like to use Microsoft's indexing software to search images on my system. Bizarrely, the Microsoft indexer knows nothing about The description or Image description fields. If you want to index and search these fields (which any normal photographer would term Caption) you have to copy the Opus imagedesc field into the comment field and search on that
I use an Opus script to do this on every picture I process.
Exiftool tells me that imagedesc field has been copied into the following fields.
User Comment
XP Comment
Description
Caption-Abstract
I have thousands of images that have been processed this way and I have had no trouble with missing data ever. Some of my captions also contain many many more characters than 512. Incidentally, Exiftool forms no part of my image workflow.
I just offer this as an observation in case it is of any help.
Then how to explain the files in the 7-zip I attached to my initial post in this thread? The file “1 DOpus\2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (513 ch).png” has a 513-character string in COMMENT, which displays via tooltip, the Set Metadata dialog, and the Metadata panel (ExifTool confirms that this string is stored in both XMP:UserComment and EXIF:XPComment, and same string has also been written to all metadata fields corresponding to DESCRIPTION, SUBJECT and TITLE in DOpus — see the associated JSON file in the archive).
As just stated, I am typically writing the same data to ALL metadata fields corresponding to COMMENT, DESCRIPTION, SUBJECT and TITLE in DOpus. See JSON.
Thanks. I previously posted about my experimentation with writing as much metadata as possible via DOpus and noting which actual metadata fields the data goes to — see Set Metadata inconsistent results.
I find it very helpful, especially since there are a handful of metadata fields I use which DOpus won’t deal with.
@ mazeckenrode
Obviously our needs are very different. All I require is that the metadata in my images can be read wherever I send it, which, in practical terms means that Photoshop can read it. I only use three image formats, JPEG for ordinary images; LZW compressed TIFF for images with transparent backgrounds and PSD files for layered images.
It strikes me that you are using PNG files, about which I know not a lot apart from it's ability to handle transparency easily.
Have you tried experimenting with different image formats? I have no idea if it might help.
All I know is that using Opus to write image metadata is smooth,very, very quick and extremely reliable. What's more you can do it all without leaving the best file browser there is.
I’ve created a new thread “Image formats & metadata” in the Off-Topic forum to continue this discussion.
Now, that is interesting, and gave me an idea. I’ve verified that both files in that folder, as they already existed on my computer, continue to display their comments. But if I download that 7-zip from this thread, unpack it and check, the 513 does NOT display its comment. And if I then open Set Metadata for it, select/copy the full 513-character string from any of the other fields (DESCRIPTION, SUBJECT, TITLE) that contain it, paste to COMMENT and click on OK, the comment is then visible (via tooltip, dialog, panel, and DESCRIPTION field of lister file display). If you (and/or anyone else) don’t mind indulging me a bit more on this, I’d be interested in learning whether this is reproducible by anyone else following the same steps.
In any case, it seems that DOpus is not ignoring comments with 513+ characters under all circumstances, or at least not for me. I’d prefer that it never ignored them, but don’t recall ever having had any experience with iPhone photos packing all their metadata into Exif:XPComment, Exif:UserComment and/or Xmp:UserComment, even though I have dealt with some iPhone photos before. Is it something that should possibly be revisited?
If iPhone photos with all metadata pre-loaded into one or more comment fields are actually still a thing, could someone archive and upload one here for me to check out? My curiosity if piqued.
My guess is that the comment is being written to NTFS ADS metadata in the filesystem, as well as the EXIF data inside the file itself. That ADS would be lost when archiving the file, but also isn't subject to any length limits (since other tools don't do crazy things with it that cause problems with huge data chunks).
Wouldn’t you guys know if DOpus did that? Or are you saying something other than DOpus could be repsonsible?
Anyway, this is what the output of dir /r looks like for the two PNGs with their comments visible:
29-Mar-2021 17:16 8,152 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (512 ch).png
1,316 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (512 ch).png:SummaryInformation:$DATA
0 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (512 ch).png:{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}:$DATA
29-Mar-2021 17:11 8,168 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (513 ch).png
1,316 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (513 ch).png:SummaryInformation:$DATA
0 2020-12-15 23;59;59 - General - xFGHI-00001 Invoice 1234567890 - 07 (513 ch).png:{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}:$DATA
No expert on ADS here, and not completely sure what all that output is telling me. This page (“Introduction to Alternate Data Streams” at blog.malwarebytes.com) implies that $DATA should be the main file content, but I see two entities (streams?) ending with $DATA, one of which is listed as having a size of 0, for each PNG. If I attempt to read the contents of the non-0 ones (ending in SummaryInformation:$DATA), it just looks like gobbledegook to me. Curiously, the two SummaryInformation:$DATA streams are indicated as having the same size (1,316) in the output above, but when I read their content using Notepad++, one is said to have a normal text length of 1,724, while the other one is 1,726.
I used NirSoft’s AlternateStreamView to delete all of the alternate streams, but comments remain visible for both PNGs here, so it doesn’t look to me like ADS is the cause.
For images, I would not recommend using the 'Comment' field in the Extended Properties of the Metadata column. While it is a standard metadata field, it is not widely supported in software many people use for image management including software I use: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom Classic, and Photo Mechanic. I use the fields with the widest support so that I know the metadata I add will be visible to those using a wide range of software.
I hope this thread is the same issue as mine. My apologies if it's not.
I can't get Directory Opus to display comments that I know are there.
I now they are there, because ExifTool and ExifToolGUI show them.
FastStone Image Viewer also shows them.
Please zip and attach an example file with the issue.
Hi Leo.
As with all image metadata, it can contain a lot of information that people would not normally like to share.
So, I would rather not share the image publicly. Locations and much more. I don't know if people realise that when they share JPEG photos.
But if you can give me an alternative way of sending it to you, then I will do that.
Use a private message (or create an example image that doesn’t have sensitive data, assuming you have a workflow which can reproduce the issue for different images).
Done.
What software did you use to add the comment to the JPEG? I would be very interested in getting your sample file also.
I'm looking at this issue from the opposite side: Content entered into the DOpus Extended Properties > Comment field can be seen in ExifTool Exif XPComment and XMP-exif UserComment.
So, if you want to see your comment in DOpus, I'd suggest using a command in ExifTool or ExifToolGUI to copy the metadata from one of those 2 fields to the File - Comment field (as shown in your ExifToolGUI screenshot).
The text in the DOpus Comment field can be seen via File Explorer > File Properties, and is grouped with other fields associated with IPTC metadata. DOpus groups it with IPTC properties also (Ratings and Tags/Keywords). The problem is that only a few of Microsoft's photo-related metadata fields correlate with IPTC/XMP fields used by photo software, so I don't use File Explorer to enter or access photo metadata.
Perhaps the DOpus/File Explorer Comment field is widely used for other types of files?
In summary, if you work with photos and photo metadata a lot, I recommend only adding metadata to fields that correlate to fields accessible in the applications you depend on.
In that particular case in the screenshots above, JPEGmini Pro adds the comments when you shrink files sizes with it.
And as you can see from the screenshots, ExifTool, ExifToolGUI and FastStone Image Viewer can see them, but Directory Opus can't.