SmugVault Uploads Removing EXIF Data

leftquark · July 8, 2008

I'm having a weird problem that is somewhat concerning, considering that EXIF data is somewhat important to maintain.

A couple of days ago I uploaded a gallery of Yosemite pictures (in JPG format). The EXIF data was maintained in my galleries when I clicked on "Info" on the picture -- both in simple and detailed view.

Today I decided to start uploaded my RAW (Nikon D80 NEF files) to my recently purchased SmugVault. The RAW images are correctly associated with my jpg images, and if I click "save image" I can choose the NEF file. However, whenever a new NEF file finishes uploading, the EXIF data for that image goes away. I now have an entire gallery with no EXIF data.

Not only that, but since there's no EXIF data, the sort by "Date Taken" no longer works (since there's no more date taken data), and my gallery is now in a somewhat random (time-frame wise since I used a couple different cameras) order.

Any help?

gluwater · July 8, 2008

leftquark wrote:

I'm having a weird problem that is somewhat concerning, considering that EXIF data is somewhat important to maintain.

A couple of days ago I uploaded a gallery of Yosemite pictures (in JPG format). The EXIF data was maintained in my galleries when I clicked on "Info" on the picture -- both in simple and detailed view.

Today I decided to start uploaded my RAW (Nikon D80 NEF files) to my recently purchased SmugVault. The RAW images are correctly associated with my jpg images, and if I click "save image" I can choose the NEF file. However, whenever a new NEF file finishes uploading, the EXIF data for that image goes away. I now have an entire gallery with no EXIF data.

Not only that, but since there's no EXIF data, the sort by "Date Taken" no longer works (since there's no more date taken data), and my gallery is now in a somewhat random (time-frame wise since I used a couple different cameras) order.

Any help?

Is your Exif data stored in the NEF's or in a sidecar file such as a .xmp file that is created through Adobe Bridge or CS3? If the Exif was stored in the Sidecar file it would not be uploaded along with your NEF's.

leftquark · July 8, 2008

gluwater wrote:

Is your Exif data stored in the NEF's or in a sidecar file such as a .xmp file that is created through Adobe Bridge or CS3? If the Exif was stored in the Sidecar file it would not be uploaded along with your NEF's.

I assume that the EXIF data is stored in the NEF's (since all I import is the NEF file and the EXIF data has to come from somewhere). I have no sidecar files (.xmp files) that I can find. The NEF images were imported to my computer using a USB SD Card Reader, then imported into Adobe Lightroom. The JPG's were generated by exporting from Lightroom to jpg. If I go to "Get info" (on the NEF files) in my Mac OS X Finder, it displays some of the EXIF information.

When I view the pictures details in SmugMug, the "simple" view of each photo changes from the .jpg filename to the .NEF filename and the EXIF information is lost.

jfriend · July 8, 2008

leftquark wrote:

I assume that the EXIF data is stored in the NEF's (since all I import is the NEF file and the EXIF data has to come from somewhere). I have no sidecar files (.xmp files) that I can find. The NEF images were imported to my computer using a USB SD Card Reader, then imported into Adobe Lightroom. The JPG's were generated by exporting from Lightroom to jpg. If I go to "Get info" (on the NEF files) in my Mac OS X Finder, it displays some of the EXIF information.

When I view the pictures details in SmugMug, the "simple" view of each photo changes from the .jpg filename to the .NEF filename and the EXIF information is lost.

Changes you make to the metadata on a RAW file in Lightroom (adding a caption, for example) are stored in Lightroom's database - they are not written to the RAW file itself. When Lightroom generates a JPEG, it takes the metadata from it's database and puts it in the resulting JPEG file. Metadata that comes from the camera (like EXIF shooting data, for example) is in the NEF file. Metadata that you change/add in Lightroom (like rating, description, caption, copyright info, etc...) is not in the NEF file.

leftquark · July 8, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Changes you make to the metadata on a RAW file in Lightroom (adding a caption, for example) are stored in Lightroom's database - they are not written to the RAW file itself. When Lightroom generates a JPEG, it takes the metadata from it's database and puts it in the resulting JPEG file. Metadata that comes from the camera (like EXIF shooting data, for example) is in the NEF file. Metadata that you change/add in Lightroom (like rating, description, caption, copyright info, etc...) is not in the NEF file.

Exactly, which is why I was surprised when my EXIF data went away on my photos.

Another weird error now that the upload is finished: 11 of my 132 pictures are now black with some random lines through it!
http://leftquark.smugmug.com/gallery/5302686_tdbdP#327875824_qjN9u

RogersDA · July 8, 2008

Did you download the NEF file from the archive to confirm that the EXIF is gone?

I have uploaded canon raw files, and SmugVault does not show the EXIF data for those. However, saving the raw file and importing into Lightroom shows the correct EXIF data.

I believe that the EXIF data is still in your files, but SmugVault does not do anything with it; e.g., show it when you click the info icon, allow sorting, etc.

leftquark · July 8, 2008

Actually, another weird thing is that I have another gallery which uploaded the RAW (NEF) files but the EXIF data was maintained:

http://pictures.leftquark.net/gallery/5334430_mZUPr

In this album, all my EXIF data stayed the same. The difference is that when I click "Info" on the image, it displays the EXIF info for the JPG and not for the NEF file. The filename that the "info" shows is the JPG, where as the other gallery the filename that "info" shows is the NEF image.

I'm uploading NEF files for a 3rd album now and the EXIF information is correctly displayed (the jpg image is also the filename given in "Info").

All 3 times I uploaded the NEF files using the simple uploader (for Mac) built into Firefox. The only difference is that the one gallery that didn't work, I started by clicking "Add Photos" from my homepage where in the 2 galleries that worked, I went to the gallery first and then clicked "Add Photos" --> "This Album."

RogersDA · July 8, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Changes you make to the metadata on a RAW file in Lightroom (adding a caption, for example) are stored in Lightroom's database - they are not written to the RAW file itself. When Lightroom generates a JPEG, it takes the metadata from it's database and puts it in the resulting JPEG file. Metadata that comes from the camera (like EXIF shooting data, for example) is in the NEF file. Metadata that you change/add in Lightroom (like rating, description, caption, copyright info, etc...) is not in the NEF file.

Which is one reason I converted raw files to digital negative (dng) in Lightroom. All the updated metadata (including keywords, cropping information, etc.) is saved with the dng file.

Now, there can be a whole debate on whether or not dng is better or worse than actual raw files from the camera manufacturer. That can be (and has been) debated in another thread.

Andy · July 8, 2008

leftquark wrote:

Actually, another weird thing is that I have another gallery which uploaded the RAW (NEF) files but the EXIF data was maintained:

http://pictures.leftquark.net/gallery/5334430_mZUPr

This gallery has no SmugVault files, it's all jpgs. So the exif is built in to the jpg metadata.

leftquark · July 8, 2008

Andy wrote:

This gallery has no SmugVault files, it's all jpgs. So the exif is built in to the jpg metadata.

That gallery should have 22 SmugVault archives in it (22 NEF Files), according to my SmugVault >> Archived Galleries page.

The actual images in the gallery have the little vault icon in the top left corner of all the images.

-Leftquark

Andy · July 8, 2008

I got one of your TIFs and uploaded it to my testing vault, it didn't make the black lines. Something seems to have happened on the way up, I think.. please replace one and see if the file regens better. Let us know?

leftquark · July 8, 2008

Andy wrote:

I got one of your TIFs and uploaded it to my testing vault, it didn't make the black lines. Something seems to have happened on the way up, I think.. please replace one and see if the file regens better. Let us know?

I re-uploaded the file (the TIF DSC_2153-Edit.tif), and it's still black with random lines. I tried saving the TIF (from SmugMug) to my computer and looking at it but it would not load (several different programs told me it was an unsupported format). I'll have to try re-uploading tonight when I'm back at home.

[Edit]: I take that back, opening the photo in Photoshop worked fine, but Photoshop was the only program that could open the tif. Maybe it saved it in some weird tif format? It's a 16 bit image.

Aside from the TIF images being black with random lines, how about the EXIF data dissapearing? The EXIF data appears to be intact on my other albums, but that one just hates me

Andy · July 8, 2008

leftquark wrote:

The EXIF data appears to be intact on my other albums, but that one just hates me

What other Vault albums?

leftquark · July 8, 2008

Andy wrote:

What other Vault albums?

I uploaded my RAW (NEF) files to a couple other albums and EXIF data shows up properly in these, as displayed by the little vault icon next to the pictures, and also seen in my SmugVault >> Archived Galleries page. The albums are:

http://pictures.leftquark.net/gallery/5334430_mZUPr#325994342_SYzR9
http://pictures.leftquark.net/gallery/5302675_hCWjj#323568012_Whhq5 (I didn't upload RAW images for all the pictures in the gallery)
http://pictures.leftquark.net/gallery/5302654_Rudbx#323566556_V8bVU

These 3 gallery that worked, I uploaded the RAW (NEF) files by first navigating to the gallery and then clicking the "Add Files" --> "This album" button and then using the Mac Simple uploader to upload the albums. These albums have proper EXIF data, as shown here:

On the one gallery that didn't work (no EXIF data shown) I clicked "Add Photos" from my Home Page and then selected existing albums --> Yosemite... . This album has no EXIF data on the files.

Not sure if this helps, but those were the steps that I took.

leftquark · July 9, 2008

For some reason when I re-uploaded both the JPG's and the NEF files to a new gallery, everything worked fine, including the TIF images. Not sure why the other one went bad, I followed the same steps. Oh well -- at least it's all working

http://leftquark.smugmug.com/gallery/5366743_Br3DC#328576266_BCjQq

SmugVault Uploads Removing EXIF Data

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