Metadata and Save

[Robert Schleif]

When I've chosen to save an image with its metadata and the metadata is missing, a sensible message appears warning that the metadata is missing. When I click on OK, I assume the file will be saved, but no metadata will be saved with the image. Instead of what I expect, the image is not saved at all. It might be a little better if the warning message indicated that the image would not be saved under those settings, or if the image were saved anyhow.

[jsachs]

How did this situation arise? Off the top of my head, the only reason I can think of that you might get this message is if you deleted, renamed or moved the original file before saving your changes.

[Robert Schleif]

From the original TIF's I constructed a high resolution composite panorama using the program Hugin, and then I used Photomatix to renormalize some tonal values near the extremes. The end result did not appear to contain the original meta data, (as perhaps it shouldn't have since multiple images were combined.) If you would like to know at exactly which step the meta data was lost, I can track it down tonight.

[jsachs]

The only scenario that generates the error message is if you have a workflow that starts with a File Open and you save one of the images that depends on the opened file, but you delete, rename or move the original file before saving. Normally, PWP saves the image with metadata to a temporary location and then merges the metadata (using ExifTool) from the original file to the temporary file and saves the result. If it can't open the original file, you get the error message. There is no test for missing metadata within an existing file.

[Robert Schleif]

It appears that the problem was generated by a combination of either saving or saving back to two different locations, and although the starting files exist and were not modified, PWP 8 must be fussing because it finds a time or date discrepancy. Sorry, I cannot reconstruct the exact history.