XMP sidecar files: DxO and Capture One don't play nice together

[JP Onstwedder]

Recently I shot some images at around 8pm. I'm mostly a Capture One user, and I imported the images from the memory card to my computer as referenced images so the raw files are just files on the hard drive. Inevitably, some of the images were noisy and I used DxO Photolab 6 to apply the noise reduction. I noticed that Photolab had the wrong date and time: instead of 5 August 8pm it reported the time as 6 Aug 4am - 8 hours ahead. Now...I live in Singapore and have my camera set to the right timezone: UTC + 8 hours. Now: Capture One writes some metadata to a XMP sidecar file and I have it set for 'full sync' so it writes and reads that metadata every time I edit an image. Photolab also uses the same XMP file; both programmes recognise their color tag and rating just fine.

But Capture One writes the date and time to the XMP sidecar file in a different convention than Photolab does. And after using Photolab on a file, Capture One now sees the date and time as 6 Aug 4am! So as soon as I use both programmes on the same file, the date and time are messed up --- and get messed up each and every time.

I've asked both companies' support teams. DxO had me run some tests and then said, well, you have to use our software first 'because of the precision of our code'. Which, frankly, is nonsense as they're just writing to a small text file using a supposedly standard format. Capture One has not yet responded (in fairness, I wrote to them later so perhaps they'll respond, eventually).

Has anyone else had the same or similar problems? I have an easy workaround, of course: change Capture One to not use XMP sidecar files, but that's annoying, too. And the lack of responsiveness by the software developers is disappointing to me.

 

[Butlerkid]

Although this Q&A by Tim Grey discusses Adobe software, it does give a lot of information about how many "date" fields may be in the metadata for an image.

"

Today's Question​ ​

I'm finding that a small percentage of my photos end up with the date they were moved as their 'created' date. I know the image date is incorrect, in some cases by as much as ten years. I know how to input the correct date but how do I stop or prevent that change from happening in the first place?​

Tim's Quick Answer:​ ​ You should always see the correct capture time in the "Date Time Original" field in Lightroom Classic or Adobe Bridge. The "Date Time" field in Lightroom Classic or the Date File Modified" field in Adobe Bridge will show the date and time the file was moved, such as when moving to a different hard drive.​

More Detail:​ ​ There are several dates shown in metadata in Lightroom Classic and Adobe Bridge, which can certainly lead to confusion when those dates don't match for a given photo. The "Date Time Original" field in Lightroom Classic and Adobe Bridge will show you the data the photo was captured, which of course may not match the original value for the date and time of capture if you adjusted the capture time after the fact. This might be the case if you had neglected to update the time zone on your camera, for example, and changed the date of capture for your photos later. The "Date Time Digitized" field in Lightroom Classic or the "Date Created" field in Adobe Bridge would also match the original time reflected in metadata in the camera at the time the photo was captured. Therefore, this date information can also be depended upon to reflect the original capture time, though without taking into account changes to the capture time applied later in your workflow. The "Date Time" field in Lightroom Classic or the "Date File Modified" field in Adobe Bridge will reflect the date the file was created in the current hard drive location, which could be a much more recent date than the date of capture if the file had been moved to a different drive. For example, when I copy selections of photos to a different hard drive to use with a demo catalog in Lightroom Classic, the "Date Time" field shows when I copied the files rather than when the photos were captured. In Lightroom Classic you'll also find the "Metadata Date" field, which is a reflection of when the metadata was most recently updated. This field might obviously be updated quite often, such as when you assign a star rating or add keywords to the photo, for example. My recommendation is to refer to the "Date Time Original" field when you want to confirm the date and time of capture, and to generally ignore the other date fields in metadata to avoid confusion, unless you specifically need to review the additional information contained in those other fields.​

 

[joe43]

DXO PL6 is my main RAW processing software for my Nikon NEF images. I am not a user of Capture One. DXO PL can read data in XMP files. Most if not all of the processing edits in DXO PL are saved in xxx.dop files.

In DXO PL in you need to make sure that your XMP preferences are selected. With DXO PL open, go to the top toolbar and click on "edit..". Then Preferences. Then General and Metadata (each is a separate tab). In General under Correction settings, make sure the sidecar boxes are both selected. In Metadata, make sure that synchronize is clicked on.

Then exit the program and turn it back on.

Run some tests to see if this resolves your issues.

In my case I use Nikon Studio and DXO PL and have trouble getting keywords and other MetaData to be the same in both programs. This is because both progrms use different methods for saving and recording such data.

My workflow is to use Downloader Pro to ingest my NEF files. When I do this XMP files with data I enter into Downloader Pro gets into the XMP files that DXO PL can read. I always check the metadata and keywords in DXO to see if they are what I want them to be. New keywords can be added as well as star ratings. But I do not believe all of the new stuff appears in NX Studio.

Most experts recommend using one main program for all of your final info. I try and use DXO for this.

I can never be sure what DXO puts into a xxx.dop file. I know that NX Studio cannot read these dop files. More info from DXO Here:

Managing Metadata – PhotoLab Guidelines

userguides.dxo.com

 

[jerrylwatson]

Do you see 'exif:dateTimeOriginal=xxxx' in either xmp file

 

[JP Onstwedder]

DXO PL6 is my main RAW processing software for my Nikon NEF images. I am not a user of Capture One. DXO PL can read data in XMP files. Most if not all of the processing edits in DXO PL are saved in xxx.dop files.

In DXO PL in you need to make sure that your XMP preferences are selected. With DXO PL open, go to the top toolbar and click on "edit..". Then Preferences. Then General and Metadata (each is a separate tab). In General under Correction settings, make sure the sidecar boxes are both selected. In Metadata, make sure that synchronize is clicked on.

Then exit the program and turn it back on.

Run some tests to see if this resolves your issues.

In my case I use Nikon Studio and DXO PL and have trouble getting keywords and other MetaData to be the same in both programs. This is because both progrms use different methods for saving and recording such data.

My workflow is to use Downloader Pro to ingest my NEF files. When I do this XMP files with data I enter into Downloader Pro gets into the XMP files that DXO PL can read. I always check the metadata and keywords in DXO to see if they are what I want them to be. New keywords can be added as well as star ratings. But I do not believe all of the new stuff appears in NX Studio.

Most experts recommend using one main program for all of your final info. I try and use DXO for this.

I can never be sure what DXO puts into a xxx.dop file. I know that NX Studio cannot read these dop files. More info from DXO Here:

Managing Metadata – PhotoLab Guidelines

userguides.dxo.com

I set those preferences, that's when the trouble started. When I uncheck those boxes, and do the equivalent in Capture One, both programs leave the XMP sidecar files alone. I was just trying to use the star and color tags in both programs, for example, in Capture One I might use a purple color tag for an image I want to process in DxO for the superior noise reduction. Sadly, doing that messes up the date and time stamp, so I've resorted to the small yellow post-it notes on the side of the screen....

 

[JP Onstwedder]

Do you see 'exif:dateTimeOriginal=xxxx' in either xmp file

From the original raw file:
DateTimeDigitized = "2023:08:05 20:30:33"
DateTimeOriginal = "2023:08:05 20:30:33"

and under the TIFF section
DateTime = "2023:08:05 20:30:33"

The local date and time was 05 August 20:30:33 with the camera set to the timezone UTC + 8.

After Capture One has opened the file; no edits other than color tag or rating, the XMP sidecar file contains this line:
<exifateTimeOriginal>2023-08-06T04:30:33.809+08:00</exifateTimeOriginal>

DxO now reports the file date and time as 6 August 04:30:33.
Capture One says the same if I set it to prefer the sidecar XMP file; it says 5 August 20:30:33 if I set it to prefer the embedded XMP.

It seems clear that Capture One changes the DateTimeOriginal entry in the sidecar file, but that entry seems correct, and DxO doesn't interpret the timezone offset correctly.

But I don't know how the XMP specification works. All I know si that I've given up working with sidecar files!