iView Exit Strategy (Hypothetical...no issues)

[akasocrates]

Hi--

Just hypothetical right now.  Premise/givens:
1. I have not converted to DNG.  Let's assume I will stay in Nikon NEF for now.
2. I essentially follow Peter's general workflow of doing basic ACR adjustments, rating, copyright and some keywords all in Bridge first...hence the xmp file is created before it hits iView.
3. I then do the major keywording/catalog sets in iView.

Now, the question.  If let's say the sky fell and I decide to move out of iView into another cataloguing app.  In order to get all the iView metadata to move to the new app, I'll have to make some key choices which are:

a. Convert to DNG, then synch the iView metadata into the DNG.  Seems like the cleanest approach?
b. Let iView synch directly into the NEF and roll the dice hoping that it doesn't corrupt the file
c. Synch via export to xmp, and maybe just take the hit of losing the bulk/basic ACR adjustments I made (becauase I can "re-enter" the ratings/copyright/keywords in iView) when the Bridge xmps are overwritten.  

No urgency, but planning ahead for any eventuality.  Maybe in the next months/years, some of these functionalities will get added into iView.  

But also thinking, that maybe I do what John Beardy shared in another post...in that I add metadata via iView first, export/create the fresh xmps, then do ACR edits.  (If you add future iView metadata, then you will be back to the original problem, but you're not taking to big a hit then.)  John, maybe you could comment on how this is working for you?

Or if I'm thinking (c) will be my likely approach, then I don't invest the time in doing bulk ACR edits while in Bridge.  (Also, after all I don't see the ACR edits in my iView thumbnails anyway.)

Did I miss any other alternatives or misunderstood the situation?  I don't really need to take any actions at this point, but want to make sure I'm fully informed as I continue to invest time into iView cataloguing.

Many thanks in advance.

[akasocrates]

Anyone?  I think I've pretty much answered my own questions through re-reading various posts.

Specific question then, what is the current thinking or general consensus on synching iView metadata directly to NEF?  (If it matters, I mostly use a D2H and have some legacy D100/D70 NEFs.)  Is it generally a "safe" exercise?

Peter?  John Beardy?

Thanks.

[roinuj]

If you are syncing back to the XMP sidecar files, it should be fine. Based on my past experience with NEF I would not sync anything directly to the NEF. I had many corruption problems with D100 NEFS when embedding captioning data, all be it from software other then IView. Since then I have taken the postion that its too risky to touch the orginal NEF file other then with the side car file. I have never done it since and is why I quickly adopted the DNG workflow of Peter's book and left the ever mysterious NEF file alone.

Don

 

[Doug Pardee]

what is the current thinking or general consensus on synching iView metadata directly to NEF?  (If it matters, I mostly use a D2H and have some legacy D100/D70 NEFs.)  Is it generally a "safe" exercise?

I can't say for sure about iView, but if you let idImager write metadata to NEF files rather than sidecars, Nikon Capture won't have anything to do with the modified NEFs. The files are okay and can be opened in Adobe Camera Raw, and I imagine that they can be converted to DNG, but Nikon Capture turns up its nose at them.

I suspect that it'd be the same with iView.

[peterkrogh]

While syncing to NEFs *should* be okay (since it is using Nikon-supplied Libraries) that's not always the case.

The exact shape of your exit will only be lknown when you decide to do it.  You may have switched to DNGs by then, or you may have adopted a Nikon Capture-based workflow, or some other format or software that has not yet been developed.

If I was doing it today to an archive of NEF files with sidecars, I would make sure that no important information is stored only in XMP data (like ratings). Then I would make sure there are good backups of the files, sync the annotations, and make sure there are no problems with the files.  In order to do this:

1. Run through the DNG converter and make sure no errors are generated.
2. Catalog new files with iView and compare numbers of images that have particular annotations.  There should be an exact match of images that have a certain keyword.

There are other checks I might perform, but this should give you a hint.

Peter

[akasocrates]

Thanks, Peter, Don, Doug.

To be honest, I don't think I'd like to risk corrupting the original NEF file.  Thus, if a tradeoff is to be made TODAY, I may just export to xmp and overwrite the ACR adjustments.  I would do this for two reasons: a) RAW processing can only get better in the future, so I may want to re-process old raws ultimately and b) I generally just try to do bulk ACR adjustments in Bridge.  The major ACR adjustments I make are to files that eventually get psd/tiff master files. 

Peter,
Interestingly, if you were to do the conversion today, you would prefer to sync annotations.  I guess for you, the ACR adjustments stored in XMP is valuable (because you do more than just bulk ACR adjustments?) and thus would not like to overwrite that.  Also, in principle you would pesonally not want to lose ANY work that has been put in previously.  Is this correct?

Thanks.

[peterkrogh]

So Crates (to quote Bill and Ted),
The Nikon-supplied Library *should* make syncing the data safe.  At least to the extent that you can trust Nikon not to break their own files.  If you can't trust Nikon to do this, can you trust them to be your file adjustment tool?

(I know that's a little bit rhetorical, but it does make the point.  Nikon has a pretty bad track record in keeping File formats and modifications readable across all applications.)

As to the ACR adjustments, I have hundreds of hours of work locked in these, and I would not want to toss it out.  Another way to look at it is that I have taken the trouble to make the file render the way I want (within the limitations of the software) and I don't want to take them all back to ground zero.  That would just suck.

Peter

[akasocrates]

Excellent!  (to likewise quote Bill and Ted)

Thanks, Peter.  Only minorly concerned with Nikon because the SDK seemed like it was a moving target.  So, if the latest iView version had not updated for the newer SDK...well.  In any case, I think I have a fairly informed understanding of the options which my objective. 

Decisions, decisions.  Hopefully, if/when the time comes, iView's xmp handling will be much more robust.