Very frustrating - Raw to jpg in CS2 loses EXIF

[prince]

Originally Posted by Cuchulainn

Prince,

Have you tried the program Phototime? I haven't tried it myself since it is for PC only and I am a Mac, but I had just read about it in a magazine article. You can download a trial version here so you can try it. I believe the full price is only $14.

Apart from its primary function, which is to correct photos which have an incorrectly set camera time setting, it also has a number of additional functions.

Among these it lists the ability to Restore "For situations where you have modified the photo and in the process lost its metadata. If the original photo is still available, then this can be recovered and used in the new modified version."

Sounds like what you would need to do is to use the original RAW or JPEG to recall the metadata settings within this program.

It claims to allow you to edit blocks of photos, so hopefully would not be too time consuming.

No Cuchulainn, I haven't heard about it. Looks like a good app. I will try it and see if that works. I might also try contacting Nikon and see if they any solutions.

Thanks.

[genielamb]

I use both Capture NX and Adobe CS2 to handle my Nikon NEF files. What I have found with adobe is I always use the alt-open copy command once I have done any corrections. This opens the file in adobe for further manipulation leaving the original NEF file unaltered. (but then I am sure you already know this). ALWAYS do any cropping in the RAW window before you actually open it for manipulation. Working in layers is fine but as soon as you 'paste' your original image into a new file you loose ALL the EXIF info. That being said, I have found that as long as I leave my initial background layer intact and always work from a duplicate layer, my EXIF remains. IF I alter the background layer in any way at all, I lose the EXIF info. Hope that helps.

[prince]

Originally Posted by genielamb

I use both Capture NX and Adobe CS2 to handle my Nikon NEF files. What I have found with adobe is I always use the alt-open copy command once I have done any corrections. This opens the file in adobe for further manipulation leaving the original NEF file unaltered. (but then I am sure you already know this). ALWAYS do any cropping in the RAW window before you actually open it for manipulation. Working in layers is fine but as soon as you 'paste' your original image into a new file you loose ALL the EXIF info. That being said, I have found that as long as I leave my initial background layer intact and always work from a duplicate layer, my EXIF remains. IF I alter the background layer in any way at all, I lose the EXIF info. Hope that helps.

That might be a breakthrough. I didnt know any of this information that you mentioned. I am excited to try it tonight. Yeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy.....

I was always editing the initial background layer and in fact deleting it after making copies.

So when I work on other layers and am finally done should I just merge or flatten the image?

[genielamb]

Originally Posted by prince

So when I work on other layers and am finally done should I just merge or flatten the image?

Entirely up to you. I don't normally merge the layers as I save my altered files in PSD format or .tiff so if I need to I can make changes or alterations later without having to start from scratch. The .tiff format saves in layers as well without losing detail due to compression. When you do your file-save as - jpeg it automatically saves the image with merged layers so it is a step you can simply leave out.

Try with an image and see what works best for you just remember the golden rule ... leave the background layer completely alone and intact!

[prince]

Unfortunately your method did not work. I opened the NEF file in CS2 and without doing anything did a "Save As" jpg. When I opened the jpg there was no exif data. :S

I am guessing EXIF is not in the place where CS2 is expecting it to be.

[genielamb]

that is very strange. I have a Nikon D80 I see you shoot with a Nikon D40. Perhaps the NF stores the EXIF differently in the two cameras although they are both Nikon so that would be strange. Any, I am sure we can nail this down. Try opening up the raw file in photoshop, I assume you get the raw adjustment window. Do the alt- open copy thing and let the image open up in photoshop itself. Before you make any adjustments and while it still exists as a .nef file see if you can see any camera data. From the File menu choose file info. Click on camera data 1 and see if anything is there. If not then you know adobe is not reading your EXIF info.

[prince]

Not sure if I did the alt copy thing correctly. I have sent you the NEF file.

Appreciate your efforts.

[prince]

Thanks to Barb (Genielamb) and her push to not give up, my long lasting problem is finally solved.

I sent my RAW file to Barb and she was kind enough to send me some screenshots of her workflow to open RAW files in CS2. I checked the jpg of my RAW file that Barb converted and the EXIF was there.

This shocked and confused both of us. Looking at her screenshots I noticed her RAW window looked drastically different from mine. So I followed the following steps to resolve my issue

• Ran the update.
• Saw there was an update for "Camera RAW"
• Installed the update.
• Opened the RAW file in CS2. Immediately gave me a message saying "Nikon NEF Plugin was overriding the Camera RAW plugin"
• I deleted the NEF Plugin from Nikon
• Reran CS2 and voila...
• I now saw the window that was similar to Barb's screenshot. Used Alt Open Copy
• Opened the copy in CS2
• Looked in "File Info" and yes all my EXIF data was there..
• So it was now time for a finale`
• I did a "Save As" jpg
• Looked for EXIF in properties of my jpg file..
• And the magic worked )

Hope this will help others too.

Thanks a zillion to Barb and everyone else who contributed to resolving this.

[Cuchulainn]

Glad that you got it to work. Not sure which version of Camera RAW you ran. I did notice today that they have made version 4.6 available. That doesn't seem to appear when you do "Update" through the CS program (I use CS3). Adove Camera RAW 4.6 offers full support for some of the newer models such as the Canon 50D, Nikon D90, D700 and others.

Adobe Camera RAW 4.6 for Windows

Adobe Camera RAW 4.6 for Mac

Camera RAW 4.6 and DNG Convert for Windows

Camera RAW 4.6 and DNG Converter for Mac

Originally Posted by prince

Ran the update.

• Saw there was an update for "Camera RAW"
• Installed the update.

[prince]

Thanks Cuchulainn. I will get the latest one.