A metadata editor makes one promise above all others: what you write is what ends up in the file, and nothing else changes.
While we were expanding Parergon’s IPTC coverage for version 1.7.1, we tested it against IPTC’s own reference image, a file that fills in nearly every field the standard defines. Files like that exercise paths ordinary photos rarely reach. They showed us places where Parergon did not keep that promise as well as it should.
This post is about those places and what 1.7.1 changes. Most people will never have hit any of them. If you work with richly described files from agencies, archives or collections, some of them matter.
Saving what you see, or telling you why not
A save no longer reports success when a field was refused. ExifTool, the engine Parergon uses to write files, can accept most of a save and quietly decline one field: a value outside a fixed list, a tag it can’t write, a value it can’t convert. Parergon used to report plain success. It now saves everything it can and tells you which field was not saved, and why. Applying a template reports the same way, per file, and undo, Duplicate Merge and copying metadata between files (Pro) name the field too.
An over-limit value can no longer be dropped behind your back. If one field held a value it could not save, such as a Title longer than 256 characters, and you then changed another field, Save would save only the other one. Save now stays off while any field has such a value, and the footer says which field and why.
A refused value counts as unsaved work. Choosing another file now asks first, the editor shows “Unsaved changes”, and switching tabs keeps the value until you come back to it.
Long text is kept, not cut. Where the older IPTC-IIM format limits a field to a fixed number of bytes, Parergon keeps the full text in XMP and shortens only the IIM copy, between whole characters, with a note under the field. Before, the cut could land in the middle of a character. Every IIM value is now written as UTF-8, so accented names survive.
Keeping what is already there
Several locations or artworks stay intact. A photo can list more than one Location Shown, Location Created or Artwork entry. On such files, editing a field such as City used to remove that field from the other entries. These fields are now read-only on files with several entries, and the editor tells you why. Templates and Metadata Profiles leave them unchanged and say so. Editing several entries at once is planned for a later release.
Lists stay lists. Saving an artwork with several Creators or Style Periods no longer merges them into one value. One value per line saves as separate values, and editing only the Title leaves the rest untouched.
Other languages are kept. Title, Description, Copyright Notice, Usage Terms and similar fields can hold text in several languages. Editing the default text no longer deletes the other languages.
Keywords keep their shape. A keyword rule that appends or removes a keyword no longer deletes keywords stored only in the IPTC block, and no longer splits a keyword such as “Washington, D.C.” in two. A long keyword no longer gains a shortened twin.
Other apps’ edits are respected. When Lightroom, Bridge or ExifTool changes the file you are looking at, Parergon now shows the new values within a couple of seconds, keeping your unsaved edits. Before, saving keywords could overwrite keywords the other app had just added.
Saving while another app is busy with the same file
Parergon saves by writing a new copy of the file and then putting it in place of the original. If another app or a sync service changed, replaced or deleted the photo in that brief window, the save could overwrite that change, or put an old copy back over a file that had just been deleted.
Parergon 1.7.1 checks the file again just before it replaces it. If something else has changed or removed it in the meantime, Parergon keeps the other app’s version and tells you. When it had already made a copy of the file from before the save, that copy stays next to the photo as “name (Parergon recovery date)”.
Undo that puts things back
Undo restores, it doesn’t delete. After a save in the metadata editor, undo used to remove some fields instead of restoring them, including release statuses, Digital Source Type, Usage Terms and the Artwork and Location fields. Undo now restores each field’s previous value exactly, including values outside the standard list.
Undo keeps the XMP Flash. Undoing a Flash edit no longer deletes the Flash information other apps read from XMP.
Undo works in iCloud Drive folders. On the Desktop and in Documents, iCloud Drive touches a file a few seconds after every save. Parergon read that as another app’s edit and refused to undo. It now checks the file’s contents and accepts the touch, while still refusing a real outside change.
Codes that mean what they say
Correct IPTC Scene and Subject codes. The built-in Scene and Subject lists had drifted from IPTC’s: some codes were shifted, and some labels named a different concept than their code. Both lists now carry IPTC’s own codes and labels. Codes already in your files are left as they are.
Labelled choices instead of numbers. Exposure Program, Metering Mode, Flash, White Balance and other coded fields now offer named choices and show the name instead of a raw number. Typing a name used to save nothing; now you pick it.
Smaller things that protect your work
- After you discard edits in the template editor, the template shows exactly as it was saved. Before, the discarded value could linger and be saved or exported by the next click.
- Parergon now records itself in the Exif 3.0 Metadata Editing Software field when it saves. It writes only that tag, never the camera’s own Software tag, and undo puts the previous value back.
- Disabled buttons now look disabled, so a Save that can’t run no longer looks clickable.
Why we’re telling you this
Most of these issues did not announce themselves. They produced a file that looked fine and a save that reported success. That is the hardest kind of problem for a metadata tool, because you only find it years later, when the fact you needed isn’t in the file.
We would rather tell you what we fixed than have you wonder. If you have files where something looked off after an edit, version 1.7.1 is the version to use, and we’d like to hear from you. Every change is in the Parergon 1.7.1 release notes.
Parergon is free to download, with five metadata edits a day. Parergon Pro removes the limit and adds templates, batch editing, Keyword Workbench rules and copying metadata between files, among other features. The fixes in this post apply wherever you use those features.
