Reading an IPTC info or XMP so Photos can see it

Question

Reading an IPTC info or XMP so Photos can see it

I'm planning to migrate from Mylio to Photos. Mylio has an option to write data to the jpeg file. In the case of People, the data is written to the IPTC "Person Shown" field. As I have hundreds of people identified and hundreds of thousands of photo, I'd like the People ID to be usable by macOS Photos. Can that be done? I'm OK using command line tools such as EXIFtool.

Also I see that Mylio keeps this information in an XMP file (names changed and were in alphabetical order):

```

<Iptc4xmpExt:PersonInImage>

<rdf:Seq>

<rdf:li>Susan</rdf:li>

<rdf:li>Jan</rdf:li>

<rdf:li>Bill</rdf:li>

<rdf:li>Steve</rdf:li>

</rdf:Seq>

</Iptc4xmpExt:PersonInImage>

```

Also in other fields which I'm guessing locate the position of the face.

Repeating: Can macOS Photos import this information and populate its People?

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.3

Posted on Jun 16, 2023 12:48 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 7

20,716 points

Jun 17, 2023 1:58 AM in response to SoCalMtnBiker

GraphicConverter 12 has a command to copy Photos.app .xmp sidecar to images and movies (GC > XMP Sidecar File > Copy into...) but it does not seem to support those Mylio's .xmp PersonInImage tags.

But this exiftool command copies Mylio's XMP-iptcExt:PersonInImage from same named .xmp to .jpg:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -TagsFromFile '%-.0f.xmp' -XMP-iptcExt:PersonInImage *.jpg

GraphicConverter shows that in its IPTC/XMP "People" list but macOS 13.4 Photos.app does not display that tag.

[XMP-iptcExt]   PersonInImage                   : Susan, Jan, Bill, Steve

So I guess one option is to copy to -XMP-dc:Subject which Photos.app reads and prefers:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -TagsFromFile '%-.0f.xmp' '-XMP-dc:Subject<XMP-iptcExt:PersonInImage' *.jpg

Or write also to -IPTC:Keywords which Photos.app can also read and some other viewer might want:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -TagsFromFile '%-.0f.xmp' '-XMP-dc:Subject<XMP-iptcExt:PersonInImage' '-IPTC:Keywords<XMP-iptcExt:PersonInImage' *.jpg

[XMP-dc]        Subject                         : Susan, Jan, Bill, Steve
[IPTC]          Keywords                        : Susan, Jan, Bill, Steve

I guess it might be possible to copy also the position of the face, but Photos.app can not import that.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

202,075 points

Jun 16, 2023 1:11 PM in response to SoCalMtnBiker

When I export a photo from Photos with an XPM sidecar file, and import the exported photo with the sidecar in the same folder to a different library, the data from the sidecar will be applied to the imported photo.

You may want to make a test and import one of your Mylio photos together with the sidecar to Photos for Mac.

Are the faces preserved?

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Answer 3

Jun 16, 2023 1:52 PM in response to léonie

Thanks, but your case may be different. My Photos library has no faces (People identified). My Photos library has 3500 photos from whatever (I don't actively use Photos but I use it from time to time). I have 77,000 photos in Mylio. That said, when I look at People in Photos four people are shown with no names attached. So Photos has found my wife and I and another couple (probably from a trip we did together).

When I look at the photo I just imported from Mylio (File>Import>) selected the photo in its Finder folder in Mylio. The photos has its associated XMP. And the photo had metadata exported.

My wife happened to be in the photo I imported and when I double click on her the imported photo is there. But I imagine Photos has identified the face not using XMP info.

Long way to say, nothing has been lost, but Photos just doesn't know about the hundreds of people I've identified by name in Mylio.

How can you be sure in your test that it's Photos using the XMP info and not just identifying the person ?

Just to be clear: I want to import the 77k photos and have the hundreds of people shown in Photos by name.

PS. It would be nice if my Mylio Albums would show up too; but that's too much to wish for (I think the information is stored in an SQLite db with 65 tables. Not going to reverse engineer that). I'm thinking to use tags or keywords. That is, select all the photos in an Album and then apply the album name as a keyword. Of course the order won't be preserved. I can live with that as my important albums have been exported to Smugmug.

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Answer 4

Jun 16, 2023 3:12 PM in response to SoCalMtnBiker

Forget the PS. Reviewing what I have in Mylio and most of my Album information has disappeared. One of the reasons I giving up on the app. I knew some of the Albums has become empty, but in reviewing what exists in Mylio that I need to move over I see that many of the Albums are empty and others are probably missing photos. As I said many are in Smugmug and others are trip related so the basic album could be created from date order.

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Reading an IPTC info or XMP so Photos can see it

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