Metadata in Photoshop

[Patrick Warrick]

At my agency we use Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2 on Windows XP. To track changes to our digital images we set the History Log Preferences to Detailed Metadata embedded in the image. The problem is that we have found that the Preferences periodically resets unexpectedly and no longer tracks the history Log. We can't tell when this happens and when we discover it we don't know how long it has been reset.

Each scientist has their own log-on and their own programs on their desktops with a few shared terminals also available. Most scientists have had this happen to them at different times. We encourage checking the Preferences each time casework is being done....but you know how that goes.

Does anyone else have this problem and is there a fix?

[Andrew Schriever]

Yea, thats a common problem in Photoshop. I am not sure what triggers the reset of preferences. I dont know of any fix to that problem.

As a standard practice, whenever I begin to clarify images in a case I will open the preferences dialog and ensure that the setup is correct. When I teach PS I always recommend this as best practice.

With the advent of CS3, I dont actually rely on the history log anymore. Most every clarification I perform is recorded as an adjustment layer, which almost eliminated the need to have adjustments recorded in the history log.

[Ann Horsman]

On CS3 if you don't use adjustment layers you will need to make sure your history log is switched back on. I've noticed Photoshop changes more than the history setting periodically.

[George Reis]

A work-around can be to create an action to turn on the History Log Preference. If you sometimes want to have the log turned off, you can write a second action to do that - then simply run one action or the other upon opening any image. If you keep your actions in button mode, a single mouse click with then enable or disable the log.

George