bikernz - I realize it has been a long process and apologize for the delay.

As soon as I have news I will update everyone here.

From what I've read the core wordpress system has the same problem of a mish mash of rules - however they can be customised in a proper wordpress installation by editing a file. On wordpress.com we have no such luxury, so I think some variation from the core is necessary to implement this.

On this page:
http://acrosstheandesbyblog.com/test-page/

You will see an image that has been uploaded to the page, and inserted as a gallery and as a regular image.

Whatever EXIF/IPTC tag I put the "caption" in, it always goes into the "description" and not the "caption" when uploaded to wordpress (I have tried description, headline and others).

I like to use the caption instead, as it displays in the gallery when you mouse over the image.

Currently I have to edit all images after upload and cut/paste the description to the caption.

So my question is : Which tag should I put my caption in so that WordPress will accept it and store in it's own caption field on upload.

Thanks

For me I just want a consistent way to get text into the wordpress CAPTION and TITLE.

I don't understand why you would create exceptions for different lengths etc ... why not just a simple 1:1 mapping? Because we use hosted wordpress we cannot use plugins or modify code files, so we have to make these changes in the exif tags if the files before we update. Surely it's better to let us make the decision there (or at least make this an option)

sydlow - since WordPress.org uses the same media back-end as WordPress.com, it is likely the same.

I have used the new media interface for two weeks now and it seems much better than the old version. However, the captions for all my uploads is still not in the caption field. It is in the description field. This is a real pain.

If the logic is too convoluted to put the caption text into the caption field straight off then why not code, 'if the caption field is empty but the description field is not empty then copy the contents of the description field to the caption field'?? Job done.

Cheers,
Brian.

Lovely photo! My wife and I love tuxedo cats. So precious. :-)

I've pinged our developer with the link to your image. Thanks for following up with us.

Try this... http://bikernz.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/tutu-by-the-river_2012-10-29_15-06-27_img_0480_c2a9briankarl2012.jpg

Here is the link... http://bikernz.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/autumn-colours_2012-10-10_12-01-36_img_9824_c2a9briankarl2012.jpg

As a test, I uploaded another image from Aperture that had what Apple have labelled as a ‘Title’ and a ‘Caption’.

Could you please link to that other image from your Media Library in this forum thread?

I am not sure that the above process describes accurately what is happening. As a test, I uploaded another image from Aperture that had what Apple have labelled as a 'Title' and a 'Caption'. This image is in the same post as used previously. In WordPress the Title did indeed display as the Title. But the Caption ended up as the Description. It is more than 80 characters so according to step #2 above it should have been the Caption.

Secondly, you describe the treatment of metadata by WordPress as "a bit inconsistent". Because you don't seem to have offered a conclusion in your post, does that mean that this 'inconsistent' behaviour is accepted as state of the art by WordPress? Or are there initiatives to improve this aspect in the near future?

Lastly, I am surprised that in the process described above that the EXIF data is effectively ranked higher than the IPTC data. I am not an expert on the topic but I did understand that generally speaking EXIF data is created by the image capturing device whereas IPTC data is created/managed by user controlled software, like Aperture, Lightroom, PhotoShop. Hence the IPTC data should have precedence. Additionally EXIF data is often damaged in the various processing steps from camera to publication and is thus less reliable.

Brian.

Yes. After evaluating the EXIF details you've given us with a couple of developers, we've found that the process for retrieving and displaying the image information will help explain why the metadata is a bit inconsistent.

Here's a brief description of how we retrieve the metadata for each image:

1. The IPTC synopsis of the caption is used as title.
2. If the IPTC caption exists, is more than 80 characters, and is different than the title, it is used as caption.

Then, we move onto the EXIF info:

3. If the EXIF Image Description exists, and it's less than 80 characters, it's used as title.
4. If the EXIF Image Description is longer than 80 characters, it is used as caption.
5. If the EXIF Computed User Comments exists, and are different than the title, they are used as caption.
6. Finally, if comments are set, they're used as caption.

We're seeing that your pictures have Caption and Caption Synopsis as the same value, thus they are used as title and not repeated as caption.

I've just checked with our developers to see how we can proceed. I'm sorry for the delay.

How are we going on fixing captions?

Regards, Brian.

The problem here is that both of them have the caption in the wrong fields. The caption from the IPTC metadata should go into the WordPress caption field so it will be displayed under the image when inserted into a blog. It should never go into the title field and is not useful when it is in the description field.

Just to be clear, IPTC captions need to be in the caption field.

Thanks, Brian.

Thanks for your patience, Brian! :-)

1. My caption turns up as the title: http://bikernz.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=988

2. My caption becomes the description: http://bikernz.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=986

I hope this is what you were looking for. If not please let me know.

Thanks,
Brian.

Can you reply with the Media Library URL (from your dashboard) of an image you've uploaded that was exported from Aperture? I'll be happy to take a closer look at this.