Are there any Mac photo apps that work with XMP metadata?

[MD5Hash]

I do not own an Apple computer now, but I'm planning on purchasing a new Macbook Pro (hopefully with Arrandale) when I return to America for Christmas. However, as of right now, I think I'm going to have to run Windows 7 or something on it - forever.

Why? Because I have thousands of photographs that I've worked on in Microsoft's commendable 'Live Photo Gallery' software, which I've put dozens, if not hundreds of names and places tags in Adobe's XMP metadata format, which Live Gallery stores inside the files themselves, not into some XML or proprietary file buried in the OS. I can transfer the photos anywhere, use them anywhere, and not have to worry about the tags being stuck in the original OS or program.

iPhoto looks nice, I've used it before, and I have no problems with it...but I can't lose 5 years of work and tags to switch to a product which isn't compatible with XMP.

So, does anyone know of any good Mac software packages that will allow me to continue to catalog and organize my photo library with my existing tags? Even if it costs a lot, I'm willing to consider it!

 

[JarredWagner]

Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom

 

[occamsrazor]

I'm not sure about XMP specifically, but given its very extensive captioning support I 'd suggest taking a look at Photo Mechanic, it may well do. For captioning it's superb. Have a look in their discussion forums and ask a question there f you want a definitive answer, their support is excellent.

http://camerabits.com/site/index.html
http://forums.camerabits.com/

 

[Galarina]

It's no suprise that Adobe products (Lightroom, Bridge) will interpret XMP metadata since XMP is a standard pushed by Adobe.

However does anyone know whether Aperture will interpret metadata from XMP sidecar files?

 

[maflynn]

I believe Aperture will read in the sidecar. It has the ability to write out the XMP side car along with the RAW file, so it should handle importing it.

I've used LightRoom to import my RAW and XMP sidecar files file Aperture since I started using LR over aperture. My point is that LR does handle the XMP sidecar file properly.

 

[Galarina]

Aperture 3 reads XMP sidecar files when importing photos. However only XMP spec 1.0 is supported, so ratings, label values, GPS data, ... is not imported.

More info about this in this Apple support document.