Affinity Photo 2.6.2 does not retain location metadata when exporting to JPG

[AlanV2]

I have searched the topics on this site and do not see any reference to discarded location metadata.

Please add support for retaining location data when exporting to a JPG file.  I am looking specifically for city, state, country and country code data.

Those values are shown pre-export in Affinity Photo, whether included natively from my phone (Samsung Android), or added manually to my DSLR images (Nikon D7100) before editing  with Phil Harvey's EXIF Tool.  However, neither one of these formats (JPG or DNG) retain location data when exported to JPG.

Following the gudelines at https://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/documentation/userguide/#_locations, I am using these fields in my ExifTool scripts:

-iptc
ContentLocationName
City
Province-State
Country-PrimaryLocationName
Country-PrimaryLocationCode

-xmp-iptcExt
LocationShownCity
LocationShownProvinceState
LocationShownCountryName
LocationShownCountryCode

My workaround until now has been to rerun my scripts on the edited files.

I have attached examples of the issue.  I hope this change will make it onto the list of fixes for an upcoming update.  Thanks.

[NathanC]

Hi @AlanV2,

Could you provide a copy of a DNG file with data within these IPTC fields where you encounter this issue on Export?

I filled out these fields manually in the Metadata panel on an existing image in Photo 2 and exported to JPEG with 'include metadata' enabled, and the resulting image correctly retained this metadata on export, so it's certainly unusual/unexpected behaviour that this data is stripped on your export.

Thanks

[AlanV2]

Attached are copies of file DSC_2051.  One was converted from Nikon's NEF format to DNG, and the other is the post-editing JPG exported from Affinity Photo.

The DNG file has tags for XMP-iptcExt:
LocationShownCity
LocationShownProvinceState
LocationShownCountryName
LocationShownCountryCode

The JPG file has the same tags, but Affinity Photo seems to add the XMP-iptcCore tag CountryCode, which is not present in the original DNG file.

The DNG file has tags for IPTC:
ContentLocationName
City
Province-State
Country-PrimaryLocationName
Country-PrimaryLocationCode

The JPG file is missing the ContentLocationName tag and value.  Upon further research, it looks like the ContentLocationName tag is already missing when I open the DNG file in Develop Mode.  Develop Mode has a tab for Metadata, and if I filter on IPTC (Image), the City, Region, Country and ISO country code fields are all populated, but Location is not.

Is there a different IPTC field I should be using instead?  And do pro photographers even bother with the XMP tags if IPTC tags are available?

 

DSC_2051 sample.dng

[NathanC]

Thanks, can confirm I'm also seeing this 'ContentLocationName' IPTC field removed on DNG Import, so it's therefore not present in the exported JPEG. I'll get this logged internally with the devs, as it looks like there may be a mapping issue.

On 5/9/2025 at 8:19 PM, AlanV2 said:

Is there a different IPTC field I should be using instead?

For Location, Photo 2 uses the 'Sub-location' IPTC field.

On 5/9/2025 at 8:19 PM, AlanV2 said:

And do pro photographers even bother with the XMP tags if IPTC tags are available?

I'm not too sure on that one, sorry!