I would like to edit the descriptions (captions or titles) of my photos locally and then upload selections of photos to Google Photos so that the captions would be visible in there when I watch individual pictures. This works for me only if I enter the description/caption in Google Pictures, but not when I first set EXIF metadata and then upload the image file.
I edit photos e.g. with DarkTable on Ubuntu 22.04 and set the Darktable metadata field "Title" (XMP:Title), and Darktable metadata field "Notes" (XMP:Notes) and Darktable metadata field "Description" (XMP:Description). None of those three fiedls reach the description field in Google Photos when I upload the image. The metadata field names are according to ExifTool 12.68.
When all three metadata fields are set and the file is uploaded to Goofle Photos, the "Title" and the "Notes" fields are lost. The "Description" field ends up in a slot called "Other", which is visible when viewing individual images at the bottom of "Info" but it does not act as a caption.
There is a solution in Google Photos Help (https://support.google.com/photos/thread/83922483?hl=en) which claims that EXIF title metadata would survive the upload as a caption/description but for me the metadata value goes to Google's Other info field. (I assume that it worked once, but appears not to work any more.)
Has anybody ever succeeded in uploading files with caption metadata to Google Pictures so that the caption is recognized as the description (and not as Other) - and how it was done?
I have tried setting the metadata fields with DarkTable and resource manager properties on Windows 11, Nemo 5.2.4 filebrowser Properties and gTHumb on Ubuntu Linux 22.04.
I would expect some metadata field would be used as the Description/Caption by Google Photos.
A probable answer to my problem is that there is no way to upload captions to Google Photos as metadata in a JPEG file - and I would be grateful, even if this fact could be confirmed.
The description embedded in a file used to end up under Google Photo's "Description" but starting around January 2022, the description started to appear in "Other". This Exiftool forum's post is about when this change started.
I have a test file which has about 1,400 tags embedded in it. None of those show up as "Description" when uploaded to Google Photos.