Hi Mark,

Yes, doing 1+2 is not currently possible because the delete currently takes precedence. But this is on my list of things to do, so eventually I may add the ability to do this.

Doing 2+3 together is possible, but unfortunately you can't take advantage of the -tagsfromfile syntax to do this. You must set the XMP tags explicitly as you are doing with the IPTC tags.

The pipes are an option, but they may cause temporary files to be created. You could also do this by writing a script yourself using the ExifTool API to rewrite an image in memory. Other than that, I don't have any good suggestions.

- Phil