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Lightroom migration bug? - Color labels not read from xmp

Fred Corts
I have searched the forum and found some people with a similar issue, but nothing I have tried has worked so far in Capture One 20.

Since Lightroom pick flags are not supported by C1 and I use them profusely in Lr, I added a green label to all my flagged photos in order to import my catalog from Lr 6. I will add that most of the photos in my 90,000+ collection are RAW files, and I am using sidecar .xmp files.

Now, the problem I'm having is that C1 doesn't recognize color labels from Lr, so all of my imported photos appear in C1 as having no color label. However, if I open the xmp files with TextEdit, I can see a line like this:

xmp:Label="Verde"

("Verde" is Spanish for green), but I've tried all possible combinations in the Preferences -> Image -> Metadata section in C1, and the green label is not recognized no matter what.

It's not until I added a green label to one of those imported photos from within C1 that I understood what's going on, and it looks like a very annoying bug.
When I did that, selected the Sync metadata option to write the change on the sidecar xmp and opened the xmp file, I found two things:

1. The original xmp:Label="Verde" line was gone, and
2. There was now a new line, in a different section of the document, reading: <xmp:Label>Green</xmp:Label>

So, either C1 doesn't read the color label from a different section of the document, or it doesn't recognise the Spanish translation of "Green", so when it sees "Verde" in all the imported files it simply ignores it. This would be weird because my C1 is running in Spanish, since that is my system language and, unlike Lightroom, apparently Capture One does not allow to override that (which is annoying, but that's a diferent matter).

Has anyone encountered this issue while migrating from Lr and using a non-English version of Capture One? Any ways around this issue?
Or any suggestions on how to migrate without losing my pick flags or messing up my existing folder structure (Year-> Place-> Date-Location)?
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Comments

13 comments

Date Votes
  • OddS.
    NNN637162631975213284 wrote:

    xmp:Label="Verde"

    ("Verde" is Spanish for green), but I've tried all possible combinations in the Preferences -> Image -> Metadata section in C1, and the green label is not recognized no matter what.


    The spelling of the color label name in the xmp file must must match the spelling used by the application (here C1).

    Some applications let you define the color labels, others do not. I think the trend is to just use the color names, but back in the day I think some Adobe products used words like "select", "review", "trash". Regardless, the xmp label must match whatever the application uses.
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  • Fred Corts
    The spelling of the color label name in the xmp file must must match the spelling used by the application (here C1).

    Some applications let you define the color labels, others do not. I think the trend is to just use the color names, but back in the day I think some Adobe products used words like "select", "review", "trash". Regardless, the xmp label must match whatever the application uses.


    That's what I said. My Capture One app is in Spanish, so I don't understand why it can't read a color label name in Spanish from Lightroom, nor why it would add a color label in English.

    Capture One claims color labels are one of the metadata that can be carried over from Lr, but this doesn't seem to be the case when the color labels come in a language other than English, even when Capture One is forcing me to use the app in that same language.

    Surely, I can't be the first person to ever encounter this issue. Hopefully someone from support can chime in.
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  • SFA
    This is run as a User to User forum with very rare inputs from Capture One staff.

    If you want an official answer create a Support Case using the page at this link.

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

    HTH.


    Grant
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  • Fred Corts
    I already created a case, thanks Grant.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    NNN637162631975213284 wrote:

    Capture One claims color labels are one of the metadata that can be carried over from Lr, ....


    I knew for sure the star ratings could be carried on from LR to C1, but I wasn't aware it was also the case for the color labels. Are you ?
    Robert
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  • Fred Corts
    I knew for sure the star ratings could be carried on from LR to C1, but I wasn't aware it was also the case for the color labels. Are you ?
    Robert


    I was, from reading this:

    Importing your Lightroom catalog is easy.

    Just select File > Import Catalog > Lightroom Catalog…. Capture One Pro will import key metadata like Rating, Color Label, Keywords and IPTC data and some basic image editing like White Balance, Exposure and Saturation.


    on this post: https://blog.captureone.com/fast-track-guide-lightroom-capture-one-pro/

    Or this one, for a more recent version: https://blog.captureone.com/step-by-step-guide-from-lightroom-to-capture-one/
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  • SFA
    I think you may need to be careful about the settings for metadata synchronisation - but that's just an observation in general not something specific to your language related issue.

    I assume you are running the application in Spanish rather than English?

    For a numeric field that will not be a problem and for a pure text field that will not be a problem (generally) - the entries will simply be carried over and formatted (in the case fo numeric values) accordingly.

    Where a field table value - like Green/Verde - is concerned where the initial conversion is trying to match values exactly anyway as a way of discovering whether or not it VAN map colours ... then there may be more room for potential anomalies.

    Or example if the conversion is only trying to ascertain in ENGLISH whether it can recognise a colour value in the characters coming from LR then "Verde" would not be matched by "Green".

    Purely a guess on my part and I have no idea whether an LR migration attempts to deal with language conversions for colour tags.

    Just something to consider perhaps? I have not seen an easy visible way to see if this translation is considered. Perhaps some others running Spanish language versions and having completed a catalogue conversion may be able to comment?


    Grant
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  • Fred Corts
    I assume you are running the application in Spanish rather than English?


    I am, yes. But only because there's no option in the Preferences menu to change the language in MacOS. I found a question about this somewhere in the C1 support pages where it says the only way to change the language is to change your OS language, which I'm not ready to do.

    I just found a hack to do it, though (basically, delete all language folders but the one you want, and add a "_" in front of the remaining language folder)

    But that's not entirely relevant. If C1 picks up my OS language as Spanish, and therefore runs in Spanish, it should be able to read color labels in Spanish. But it isn't, apparently.

    I've found a way around this. I manually changed the field value from "Verde" to "Green" in the metadata panel in Lightroom before exporting and, as expected, C1 is now able to read the "Green" value of the label field upon import. Problem is that doing so removes the green color tag in Lightroom (since the color tags use the OS language), but that is easily reversible, and I only added the green tags as makeshift flags for export into C1 anyway.

    All in all, the whole thing looks like a bug that shouldn't happen. Hopefully it'll be fixed at some stage.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    Some comments to the items discussed in this thread.

    Transporting color labels between applications via XMP is not reliable because color labels are not standardized as star rating or classification is. The OP could better use a keyword to replace the pick flag in Lightroom.

    Software like Photo Mechanic, just as an example, allows you to configure all labels to align them with your other software to overcome this limitation.

    Changing the language of Capture One on macOS is fairly easy, but the solution most users choose for this, is the worst possible solution: they tweak the program software. Apart from potential instabilities, it is reset with the next software update.

    You can install a free tool from the Mac App Store named App Language Chooser. It allows you to change the language once or permanently.
    Of course, you could do it with a Terminal command, but why would you want to if there is an easy tool?
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  • Fred Corts
    Paul_Steunebrink wrote:
    Some comments to the items discussed in this thread.

    Transporting color labels between applications via XMP is not reliable because color labels are not standardized as star rating or classification is. The OP could better use a keyword to replace the pick flag in Lightroom.

    Software like Photo Mechanic, just as an example, allows you to configure all labels to align them with your other software to overcome this limitation.

    Changing the language of Capture One on macOS is fairly easy, but the solution most users choose for this, is the worst possible solution: they tweak the program software. Apart from potential instabilities, it is reset with the next software update.

    You can install a free tool from the Mac App Store named App Language Chooser. It allows you to change the language once or permanently.
    Of course, you could do it with a Terminal command, but why would you want to if there is an easy tool?


    Good points, thanks, Paul. Clearly, transferring color labels is not reliable in some circumstances, but Phase One says it can be done, so I tried it. Something they need to look into, because it can give other users some headaches, and using a keyword is not a great solution, in my opinion. At the very least, they should add a caveat to their migration guidelines.

    As for the language switch, I fully agree with your comments. I didn't know there was an app for that too, so I'll definitely try it. Thanks.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    Paul_Steunebrink wrote:

    Transporting color labels between applications via XMP is not reliable because color labels are not standardized as star rating or classification is. The OP could better use a keyword to replace the pick flag in Lightroom.


    Yes. And it doesn't work when the language is English, either. I lost all of my color labels. It might work if you are importing a Lightoom catalog; not sure. Color labels are not recognized when metadata in Lightroom is saved then the image+metadata is imported into Capture One.

    The error, IMHO, is that Capture One said it will work. They did not say it works in specific limited circumstances which may be the case. A case of over promising and under delivering.
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  • OddS.
    NNN637162631975213284 wrote:
    ...so I don't understand why it can't read a color label name in Spanish from Lightroom


    Shame on Adobe if their xmp is intended for information exchange with non-Adobe systems, don't blame Capture One.
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  • Fred Corts
    OddS wrote:
    NNN637162631975213284 wrote:
    ...so I don't understand why it can't read a color label name in Spanish from Lightroom


    Shame on Adobe if their xmp is intended for information exchange with non-Adobe systems, don't blame Capture One.


    I'm not blaming anyone, but if Phase One says color labels can be imported from Lightroom, then that's what should happen. Other apps can read values in Spanish from Lightroom-derived xmp files, so Capture One should too.
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