Metadata Editing, Keywords & Filenames
I'm having a really hard time working with Capture One metadata and I can't decide if it's me doing it wrong, or if the tool simply isn't up to the job. I'm coming from The Other RAW Editor (LR) , so bear that in mind when I describe what I'm doing.
I shoot a lot of large people-oriented shoots whilst tethered. Shots may involve just one person, or multiple people.
In LR, I would add the people's names, hierarchically (So beneath 'Performers' if they're on stage, or 'Footballers' if it's a sports function etc) - so if a shot contained 3 people, it would have their names as Keywords and the keywords will exist in a hierarchy.
This works to some extent in Capture One, with autocompletion taking *some* of the pain away from tagging the images as they are shot (Though the 'Recent Keywords' panel in LR is a much better solution - Phase, take note), however it's still a bit fiddly.
Now I hit a problem I can't solve. Say I've taken photos of Andy, Brenda and Charlie. Some of the photos are single, some are doubles. See all photos containing Andy, no problem, hit the "Andy" keyword in the library. Want to see photos that contain both Andy and Charlie? Select both keywords. No problem.
Except I cannot for the life of me figure out how to export images whilst using the keywords as part of the file name. This is really important, as if they're currently EVENT021, EVENT 022 etc, once I export them as PSD for editing, I need to be able to identify who is in which photograph.
I thought about putting the people's names into the IPTC Description field, but that doesn't provide autocompletion or sub selection (So if it contained: "Andy, Charlie" , I can't easily highlight solo or double shots) and typing this in on every shot is simply not possible at the time of shooting.This approach also runs into difficulties with preserving any kind of hierarchy.
I then thought maybe C1 copies PhotoMechanic, and I could put {keywords} into the Description field and let the magic happen. The magic didn't happen.
Currently my only solution is to shoot, apply people's names as keywords while shooting, then load the collection into Photomechanic and use the Metadata tools there to apply the keyword list to the Description field, before re-opening in C1 to do the file export. This is not a sustainable or sane workflow, I really need to solve it within C1.
Anyone got any ideas?
(Also, copying metadata between images seems very clunky, which is adding more fuel to the fire with respect to finding an elegant solution to this)
I shoot a lot of large people-oriented shoots whilst tethered. Shots may involve just one person, or multiple people.
In LR, I would add the people's names, hierarchically (So beneath 'Performers' if they're on stage, or 'Footballers' if it's a sports function etc) - so if a shot contained 3 people, it would have their names as Keywords and the keywords will exist in a hierarchy.
This works to some extent in Capture One, with autocompletion taking *some* of the pain away from tagging the images as they are shot (Though the 'Recent Keywords' panel in LR is a much better solution - Phase, take note), however it's still a bit fiddly.
Now I hit a problem I can't solve. Say I've taken photos of Andy, Brenda and Charlie. Some of the photos are single, some are doubles. See all photos containing Andy, no problem, hit the "Andy" keyword in the library. Want to see photos that contain both Andy and Charlie? Select both keywords. No problem.
Except I cannot for the life of me figure out how to export images whilst using the keywords as part of the file name. This is really important, as if they're currently EVENT021, EVENT 022 etc, once I export them as PSD for editing, I need to be able to identify who is in which photograph.
I thought about putting the people's names into the IPTC Description field, but that doesn't provide autocompletion or sub selection (So if it contained: "Andy, Charlie" , I can't easily highlight solo or double shots) and typing this in on every shot is simply not possible at the time of shooting.This approach also runs into difficulties with preserving any kind of hierarchy.
I then thought maybe C1 copies PhotoMechanic, and I could put {keywords} into the Description field and let the magic happen. The magic didn't happen.
Currently my only solution is to shoot, apply people's names as keywords while shooting, then load the collection into Photomechanic and use the Metadata tools there to apply the keyword list to the Description field, before re-opening in C1 to do the file export. This is not a sustainable or sane workflow, I really need to solve it within C1.
Anyone got any ideas?
(Also, copying metadata between images seems very clunky, which is adding more fuel to the fire with respect to finding an elegant solution to this)
0
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Copying metadata between images:
you can select several images, then select the source of the keywords, then press SHIFT and the double arrow of the keyword tool. It will however copy and replace all keywords.
Or, you can drag/drop images to the desired keyword in the library filter tool. This adds the targeted keyword (incl. hierarchy)
This is however knowledge from v8, keywording has changed a bit in v9...
You can do drag&drop in the FILTERS tool also with IPTC fields, you might have to configure to see such fields in this tool using the button "..." and then menu Show/Hide Filters.
Maybe this helps
Cheers,
BeO0 -
Some of what you want to do can be done with token naming - for any IPTC field you can use a token in the naming to extract from the field to the name - or indeed directory.
Start here for info: http://blog.phaseone.com/how-to-automat ... th-tokens/
There are also some youtubes on the topic in the webinar archive.
Keywords though is not something you can do with tokens due to the complexity of hierarchies and multiple keywords. At least not right now.0 -
Hmm, this is unfortunate and puts me in a really impossible situation with my file handling.
BeO: I did as you suggested, but it did not copy the IPTC Description field. I selected one image and filled out the description. I then selected two more files, highlighted the original so it had the thicker white border, then shift-clicked the double arrow icon in the METADATA panel. Nothing. IPTC Desc field remains blank on the other two images.
Of course this approach is useless when there are multiple people in the images, as it overwrites rather than appends. I don't believe the IPTC Desc field is the right thing to be using here, the Keywords make much more operational sense, however without being able to use the Keywords in any way at all other than selecting and deselecting, they're of no use.
This leaves me in the position of manually copying between IPTC fields (No use, I have 1000's of images to process per shoot) or leaving filenames with vague sequence numbers.
The only thing I can conceive right now, is to shoot the session and keyword the images as I go. Then save the keywords to the files, open the files in Lightroom, batch-rename to a keyword pattern (There is no issue using hierarchical keywords in filenames in Lightroom) before re-importing into C1 to work.
I believe that's what's professionally referred to as a ballache.
The problem is I need to be able to identify, from the filename, which people are in which image without opening it to simplify filing.
Anyone got any further suggestions?0 -
Really I think that this is something to be dealt with at the point of shooting.
I have not used them but I believe there are some applications that specifically address this sort of requirement right at the start of the process.
For practical purposes I think you should simply use whichever product gives you the facilities you need.
To be quite frank if you are doing high volume work to a point where the administrative side of things is paramount to your process and business success you should deal with that side of things before anything else - even image quality.
I have similar subject identification challenges with many of the shoots I do - although with less opportunity for front end control. Realistically I doubt that an extended naming convention would be a sound solution. My keywording requirements (when I apply them) would not obviously lend themselves to file names. I understand the idea but in many ways in more general usage content identification by file name, for me, would be a partial solution at best and a limiting factor at worst.
Obviously we should expect that people will have varying mileages on this.
Grant0 -
Hey Grant,
I'm starting to lean toward what you suggest, that is using a more suitable tool. The irony is that Lightroom's tethering is not as stable as C1's (Which was the reason I purchased C1) however C1 places such restrictions on my workflow that I can't figure out how to make it work.
The current "solution" is to run both applications, capture from C1 into a folder that Lightroom is watching. Obviously this isn't great for both CPU and RAM load, but I've yet to figure out a better approach. I'm going to look into using Nikon Capture for the tethering side of things, as someone has suggested this has lower overheads than C1 - though I've not seen any benchmarks or tests to back this assertion up.
If the search and filter tools in C1 were more developed they might be fit for purpose, but I can't easily filter out images with a supplied comma-separated list of filenames (Commonly supplied by clients), I can't use the keywords in filenames and I can't use the IPTC description field as the autocomplete isn't capable of keeping track of multiple subjects in the frames as they're shot (Comma separating subject names then makes it difficult to select images containing only one subject).
I'm trying to find a workable solution but at this point I'm stumped. Photomechanic can rename files based on IPTC keyword, so long as there is no heirarchy involved. This again generates a 3 step workflow which is more pain.
Right now using flat keywords for the subjects, then using photomechanic to rename the selected files after export works, but it's cumbersome. Maybe if Adobe Bridge wasn't such a trainwreck I could simply browse my files based on their Metadata, but that's not a reality.0 -
[quote="Denyer" wrote:
BeO: I did as you suggested, but it did not copy the IPTC Description field. I selected one image and filled out the description. I then selected two more files, highlighted the original so it had the thicker white border, then shift-clicked the double arrow icon in the METADATA panel. Nothing. IPTC Desc field remains blank on the other two images.
I know it doesn't seem to solve your problem but just to let you know, I verified it again with 9.0.3, and following the steps you described it works for me as it should (all three images have the IPTC description filled identically).
Cheers
BeO0 -
When you out process a jpg or tiff, you can open the file with any application. Just wondering if you can use exiftool commandline application to extract the keywords and save the file with desired file name.
Tough task though to figure out how to do this with exiftool.
cheers0
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