IPTC to multiple images
Hi,
there are some old posts on this topic, but so far no answer/solution.
I have shot images from various places and would like to put those information in the IPTC. I can't do so when importing new images (no way to select those fields) and amending it afterwards would require to type the data in for every single image.
I have "edit all selected" turned on. I select eg. 10 images, apply the IPC change and only the first selected image has the changes applied. For all others the value remains empty.
That's supposed to be such a basic function and has been reported for years but no one seems to bother. Any solutions? Amending it manually or copy/paste to every single image is not an solution for more than 10.000 images
Philipp
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For what reason ever, the metadata is somehow handed differently while copying adjustments.
I could do the following: Changing the IPCT data / metadata for one variant, selecting all other variants that should be enhanced, have 'edit all selected' turned on and then - select the metadata in the adjustment tab for being copied at all.
Metadata is NOT selected to be copied with copy/paste automatically - despite the selection 'adjusted w/o composition'.
That works for me (Win 10, CO 21.0).
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Philipp,
If you have a controlled Import approach to loading new images in sets that share common IPTC information you COULD set up a Preset(s) or Style(s) to be added to the images as part of the Import process.
For example I have one set up for copyright related information. To do so makes sense as that information is required for every image.
If you have a standard shoot in a studio or at an event or, possibly, at a location, and there are enough images with a specific set of fields that can be preset to justify a preset or style approach it might make sense to import one image, make the entries, create the presets or style, add them to the import instructions and then import the rest of the images.
However I am not convinced that this saves a slot of effort in most cases. Mass processing after import is quite slick and the chances are that variable needs mean that not many IPTC field could be mass populated at time of import in a way that is more effective than doing the same thing after import.
The best option may be to use the Metadata tool, make the entries for one image, make sure you have all related images requiring the same entries selected and then used the tools copy and paste feature to copy to all of them.
This makes sense good sense when a lot of files have the same information required.
For example if I am shooting at an event the Event details, location details (probably) and maybe some other fields are likely to be consistent for the entire event and all images. So I select all images, add the details that apply to all, check they are correct, then copy and paste using the tool. There may be 6000 images updated that way in a few seconds.
Where there are sub-sets of images that require the same IPTC data I will then select those, add the data to one and copy the to the rest.
At some point the selection will probably become more specific. I can still do the same thing OR it may be quicker to simply work on the edits and add IPTC details to the first image that will have information I wish to share with other images then find the other images and copy and paste at that time.
Realistically things tend to be more granular than that as one splits the images into ever smaller sub-seats of shared IPTC values.
Sometimes, rather than using the metadata tool and copy-pasting, I will simply keep the filter tool open and make sure I have the IPTC fields I want to use selected as filters. I can then select all of the images that I wish to populate with data for a particular field, make sore the "Edit all Selected" option is active, and drag the selection to the field required. That is an alternative approach to copy and paste. It's not necessarily better not worse. Just an alternative.
I find it particularly useful for Keywords but using it for wider IPTC requirements at the same time makes sense.
My guess at the rationale behind the approach is that there are some data that are simply to apply en masse to a potentially large number of records immediately as one edits. Ratings and colour tags, for example, are simple single data item selections with a very low computing overhead to applying changes.
Some other edits are similarly simple. Add a numeric value of 1 to an existing value for example.
For text fields - most of the IPTC data are text fields into which there is potential to write a lot of text - the idea of writing a series of typed characters (and typing corrections) into several hundred or several thousand records at at the same time does not make for good processing. It's better, in principle, to add the text to one image, make sure it is correct, and then copy to the rest.
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Thanks for the long and extensive post.
I am currently new to Capture One and switched from LR6 . I am trying to figure out how to organize my images best. I used to have folders for every "event", but that made it hard to search for specific images (eg. having 3 folders from 3 different visits to the same place and not knowing when I shot the image I am looking for). I was thinking by adding location I could speed that up.
I would have used "location" in different ways to help identify images.
1) same address, different locations - client shooting as his premise (address) and using "office", "Parking lot", etc as location
2) going for vacation to Location "West Coast" and add the cities where the pictures where taken.
But location is hierarchical and in theses cases filtering would not help. Eg. I can't look for all "office" shots if the customer has two premises with different addresses. And also can't filter all "West Coast" images, as these are stored under different cities in the tree structure.
Library and filtering is also quite basic in C1 as far as I could tell. I can only see images in a specific folder, couldn't find the option to also include the subfolders (eg. Folder "West Coast" with all images in subfolders "SF" and "LA")
Most disappointing ist that I can only use one filter at once. Unless I go to the advanced filter menu where I have to do everything manually - not very fast and not flexible at all. Eg no easy way to show all images taken in a specific month.
Not regretting having switched, but definitely not paying for an upgrade if this feature is not severely improved.
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Philipp,
You can use multiple filters.
You may also find it useful to use Keywords.
Plus if you set up advanced filters you can save them as presets for reuse.
And of course you have Smart Albums which are, at their heart, filters to which you can add more filters at runtime.
If you open the Filters tool (Either in the Library Tab, as a floating tool or wherever else in the tool tabs you may choose to include it) you should see some default filters. These are commonly used filters Like Rating, coloour tag, Date (cascaded into Year, Month, Day), Keywords and "Places". "Places" is a concatenation of Country, State, City and Location by default.
Clicking the radio button next to any value selects only images with that value.
You can select multiple values across multiple filter fields by use the Ctrl modifier key.
To see all of the metadata data fields for which filter values (if there are any values n the fields) are pre-prepared click the 3 dots icon on the top right of the Tool title bar and then "Show/Hide filters ..."
You can create multiple filter selections and then open the Advanced filters feature in the Search window and the already active filters will be carried over onto the Search with the option to add more search criteria to refine the results.
There is more - like setting And/Or preferences for the search - but that may be enough to cover at this point.
The thing about a Catalog (and indeed a Session should you consider that option for event work) is that the computer does not care at all whether an image is in specific folder. Folders, like traditional office filing cabinets, are limiting for searches so computers can ignore them. Indeed they do not really exist.
I don't use catalogs in anger. I use sessions for event shoots. I can see all images (even when they are notionally included in what we humans think of as folders, by viewing "All images" and filtering as required. I can also select on specific folder if I have deployed that structure or if certain groupings have been created as part of the workflow.
On output processing I do tend to use "folders" simply because it makes grouping and selection of the file contents easier for delivery in the majority of cases related to bulk sets of images. This is especially useful for quick delivery of results.
However, with proper metadata included in the output it is less important in the long term. Comprehensive metadata in output files also allows other applications to search for specific images. So one might keep a comprehensive (but small in size) Catalog based on contents that are relatively low resolution jpg files but good enough to show clients what they might expect to see.
Of course on that basis the output files would also be searchable using Windows file searching facilities. In that case (or in the case if my NAS which has its own indexing and searching systems) I have multiple options for searching for specific images when required and they are completely independent of C1. If you might at some point use a e-commerce sort of solution to distribute your even output having that metadata in the output files probably makes sense. Thus the folder concept becomes a little redundant at the end of the process.
Folders - at the system level - still have a place if your images are being used and editing using multiple applications. If they are you would likely be using "Referenced" image files in a catalog situation and that is very similar to a Session concept. It will naturally lead one to look at making the metadata values do the work and that in turn tends to lend itself to working with good, comprehensive metadata in preference to (but not the exclusion of) specific folder structures.
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I have now worked some time to figure out ways to use C1 to organize my pictures. After consultation of youtube (look for C1 webinar sessions) and a lot of tedious work, I am almost done, but still can't use the library the way I would expect it to work.
Most useful to organize tags is the keyword library, because you can group keywords into a hierarchy and also use them several times in different hierarchies. That has one key benefits
you add several key words at the same time and have matching key wordseg: adding #LA also adds "US" "West Coast" and "California"
I can also add words that have several meanings in separate groups to avoid confusion. Eg. put "Paris" in "Europe - France" as well as in "US - Texas" and don't have to take care of the difference between the colour "orange" and the fruit "Orange". Now it's "Colour - orange" and "Fruit - Orange". No more upper case/lower case chaos.
If you start from scratch - hard enough, but there are downloads online (LR downloads should work for C1 acc. to the Webinar). Just think about a good structure.
Having to put all existing keywords - 500+ in my case - into groups is tedious. On the positive side I could correct some typos and streamline the keywords. My Basic structure is:
Country
Animal
Plant
Location
Activity
Event
People
Colour
Food
Season
Weather
itemMany keywords are still in no category and I am open for suggestions on the basic structure and reducing/expanding it.
But the next big problem is now, showing only images with a specific keyword. I can add free text in the search box and the images will be selected based on that. But the list of keywords remains unchanged. To select a specific keyword I have to know exactly where it is in the structure.
eg. Paris, Texas. If I know that I was in the city of paris in the US, but can't remember which state it was, I do have to look in several US states to figure it out. Just "Paris" will also show all images from France.
Would be great if there was a way to search for keywords to click them afterwards to select images.Back to the #Orange vs #orange example. I have to knwo whether #Orange is listed under "Food - Fruit" or in the "Plant" section. The search field is not case sensitive and it doesn't matter if I look for #orange or #Orange. Images with both tags will be shown.
And also combinations are hard, as I don't see which keyword combinations are possible. As I said, searching keeps the other parameters unchanged.
entering "Paris" and "orange" will show all images from "Paris, France", "Paris, Texas", the colour "orange" and the fruit "Orange"
eg. a Spanish Orange orchard when all I was looking for is an orange building in Paris, Texas.
FrustratingExpending/reducing the structure is also a lot of clicking. There is no obvious way to reduce all. I now have 500+ keywords in 500+ lines, but not sorted alphabetically. That's a lot of scrolling. Reducing all would help a lot.
Having written all this - it only applies if you do not have a good structure in your file system. Luckily I have. If I select a specific folder (eg. from my US trip) I only get the key words shown that are in that folder. I can now scroll down a way smaller list of keywords and eg. go to the Country section and only have US states and the US cities shown there.
BUT C1 ignores files in subfolders. That makes it hard to use the folder structure if you are not sure where the image is stored or want to search in more than just one folder.
eg. searching all folders that contain vacation pictures. Even if I had a folder "vacation" with each vacation as a subfolder, I had to search each individual folder. If I put all images in the "vacation" folder with no subfolder, the keyword list gets way to long to be helpful.To sum up my issues where I would need your help/advise and/or the C1 team to work on improvements:
* reduce/expand keywords at once
* allow to switch between "only active folder" and "include subfolders"
* keyword search function applied to keyword list as well (only show keywords that match the search criteria) and enable to select it
* selected keywords on top of the list to make it easier to remove a single keyword (similar to the "x" to remove all selected)If there are any other suggestions as to how use key words and folder structure to get to similar results...
I know there are sessions and smart albums and such things, but the also don't help. At least not, as long as a smart Album cannot contain a filter for a folder and subfolder - eg. smart album contains all images from folder "vacation" and all subfolders"
Unfortunately organizing pictures with C1 is hard and almost impossible if you want a a quick and easy workflow.
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In theory, the folder and subfolder construct is an unnecessary over-complication for a database with extensive selection and filtering fields.
The potential for one grouping folder for a specific subject to be part of many different subject groupings is likely high - especially if one has such structured needs.
(If one does not have such structured needs the problem is likely not a problem.)
The basic solution is to provide grouping mechanisms that will select any images that fit the folder>sub-folders model. Then the folders become irrelevant (unless shared with other applications that are unable to work the same way.)
What would be your subfolders under "Vacation".
Are all of the images in those folders tagged as "vacation" shots (no matter which vacation they relate to)?
Edit to add:
If using catalogs have looked at Project and Group collections for grouping folders?
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Hi,
I use folders for several reasons. Main ones
- Lightroom could handle them and so I used them for years now
- I use different drives on my PC with different backup routines
- I use folder names to name the exported images to easily identify my jpgs
I usually use only tags that describe what is in the image or where I took the shot (as IPTC can't be added to multiple images).
As described above, the keyword search is a pain in the ass and no use for a fast and easy search through all my images. And that with only 500+ keywords, if I would include generic terms such as "vacation" that would make it even worse.
Without folder names it would be also a lot of manual work to name my jpgs on exporting. Thus Capture One makes good use of the folder structure and should just expand the use.
I think it would help if smart albums can add a filter on folder. I could - to keep the example - make a smart album to include all images from the folder "vacation" (and all subfolders) and use keywords on the smart album. That would be a workaround until the catalogue can fully handle folders.
Or improve the handling of keywords
- allow to search for a keyword to select it
- after selecting one keyword only show possible combinations for the second selection
- allow search for non-available combination, but show that there are none
There are several ways to accomplish what I am looking for, but each one of these is blocked by some C1 limitation.
And honestly - I don't want to have to reorganize my complete workflow just to compensate for what C1 can't handle. Especially if it is not just "different", but increasing complexity and workload. But I kind of feared that would happen as reviews always pointed out the image library function in C1 is limited and no match for Lightroom.
But thanks for your input and effort!
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Phillip,
There is nothing stopping people mass updating IPTC fields when that suits their needs. The only safety constraint is that one needs to populate one image with the appropriate entries in the fields required and then copy to the rest in a batch of selected images. One small step.
The question of finding output processed images in whatever folder names you choose to process them to is an entirely different matter. The naming is easy. The difference in philosophy is, perhaps, that I do not want to treat output images as editable images in C1 as a default situation. To me that would simply be unnecessary clutter.
However, using the output images in a different catalog (even if, like me, one's main processing is undertaken using sessions) could make sense.
That said, if the output files have useful and complete Metadata included any search system can find them. Even Windows.
One of the joys of relational databases and the use of language is that what we think of as useful words of identification are often not much more than noise that gets in the way of finding what we are looking for. For example in a business system environment I helped people implement some years ago a lot of searches might use the word "Contract" looking for information about issues with Contract terms throughout the extensive category and text based data. Very logical to do so but because the entire business system was built around contracted terms and conditions using the word "contract" as a free text search term would select about 90% of all records and the remaining 10% were probably just useless records anyway (all databases have something like a 10% redundancy of useless data - more like 20% were names and addresses are involved).
I ran some text analysis for word counts and discovered about 7000 "words" or usable acronyms of which about 20% were so commonly used as to be useless and 79.5% were so rare (or inappropriate or typos) as to be useless for search purposes. The remaining .5% (about 300 words, maybe 500 if stretching the meaning of the word "useful") were actually useful for discovering information for a search need.
In that case the records were categorised by software module (the equivalent of a folder although not a folder) and therefore the function of the module. However since the modules were fully interoperative such an artificial "barrier" was not often a useful constraint and did not usually help any search undertaken. Fortunately the system accessed all information as a complete database for users to access even though the data files were independent rather than a relational database.
What relational databases allow is the option to have a document (an image in this case) filed in more than one "filing drawer" and more than one "filing cabinet" at the same time.
It's not really what we are used to from the physical world requirement of everyday life but anyone growing up with Google, etc. as part of their daily lives will probably just expect to find stuff filed for them and appearing no matter where an app or system may have dumped the files. Think "Gallery" on a mobile device that is photo aware.
I'm not sure what you are seeing in Keywords but your request for improved handling starts with
"allow to search for a keyword to select it".
I don't think one needs to be that precise when searching but you can always use the "filter (by Keyword, or whatever) the selection needs" first before seeking to refine the search if required. (For me that would only work for original files and their variant edits because I do not include output files in my C1 editable images. But that's fine since the output files, wherever they are, will usually contain enough metadata to make them discoverable by any generic search engine. Windows built-in search for example. Or, in the case of my NAS, let its indexing system build an index of files stored within it.
Of course, there is a greater challenge involved when using multiple systems having different facilities. One of the reasons that I try to make things usable for searching in WIndow, NAS, etc. is that the results should then be independent of any system (or most systems) and portable at the file (image) level across all platforms that can make use of file metadata. It's an attempt at future-proofing for posterity.
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