Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002)
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Update: A newer version of this plugin is now available. |
My Metadata Tagset plugin for Lightroom 2 has been updated. The new version contains additional tagsets to help document the metadata fields available, including a number of those available in popular third party plugins.
The plugin now includes six additional tagsets for use in the Library module:
| Default (With Location) | Extends the standard ‘Default‘ tagset with additional IPTC location fields |
| Location (with Jeffrey’s GPS Metadata) [new] | Extends the standard ‘Location" tagset with Jeffrey Friedl’s plugin fields |
| LR: All | A copy of the standard ‘All’ tagset, to demonstrate available fields. |
| LR: SDK [new] | Example of all metadata fields currently documented by the LR 2.0 SDK |
| Miscellaneous Plugin [new] | List of known metadata fields implemented by third party plugin developers |
| Undocumented [new] | Lists metadata fields found to work within LR2, but aren’t documented as part of the SDK |
For those interested in writing their own tagsets, the ‘LR: All’, ‘Miscellaneous Plugin’ and ‘Undocumented’ tagsets are the most useful for documentation purposes. Even if you shy away from using undocumented features it is worth reading the last section of the ‘Undocumented’ tagset because it demonstrates some of the ways to control tagset field formatting. Please note ‘LR: SDK’ is not particularly useful at the moment, other than to demonstrate SDK documentation issues which I’m currently discussing with the Adobe developers.
With this release I now have all of the main features I need for my own purposes, and have provided sample code for everything I’ve found out about tagset metadata fields and formatting techniques. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other features that should be added.
Installation
- Download the plugin: Latest Metadata Tagsets zip
- Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file. This should create a sub-directory called metadata-tagsets.lrplugin.
- Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
- Press the Add button, select the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
- The plugin is now installed and enabled. Press Done.
Usage
When you open the Library module and display the right panel, a Metadata section is shown towards the bottom of the panel. To use the new features:
- Select the drop down list showing available tagsets (depicted above).
- Choose one of the new tagsets at the bottom of the list. For example, the Default (with Location) tagset.
I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.
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In: Howto, Project, Software · Tagged with: code, lightroom, lr2, metadata, plugin, workflow
I haven’t had a chance to look at the SDK yet… but maybe you can tell me… is there an easy method for automating metadata entry? I have about 4k pics on Flickr that are already tagged and geolocated… I’d love to be able to bring that data in.
Hi Mark,
The part of the SDK I’m using is intended for manual entry or viewing of metadata in the Library module. So it won’t be useful for addressing this problem.
If you redownload the images from Flickr I suspect the metadata will become embedded in the files and Lightroom will recognise that data. Easiest way to check that theory is download a file and import it into Lightroom. I’m not really a Flickr user otherwise I would try it right now.
If you are trying to use files already on your PC, and somehow synchronise their metadata with Flickr, that is a much more difficult problem. Lightroom doesn’t have any inherent capability to support that and you would need to search for a third party tool to help with that process.
Matt
Mark,
Check out LR/Transporter from Timothy Armes. I haven’t used it yet but it has the ability to move metadata in and out of Lightroom, including importing data from a CSV file.
http://www.timothyarmes.com/lrtransporter.php?PHPSESSID=cc65414bce55822e54ab1800ffe35966
I assume that your images in Flickr are not the original size, resolution, etc. and that therefore Matt’s suggestion isn’t idial for you.
So I suspect you will have to do a multistep process:
1. download your images from Flickr
2. importing them into Lightroom
3. use transporter to export the metdata from the Flickr pics to a CSV file
4. use transporter to import the metadata back into Lightroom for the originals
There’s another step in there to ensure that the file names from the flikr pics and the originals will sync up, but I’m not exactly sure how you do that…
Good luck!
Look into Jeffery’s Flickr export plug it. It has the ability to compare capture dates of images in your library to those on Flickr and then set his metadata field to show it as a Flickr upload.
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/flickr
Bob
@Bob, Good suggestion. Jeffrey’s plugins have all sorts of great features so it is worth checking his Flickr one to see if it can be used for full metadata synching instead of that single field.
@Sean, as you have noted the biggest problem could end up being the Flickr and local files have different file names making it difficult to match the original and online copies. If you can work around this then Transporter could be a good option. Otherwise Mark could remove a layer of complexity but performing this whole task outside of Lightroom using ExifTool ( http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ ). Granted the ExifTool syntax can be quite intricate but it is the only tool I know of that might be able to work around file naming mismatch issues.
@Mark, Unless Jeffrey’s Flickr plugin can sync the metadata for you I’d suggest you keep Lightroom out of the equation. It (with Transporter’s assistance) wouldn’t be acting as anything other than a glorified UI for ExifTool. This is really a “Flickr metadata to local files” type of problem, with Lightroom picking up the metadata from the files when it imports them. Googling “flickr metadata download” found the following tool: http://www.codeplex.com/FlickrMetadataSynchr . If you are a Windows user then it looks like it could be the answer you are looking for.
That’s true, but he has not provided a way to download the metadata from Flickr and back into Lightroom…
@Matt, Yeah, I found exiftool shortly after I posted my comment. I think you are right that it is the way to go…
when you say “token”, do you mean “metadata field?”
I keep picking up this site in searches for using tokens to automate data entry in the lightroom metadata template or sync metadata form.
What I want to do is to use a token Eg. {filenamebase} (taken from PhotoMechanic) to enter the filename of the image into the Title field.
Your usage of the word conflicts with the adobe description, Friedl’s description and countless others. Be great if you could clarify and save people wasting their time. BTW great looking plugin! Kind regards.
@Adrian, I’m sure I had a good reason for calling it this when I posted just can’t remember what that was. Will change it when I get a chance.
Can’t see the downloaded file, metadata-tagsets.lrplugin, when I try to install the plug-in file per the directions here, so I get an installation error. Where should I be permanently storing your plug-in file?
@John, After you download the file you need to unzip it using your preferred zip program. When unzipping the file you need to make sure the “create folders” option (or equivalent) is selected and the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory will be created when unzipping the file. This directory is what you need to ask the Plug-in Manager to Add when installing. You can store that directory where ever you want on the hard drive, just don’t move it or you will need to go through the Plug-In Manager Add step again.
Flickr is really a great way to share photos on the net, the photo resizing feature of Flickr is what i like`,”