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:

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

1. Download the plugin: metadata-tagsets-20090310_002.zip
2. 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.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. 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:

1. Select the drop down list showing available tagsets (depicted above).
2. 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.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002)

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According to Scott Kelby I must be either a serial killer or a micro biologist.  Apparently they are the only two types of people who religiously maintain metadata for their photos, but as you might suspect the reality is a little more mundane. 

I keep my metadata up-to-date on all my rated photos for two main reasons:

1. So I can find them later; and
2. To help me grow as a photographer by allowing me to better understand what an image captures and how.  

Applying keywords, IPTC location information and geoencoding (when appropriate) helps me to find my photos later.  Gaining insights into my photography depends more upon captions, ratings,  labels and EXIF data.  My quandary was Lightroom 2 addresses these goals using two separate Library Metadata panel layouts: Location and Default. 

Constantly changing backwards and forwards between these two tagsets (i.e. Metadata panel layouts), or scrolling around the massive All tagset, unnecessarily slows down my workflow.  Fortunately this was a simple issue to resolve as the Lightroom 2 SDK provides a way to define new tagsets.  The result is my newest plugin which provides two additional tagsets for use in the Library module.

The second tagset was added because I found the SDK documentation for tagset development to be  insufficient and (in places) inaccurate.  The LR: All tagset implements most of the fields available in the Metadata panel, so if you are interested in modifying my plugin to better suit your individual workflow you have a working example of most of the fields you can select from.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: metadata-tagsets-20090223_001.zip
2. 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.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. 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:

1. Select the drop down list showing available tagsets.
2. Choose one of the new tagsets listed at the bottom of the list.  For example, the Default (with Location) tagset depicted here.

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2

Related Posts:

• Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002) (11)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)