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jwgillis
Participant
November 6, 2017
Answered

"comment" field

  • November 6, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 706 views

I've received a large cache of artwork JPG files which have substantial text about the artist, title, dates, location, etc. listed in a "comment" field in each jpg.  A variety of image browsers (irfanview, pmview, etc.) can show this comment field, and allow modifying the field.  But when I load any of these jpgs into Lightroom, the info and the field is missing despite the vast pile of IPTC and EXIF and other fields visible in Lightroom.   Am I missing something, or is this "comment" field somehow disregarded by Lightroom?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer johnrellis

    That comment field is the JPEG Comment (COM) segment.  It's not used by many programs anymore, and as you observed, LR doesn't read it.

    However, you could use the free ExifTool to copy the JPEG Comment into the industry-standard caption field XMP:Description, which shows up as Caption in LR.  Here's how you do it for one file:

    exiftool '-xmp:description<comment' Rembrandt.jpg

    You can apply it to a whole folder of JPEGs:

    exiftool '-xmp:description<comment' *.jpg

    If the photos are already imported into your LR catalog, then before you invoke ExifTool, select all of the photos and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File. Then run ExifTool. Then do Metadata > Read Metadata From File.  That will tell LR to read the new metadata fields back into the catalog.

    1 reply

    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    November 7, 2017

    The most efficient way to troubleshoot this is to upload a sample file to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here. Then we can take a look at what's in the file and where it might show up in LR.

    J
    jwgillisAuthor
    Participant
    November 7, 2017

    Excellent idea.  Here is a dropbox link for a typical file with the embedded text in the Comment field.

    Dropbox - Rembrandt.jpg

    J
    jwgillisAuthor
    Participant
    November 7, 2017

    That comment field is the JPEG Comment (COM) segment.  It's not used by many programs anymore, and as you observed, LR doesn't read it.

    However, you could use the free ExifTool to copy the JPEG Comment into the industry-standard caption field XMP:Description, which shows up as Caption in LR.  Here's how you do it for one file:

    exiftool '-xmp:description<comment' Rembrandt.jpg

    You can apply it to a whole folder of JPEGs:

    exiftool '-xmp:description<comment' *.jpg

    If the photos are already imported into your LR catalog, then before you invoke ExifTool, select all of the photos and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File. Then run ExifTool. Then do Metadata > Read Metadata From File.  That will tell LR to read the new metadata fields back into the catalog.


    Thanks so much for clearing up the internal workings of the jpg, and providing a detailed solution!

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