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Participant
April 21, 2023
Question

How do I set variable metadata fields in templates?

  • April 21, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 468 views

In PhotoMechanic I am able to set a custom variable for the year in my copyright notice in my IPTC metadata fields. It pulls the year the photo was taken and sets that as the copyright year. Is there a way to do this in Lightroom Classic as well? I know the workaround to Smart Filter by year, then bulk apply. I want to do it on import though for future photos. Thanks!

2 replies

Participant
June 7, 2025

Bringing back this thread. I've wanted this feature for quite some time as I'm also a longtime PhotoMechanic user. Their IPTC management is robust and is the main reason it's still the most important part of my workflow. I'd like to see the variable metadata fields added as a feature in future Lightroom updates. It's become more important to my workflow as Sony tethering has finally been added and I skip the PhotoMechanic portion of the workflow. I'm sure there are plenty of users who could make the most of this

 

johnrellis
Genius
April 23, 2023

There's no way to do this on import. You could use the Write Data Field command of the Bag-o-Goodies plugin to set Copyright to contain the year of the capture date for an entire batch of photos.