Keyword tagging - can it be automated through LR called from Powershell?

Question

I have tens of thousands of scanned photos that don't have digital metadata. I have manually organized them into thousands of date-specific folders with sequential date-specific filenames like 20170101-New_Years_Party-001.jpg and 20170101-New_Years_Party-002.jpg, etc.

I want to catalog these photos with a number of custom keywords (tags) beyond the typical date and location categories (like subject, activity, event, person name, media type, etc.).

I wrote a Powershell-driven script utility to call EXIFTOOL to set some of the date metadata value in the JPG files, but what I really need is a way to programatically define numerous keywords on a batch of image files at one time via LR so I can filter and search based on a complex set of boolean criteria (like "all photos from 1995 through 1997 for Christmas and Halloween events in Chicago with Fred Smith or Amy Jones").

Is there a programming interface / API called via PowerShell that can show/set/change the keywords?

And in a related topic.... Is there any way to run a report on a batch of image files that will list all the keywords assigned to a file? For example: I'd like to run a report of a folder of photos to see what keywords are or are not defined on the photos.

Thanks in advance,

Sailor Guy

john beardsworth · Accepted Answer

SailorGuy57 wroteIs there a programming interface / API called via PowerShell that can show/set/change the keywords?It's called the SDK , is in Lua, and there's a forum here. It accepts http calls in the format lightroom://pluginname?args which can be interpreted by your Lua code (you have to define a URLHandler), so your Powershell scripts would need to generate these calls.To be frank, if you don't want to learn Lua you'd be better off learning how to use Lightroom better - its keywording tools are pretty powerful and efficient. Providing you have entered the metadata, the Library Filter can handle "all photos from 1995 through 1997 for Christmas and Halloween events in Chicago with Fred Smith or Amy Jones" and more (you could continue to enter dates in Exiftool if you want - also see this).Stay away from the SQL - that's why there's an SDK.

johnrellis · Answer

I wrote a Powershell-driven script utility to call EXIFTOOL to set some of the date metadata value in the JPG files, but what I really need is a way to programatically define numerous keywords on a batch of image files at one time via LR so I can filter and search based on a complex set of boolean criteria (like "all photos from 1995 through 1997 for Christmas and Halloween events in Chicago with Fred Smith or Amy Jones").
...
For example: I'd like to run a report of a folder of photos to see what keywords are or are not defined on the photos.

Between your Powershell/Exiftool script and the capabilities of LR, from what you've said, you've got the bases covered. For example, to see what keywords are or are not assigned to the photos of a folder, select the folder as a source, Then select all the photos in the folder. In the Keywording panel, you'll see all the keywords of those photos, with the ones that appear on some but not all being starred.

If you give a little more detail about in particular LR can't do for you, then we can be more specific about suggestions.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded