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dwalkeruk
Participant
December 29, 2019
Question

Lightroom CC: Batch Update Metadata from Filename; or API Access to Lightroom CC?

  • December 29, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 411 views

I'm just in the process of moving over from Apple Photos to Lightroom CC, on Mac and iOS.

 

In one of my recent albums I've got an issue where our wedding photographer stripped all of the metadata, including capture time, from the photos we received.  As a result, the timestamps relate to when she exported them, and they came out in fairly random order - when sorted by date/time, ceremony photos are mixed in with the evening dancing, etc.  The filenames are however sequential, in the right order.

 

I'd like to give my photos a set of timestamps that at least mean they will display in the right order when sorted by date/time, e.g. when I'm viewing them as part of a wider collection.  I can't find any way to do that in Lightroom CC at the moment.  But wondered if there was a way to access the Lightroom Library programmatically - is there an API, automation actions, or similar available?  Or something third party that would allow me to do this?

 

I'm fairly flexible as to exactly how I do it - my starting point would be to just set the photo with filename 0001xxxxxxxx.jpg to time 07:00:00, photo 0002... to 07:00:01, 0003... to 07:00:02, etc...

 

Any tips appreciated!

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1 reply

john beardsworth
Community Expert
john beardsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 29, 2019

There is no API for Cloudy Lightroom, and no other automation.

You'd have to do these metadata changes before importing the files into Cloudy. That might be with Classic Lightroom which has an API (SDK) or with various other apps.

    D
    dwalkerukAuthor
    Participant
    December 30, 2019

    Thanks John. I'll have a think about workarounds.

     

    I'd previously made the correction to those photos in Apple Photos, but that was an early album I transferred over to Lightroom when I was deciding whether or not no make the leap. Perhaps now I've decided to move everything over, I'll delete that album from Lightroom and hope if I migrate my entire Apple Photos Library (rather than just import the originals) it'll bring the updated metadata too!

     

    Thanks for confirming - explains why I couldn't find anything suitable! But I've found searching for tips difficult, as Google etc will bring up results for other versions of Lightroom even when searching for CC, and CC itself is commonly known by various different names (LR Mobile, LR for iPad, LR Creative Cloud, etc)

     

    (Random aside - in these forums the date is showing as Dec 2020 for me!)

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