PSE (24) Organizer: Management and display of Keywords and Metadata

Question

Hello , has anyone a good understanding of the way keywords and metadata are managed in PSE Organizer ? Here are my findings and questions: In PSE Organizer (24) , my keywords categories are:  dates, locations structured by sub categories ( I do not use the "location group" of PSE - no GPS data) and eventually multiple categories and subcategories ... Then come the PSE  "persons" category  (that I have organized in groups)  and last, the PSE "events" group..For a given photo, on the right hand side of the screen , all the selected tags come in the right order  (i.e. like the keyword list).However on the bottom of the screen, "events"  (if any) would come first, then"people", then date ,  location, and , last,  the other tags...Despite a different order, nothing very disturbing. However the "people" order  is  surprising :  rather than being sorted by "group" and alphabetic order as displayed on the right side,  the names on the bottom line appear indeed by "people group"  but , within the group,  in "erratic" order; I suspect it could be sorted  by time of creation  of the person tag , but not sure ...  Now, when copying the keywords in the metadata (ctrl W) ,  the result is very disturbing, rendering the possibility  of using them with other tools than PSE Organizer pretty unlikely... Dates, locations, persons tags are in different order from one folder to an other ... Other types of  keywords get incorporated erratically : sometimes inserted between a location subcategory and its location tag , "people"  could be scattered anywhere  ...Do we know the way  keywords are copied  from PSE to the metadata  and why the PSE sequence is not respected ?An other finding is rather disturbing: apparently when you suppress a keyword in PSE and re-copy the metadata in the file, this keyword is not erased in the metadata!  Therefore the  metadata registered in my photo files  would not allow any organization process using an other program than PSE.  My recent topic about "a stand alone Organizer" trigerred discussion about the benefits of copying metadata into the files... and the potential use of "Bridge". Indeed Adobe "Bridge" can apply filter on metadata keyword but developing more sophisticated  organization logics seems impossible in this current state. The only way around would  be to create keywords that would contain "significant" embedded data, allowing to recognize their category despite the erratic sequence. I would like to know  if anyone has a better understanding of this subject and if this a commun problem  or just something I missed . Best regards Alain

Greg_S. · Answer

I think you have a good grasp of the situation, but I am a little confused about what you mean by:

However on the bottom of the screen, "events" (if any) would come first, then"people", then date , location, and , last, the other tags...

Are you talking about how the tags are displayed in the grid in Full Screen View? Or, possibly at the bottom of the Information grid? Or somewhere else?

I don't see how the order of display would make any difference to a user, except apparently in your case, where you want to use some external software to manage the data. And that's where the real issue belongs. As I think I may have already told you, there is no universal standard for how metadata is treated by software. So the fact that metadata is displayed in a certain field in one program may be entirely different in another. Yes, there have been moves by various governing bodies to standardize the process, but we are not yet there. (See, for example, this article from the IPTC.)

You may not be aware of the following feature in Elements. In Edit>Preferences>Keyword Tags and Albums, you can toggle between Alphabetical and Manual order for a number of organizational lists:

If you choose manual order, you can click and drag items in the hierarchy to your desired order. But there are limitations. For example, you cannot move a person's keyword tag name to the system People category.

I don't know the answer to your question about items that you identify as being in erratic order, but I suspect the order is governed by the order of creation since new tags, for example, will presumably first be first placed in a table and the order of presentation will be made according to the preferences dialog.

I am also curious why you are using dates as keyword tags. I have recently had a strange experience where I wrote metadata to a large group of files and then imported those files to a new catalog. I accepted the option to import all keyword tags to the new catalog. Without any intention on my part, a number of Imported keyword tags were dates. I have never intentionally created a date keyword tag. Although I have not yet explored the issue, I am wondering whether this is a bug. (A number of the imported keyword tags also appear to be smart tags which should not have been included as far as I know. Again, I haven't investigated this yet.)

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