Participant

Question

Search by autor name: the IPTC data "signature" is not recognized by the search tool

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
June 21, 2021
2 replies
810 views

I try to filter my huge data base by autor name. Since the field was empty, I updated the IPTC data "signature" inside PSE 2020. The right data are now stored in the files, I can see them as metadata within PSE or Windows. But they are not are recognized by the search tool.

I tried anotherway and filled the IPTC data with Windows BEFORE importing the file in PSE 2020. It works fine, the autor name is recognized by the search tool. But that works only for new files.

Is there a way to update the autor name properly AFTER importing the file in PSE 2020? Who can help me?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Y

yoodlethenoodle

Known Participant

A couple of questions related to this:

I have pictures in my collection that I received from other people, so I like to set the Author name in the metadata so that I know who took each of them. But, in Elements Organizer (2021), there does not seem to be any easy way to identify photos that do not have an Author defined. I've tried doing Find > Find by Details (Metadata) > Author. I can find existing authors, but I've tried leaving the it blank, but it won't even execute the search that way. I've also tried putting in " " or ' ', but that doesn't find anything. I've looked in Bridge and can't figure out a way to do it there either.

Also, is there a way to have Organizer automatically write data to the files (like in Lightroom), or do you have to manually do a CTL+W every time? I honestly don't see why you would ever NOT want the metadata written to the file.

MichelBParis

Legend

Also, is there a way to have Organizer automatically write data to the files (like in Lightroom), or do you have to manually do a CTL+W every time? I honestly don't see why you would ever NOT want the metadata written to the file.

By @yoodlethenoodle

No, and for me that would be a horrible default choice. The main idea of using a catalog is to speed up searches and grouping.

Just a situation based on your other request: Finding all items ".NOT. in [your own criteria]". When the organizer has no such function ready, it's often necessary to use a workaround and to assign a temporary keyword for the items matching the criteria. Even with a big library like mine (over 100 000 items) the organizer can perfectly assign, select and finally remove the temporary keyword in a couple of minutes. Imagine the time needed by non cataloged managing softwares to write the keyword into each file or xmp sidecar and to remove it afterward.

So, while it's sensible to write all metadata to files for other purposes: sharing with other people or adding a safety level, setting the option by default would prevent you to take advantage of the speed of the catalog, and in more situations than what you can imagine. Just write the metadata when you choose and by intelligent batches.

As I wrote in my other post, I think that the whole idea of the IPTC sharing solution is not the good one for the normal family and friends sharing, neither is the highly hierachical structure of keywords. There are too many inconsistencies in the way software and camera companies manage those 'standards' as is clearly visible in this forum.

It's not only a difference in your purpose: sharing or managing personally your library, it's also a personal frame of mind for organization. Some rely on their memory, others on associations... Some are happy with a catalog, others want to see 'where' each item is cleanly 'stored'...

To be happy with the organizer and the current lack of common understanding of standards, you'll have to admit that many of your shared metadata are stored in several spaces of the IPTC, several places in the Exif etc.

The Windows Explorer is not the best tool.

The normal keywords and the captions are the most easily shared data. You won't be able to search a big library by reading it entirely for an IPTC field. On the other hand, you'll find in seconds all the files having a word or even a substring of a word included in a catalog caption. Best advice: use meaningful and rich captions as much as you can. Ideal for you, but also when sharing with other people. Captions are the items which are best recognized by most softwares.

Y

yoodlethenoodle

Known Participant

Thank you for the explanation, @MichelBParis, it makes sense. I guess I was thinking that the data would still be in the database for searches and such, but would only be written out to the files when it was changed/updated.

Finding all items ".NOT. in [your own criteria]". When the organizer has no such function ready, it's often necessary to use a workaround and to assign a temporary keyword for the items matching the criteria.

By @MichelBParis

Are you saying to use a temporary keyword to somehow identify photos that don't have an author? Oh, I think I see what you're saying... give it a keyword tag (like NoAuthor), and then search for specific authors, (John Doe), and then remove the tag for all the photos where John Doe is assigned as the author and then whittle it down that way? Am I following your logic correctly? I think that could work for me.

MichelBParis

Legend

Is there a way to update the autor name properly AFTER importing the file in PSE 2020? Who can help me?

By @rened89253009

Select your thumbnails, right click and choose 'update thumbnails'. That updates the database from the files themselves. Now you can search from your catalog.

R

rened89253009Author

Participant

Great!!! It works perfectly. Thanks a lot for your help; it not obvious to find the right command.

I tried before the menu Ctrl+W (enreg. metadonnees/metadata in the french version) and it didn't work, no update of the database. "Update Thumbnails" does the job.

MichelBParis

Legend

Great!!! It works perfectly. Thanks a lot for your help; it not obvious to find the right command.

I tried before the menu Ctrl+W (enreg. metadonnees/metadata in the french version) and it didn't work, no update of the database. "Update Thumbnails" does the job.

By @rened89253009

I think that there are two different worlds which don't meet much:

- Pro and advanced amateurs sharing their work on photo sharing sites or image banks. For them, accurate description and tagging is important, especially IPTC tagging and writing metadata to files;

- most family or scrapbooking users who find the organizer catalog is the most powerful tool for their own library: freedom of organization, very fast searches.

I am in the second category. As such, in 21 years of digital photography, it never occured to me to use IPTC to tag by "authors". The need was there from the beginning, the solution as simple as creating my own custom "Auteurs" tag.

I have always 'written metadata to files' as an additional safety and a way to share with other softwares. Not only third-party ones, but other Adobe ones and older catalog versions which are not backward compatible.

As I see it, Adobe is not interested in providing organizing tools to PSE apart from the catalog itself. In your example, you can see that there are ways to update from and to catalog and file metadata section. They are nowhere documented in details, in particular the 'update thumbnail' feature.

- Ctrl W to write to metadata section

- Update thumbnails to update the catalog from metadata.

I would recommend to users of the first category to use Bridge. Now with PSE2021, the free 'Creative Cloud desktop' platform app is installed automatically (at least for me, others would have to install it themselves). Download the free Bridge and you have a very strong support for metadata management for free.

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