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ljnunez85
Participating Frequently
December 6, 2017
Answered

changing UPPER to lowercase keywords in Bridge or Lightroom

  • December 6, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 4838 views

Hello,

Apologies if this has been covered, but I'm new and somewhat on a deadline.

I have a batch of about 1,000 images for work that have been tagged with a keyword and then an ID number. They are currently in uppercase, but I need them in lowercase. The keyword and the ID number are also in quotations (to qualify them as a single keyword together).

Example:

current keyword, including quotation marks:

"BLSSI.COM_PERSON_ID=964820"

ideal:

"blssi.com_person_id=964820"

If it weren't for the quotation marks, I think I could figure out how to batch-rename them, but since they are in quotation marks, it makes for every file (which all have different numbers at the end) being its own, separate keyword. Does that make sense? I'm looking for a way to just change the letters within the quotation marks to lower case instead of upper case.

Is there any hope for me? I can also work in Lightroom, but I'm not savvy with scripts or coding. I'm on a Mac with Bridge 2017 and Lightroom CC (I can upgrade if need be, too).

thanks

Laura

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Stephen Marsh

Hi Laura, yes there is hope!

I don’t have time to post the full solution now, however I’ll try to come back to you with an ExifTool example.

With luck somebody will post some script code for Bridge or Photoshop.

2 replies

L
ljnunez85Author
Participating Frequently
December 19, 2017

Brilliant! This does work. I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to options for fixing these keywords now. Thank you (both!) again so much, and hey, happy holidays in your corner of the world!

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 20, 2017

Not a problem Laura, please mark SuperMerlin’s reply #10 as the correct answer, thanks!

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
December 6, 2017

Hi Laura, yes there is hope!

I don’t have time to post the full solution now, however I’ll try to come back to you with an ExifTool example.

With luck somebody will post some script code for Bridge or Photoshop.

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 7, 2017

You will need to download and install ExifTool:

 

ExifTool

 

Installation instructions here:

 

Installing ExifTool

 

ExifTool For Dummies

 

Getting started: Command-line ExifTool in Windows

 

______________________

 

The Mac OS CLI code:

 

exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/username/Desktop/my file.jpg'

 

or

 

exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/username/Desktop/my folder'

 

 

The Win OS CLI code is the same, however you would change the single straight quote marks ‘ to double straight quote marks “ and the path to the file or folder would of course be your Windows formatted path. Ensure that copy/paste does not change the quote marks from straight to curly!

 

I’ll try to post an animated screenshot later, work on copies of your original files. These commands will create a duplicate of the original file anyway, adding an _original to the original image filename while leaving the processed file named as per the original… It is also possible to turn of the safe duplicate feature, and to process files in sub folders under the main top level input folder, and to ignore certain file types or only process certain file types etc.

L
ljnunez85Author
Participating Frequently
December 8, 2017

Hi Stephen,

I've read and re-read some of the links you sent me, and the animation was very helpful. I think I have a basic, elemental grasp on this process…

I installed ExifTool and opened Terminal. I have a folder called “test” on my desktop with copies of 10 jpgs to test. I pasted the following into the blank Terminal window (from a plaintext editor) :

exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/lnunez/Desktop/test'

And made sure all the quotation marks remained straight. I then dragged the actual “test” folder into the Terminal window, hit enter, and it gave me this message:

Last login: Fri Dec  8 10:10:24 on ttys001

lnunez-imac:~ lnunez$ exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/lnunez/Desktop/test'/Users/lnunez/Desktop/test

Error: error opening file - /Users/lnunez/Desktop/test/Users/lnunez/Desktop/test

    0 image files updated

    1 files weren't updated due to errors

lnunez-imac:~ lnunez$

So it seems like I did something right, but then something went wrong somewhere. I also tried it with just one file, like this:

exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/lnunez/Desktop/AHAP000_PW225_H_34.jpg'

dragged that jpg into the window and hit enter, which gave me this error message:

Last login: Fri Dec  8 10:10:49 on ttys001

lnunez-imac:~ lnunez$ exiftool -api 'Filter=tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/' -TagsFromFile @ -subject '/Users/lnunez/Desktop/AHAP000_PW225_H_34.jpg'/Users/lnunez/Desktop/AHAP000_PW225_H_34.JPG

Error: error opening file - /Users/lnunez/Desktop/AHAP000_PW225_H_34.jpg/Users/lnunez/Desktop/AHAP000_PW225_H_34.JPG

    0 image files updated

    1 files weren't updated due to errors

lnunez-imac:~ lnunez$

Can you spot if and where I went wrong? I know the filenames are funky; they are sent to us this way… I hope that is not the cause of the problem.

thank you!


Also, does this change all keywords from all caps to all lowercase? Because I don't think that would be ideal. I am just trying to change one keyword. Which is frustrating, since this sounds so promising.

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