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johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
April 24, 2022

P: Preference Treat dot/slash As A Keyword Separator doesn't work on import

  • April 24, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 2587 views

The Preference options File Handling > Treat dot/slash As A Keyword Separator doesn't work on import, though it does work with the menu command Metadata > Read Metadata From File.  To reproduce:

 

1. In Preferences > File Handling, set the options Treat dot/slash As A Keyword Separator.

 

2. Import the two attached files slash.jpg and dot.jpg. They contain the following metadata fields:

 

$ exiftool -a -G -xmp:subject -iptc:keywords -xmp:hierarchicalsubject dot.jpg slash.jpg 
======== dot.jpg
[XMP]  Subject  : A.B.C
[IPTC] Keywords : A.B.C
======== slash.jpg
[XMP]  Subject  : A/B/C
[IPTC] Keywords : A/B/C

 

 

3. Observe the following incorrect keywords that were created and added to the imported photos:

 

4. Select the two photos and do Metadata > Read Metadata From File.

 

5. Observe the photos now have the correct hierarchical keyword A > B > C applied:

 

Tested on LR 11.3.1 / Mac OS 11.6.2.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    johnrellis
    johnrellisAuthor
    Legend
    February 15, 2023

    Confirmed this is fixed, thanks.

      Rikk Flohr_Photography
      Community Manager
      Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      February 14, 2023

      Greetings all,

       

      Updates for Adobe Photography products have been released.  The February 2023  updates contain a fix for this issue. 

      If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

      Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

       

      Thank you for your patience.

      Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
        johnrellis
        johnrellisAuthor
        Legend
        April 24, 2022

        A workaround:

         

        1. Set the option Preferences > File Handling > Treat slash As A Keyword Separator.

         

        2. Import the files into LR.

         

        3. Select all the newly imported files and do the menu command Metadata > Read Metadata From Files.

         

        4. Do the command Metadata > Purge Unused Keywords, which will remove all the keywords that aren't assigned to any photos.  Be careful here: If you already have a "controlled vocabulary" in the catalog with a carefully curated hierarchy, and some of the keywords in that hierarchy are currently unused, then don't give this command!  Instead, you'll have to manually remove the top-level keywords containing "/" that were added incorrectly by Import.

        zifram
        zifram
        Participant
        April 24, 2022

        When importing a keyword containing a slash character, there is normaly an option which tells Lightroom to handle it as a hierarchy, in the same way as it does it for ">" or "|" separators.

        This option can be activated through : Edit>Preferences>File Handling  - Reading Metadata : Treat "/" as keyword separator.

        This worked perfectly up to Lightroom CC 2015, and does not work anymore for later versions, although the possibility is still displayed.

        I need to migrate to Lightroom about 30 000 with all the metadata, but I need to preserve the hierarchy of keywords.

        johnrellis
        johnrellisAuthor
        Legend
        April 24, 2022

        I hadn't used that option since LR 3 when I migrated to LR, but I too see that it is broken.  I filed a bug report here:

        https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/preference-treat-dot-slash-as-a-keyword-separator-doesn-t-work-on-import/idi-p/12901023

         

        Please add details about how this affects you to the bug report and click Upvote in the upper-right corner.

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