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

[John R Ellis]

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.

[zifram]

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.

[John R Ellis]

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-separa...

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

[John R Ellis]

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.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

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.

[John R Ellis]

Confirmed this is fixed, thanks.