Bulk commit suggested location data to image meta data in Lightroom Classic

[flip838]

Situation: When an image is tagged with GPS coordinates, Lightroom Classic suggests location data which si shown in italic in the respective fields:

Challenge: The data is only shown in the Lightroom interface but not merged into the meta data of the original image.

Solution: I seeked adivce previously and since then, I used the AnyTag plugin. Due to a Lightroom bug, I can only commit the location data to 10-15 images at once which is a pain when you want to tag 1,000 images.

Does anyone have a solution that works?

[dj_paige]

I don't seem to have the same "bug". What is the Lightroom Classic bug? Please describe in detail.

[johnrellis]

@flip838 is referring to this bug, acknowledged by Adobe, where plugins that invoke child programs (e.g. Exiftool) can sometimes crash LR on Intel Macs:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-plugin-crashes-when-a-plug-in-uses-lrtasks-e...

So when flip838 invokes the Any Tag plugin's Commit Locations command on a large batch of photos on their Intel Mac, it will invariably crash LR.

I don't know of any other way of committing that location data so that it no longer shows as italic in the Metadata panel. Absent such a method, a user has to put up with LR's buggy handling of suggested (italic) addresses, where half of LR recognizes them and half doesn't:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-inconsistent-handling-of-suggested-addresses...

[JohanElzenga]

I use Jeffrey Friedl's Geoencoding Support plugin. It commits the location data right away.

[flip838]

@JohanElzenga I installed the Goencoding Support plugin as it was also mentioned on @johnrellis page and it seems to be the only working solution (for my case). I haven't tested the location data of the plugin which is sourced from Google or Open Street Maps and if the quality is good and assigned to the right fields. The location data suggested by Adobe (not sure what the original source is???), was always good for me just with the missing option to bulk commit it to the meta data. I don't understand why Adobe does not offer a native bulk commit solution. In the meantime, I will try out the Geoencoding Support plugin.

[johnrellis]

@flip838: "The location data suggested by Adobe (not sure what the original source is???)"

Google Maps.

[johnrellis]

@flip838: "I don't understand why Adobe does not offer a native bulk commit solution"

If all parts of LR recognized the suggestions , there wouldn't be a need for bulk commit. But when address suggestions were introduced, Adobe botched the implementation, and many parts of LR don't recognize the suggestions. 

Further, when the Lightroom Cloud ecosystem was introduced at the time of Lightroom Classic 7.0, Adobe publicly announced that they were focusing their Lightroom Classic efforts on Develop and image quality, and they've been true to their word.

[flip838]

Then I assume that the data quality of the Geocoding Support plugin should be the same as of Adobe (both sources from Google). I will test.