Extract the name of a collection for further use.

[joachims25232702]

Is there any known method that would allow the name of a collection to be exported, aiming at reusing it in a Metadata field or as keyword?

It seems that the collection name is not a conventional Metadata item nor can it be filtered with LR's internal methods (sure, it can be searched for). So what is it then and where can it be found? The collection name is uploaded to LR CC, so it must be found "somewhere".

(I belive this question has been unanswered in the past years, time to try it again...)

[dj_paige]

How to do this? Manually!

Or use keywords to begin with instead of collections.

[Neox99]

What does ". . . name of a collection to be exported . .' mean?

What, specifically are you wanting to do?

If it's to use the name of a collection as a keyword - Copy/Paste will work.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Collection names are stored only in the catalog -- there is no industry standard field in which to store them. However, LR plugins can access the collections containing a photo.  You can export text files containing photo metadata, including containing collection names, using the Any Filter plugin using its Sort command. (I checked some other plugins with similar functionality and they don't support collection names.) If you want to assign collection names into some other metadata field on export or publishing, check out Friedl's export plugins, e.g. Export To Flickr. They provide a general token facility that let you assign values to metadata fields based on other fields. If you want to use another export or publishing service, you can use his Metadata Wrangler plugin, which is an export post-process filter that can be added to any existing export of publish service.

[joachims25232702]

John,

many thanks. I imagine that "Any Filter" together with the "LR Transport" will allow me move a collection name into a proper metadata field. I will try tomorrow and let you know.

[joachims25232702]

John, so I tried  the “any filter” plugin and it works. Sort of The Output is like that: L:\Lightroom_source\LR_2014\Fotos von Wechselmedium\215392R020638\2014-19_030_26A.JPG,lightroom://com.johnrellis.anyfilter/EF366720-1F31-49C2-8476-94056A2B9893,"04_Gisela_walkStwede,Y_best_all,Y_best_all_sort,2014 foto" It is an intellectual challenge to extract the file name and the collection names from that, but can be done of course. I briefly looked in LR Transporter and it should work to put the extracted collection name back as caption, provided I can get the filenames to recognize each other. I try that on the weekend. On a related subject: I think your filter can also be used to back-sort DXO photos into collections. When using DXO (Photolab), it gives the photos back to LR into a collection “PL” and not into the collection where it came from. This is OK if one works collection by collection. But for mass-work, it is cumbersome to find the photo´s original collection. DXO adds the label “DXO” to each file name. So, I could make a “photo versus collection” sorting for the original photos, export that list, add DXO to the filename and back-import the collection name as metadata and then do a smart collection or your collection to pull the photos together. (I tried all other filter plugins  or duplicate finder plugins and none gave me that function yet)

[johnrellis]

Looks like no one plugin is doing exactly what you need.

I just reviewed Friedl's plugins again, and the Write Date Field plugin will let you copy the list of containing collections into any of the EXIF or IPTC fields.

[joachims25232702]

... looking forward to a long weekend.