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Henrik2000
Known Participant
November 1, 2023
Answered

How to turn italicised place name suggestions into regular IPTC in a batch?

  • November 1, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1099 views

Sorry, intense online search didn't bring a useful answer, so:

 

For image files with GPS data (like from a mobile phone), Lightroom Classic 13.01 on Win 10 shows IN ITALICS suggestions for sublocation, city, state, country.

I want to turn these city-names, states and countries eternally into regular IPTC. And I want to BATCH-SAVE the town-names, provinces and countries for 100s of files in one go. Ideally also make IPTC keywords out of the suggestions.

 

I only know how to turn one field (like Country) into permanent IPTC (also works for 2+ pics with IDENTICAL GPS data):

  1. Select one or more pics in Grid view
  2. Set Metadata panel to Location (maybe optional)
  3. For 2+ pics, make sure on top of the Metadata panel it says Selected Photos (not Target Photo), if you want to change more than 1 pic
  4. Click on field name "Country".
  5. From the context menu, select a suggested country name – LR's best guess will be at the top and can be selected (screenshot 1 below).
  6. That name will be added as regular IPTC – but the other suggestions for Sublocation, City and State are GONE, if you de-select and re-select the edited pic (screenshot 2 below).

 

A) Starting out:

B) Result (non-edited suggestions for other fields are gone):

 

This is tedious if you have many different locations and fields from Sublocation through City and State to Country and ISO Country Code in many pics.

So how can i turn all info into IPTC in one go? Actually I'd love all the place names ALSO added as IPTC keywords. Castles in the air?

 

I looked at Jeffrey Friedl's "Geoencoding Support" Plugin description (LINK), but it confused me no end. So far didn't install it. Does it help to change all location suggestions from Sublocation to Country for many pics in one go? Or is there another software doing it smoothly (Geosettr?)?

 

Thanks for all informed, usable suggestions!

 

PS - Aware from my studies that LR place name suggestions don't work well for some photographers in some territories and that one shouldn't snap with mobile phones anyway. Yet I am still very interested in a batch-solution as described above.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer dj_paige

    By the way, I use GeoSetter for all my GeoTagging, I don't do it in the LrC map module. And then the results from GeoSetter can be read into LrC (Metadata->Read Metadata from Files) and the italic place names don't happen. For this to work well, you should really turn on the LrC option to automatically write metadata to XMP; that way if you apply a preset at Import or edit the metadata or edit the photo before using GeoSetter, the results from GeoSetter will not overwrite the preset or other edits.

    2 replies

    dj_paige
    dj_paigeCorrect answer
    Legend
    November 1, 2023

    By the way, I use GeoSetter for all my GeoTagging, I don't do it in the LrC map module. And then the results from GeoSetter can be read into LrC (Metadata->Read Metadata from Files) and the italic place names don't happen. For this to work well, you should really turn on the LrC option to automatically write metadata to XMP; that way if you apply a preset at Import or edit the metadata or edit the photo before using GeoSetter, the results from GeoSetter will not overwrite the preset or other edits.

      H
      Henrik2000Author
      Known Participant
      November 2, 2023

      DJ Paige, thanks for 2 posts with 2 different, both very helpful and detailed suggestions!

       

      I tried Geosetter and indeed it does what I need – it even makes keywords out of place names, very good. (I only wish it would create bilingual keywords, for instance both "Austria" and "Österreich" in one go, but it creates only one of those 2 keywords, depending on preferences.)

       

      Also Any Tag works as desired. It is nice to remain inside LR Classic with that Plug-in, even though it does not write keywords. The instructions and the command names could be more normal-user-friendly, even though they are still useful. One has to remember it creates a new collection that later can be deleted. Thanks for mentioning that this part of the plug-in remains free.

       

      I have set my Lightroom so that any IPTC change is written straight into the individual file (JPG, DNG) and not only into the Lightroom database (so I activated "Metadata/Automatically write changes into XMP"). Even if Lightroom crashes or gets too expensive, IPTC will be there in each file  – this is what you recommend in your second post, right?

       

      Also I use the LR option "Scan for Metadata Changes" for each re-import (after external changes to folders). But as you recommend, here in this case I could also use "Metadata – Read Metadata from File".

       

      Thanks again for 2 most helpful suggestions!

      dj_paige
      dj_paige
      Legend
      November 2, 2023

      I have set my Lightroom so that any IPTC change is written straight into the individual file (JPG, DNG) and not only into the Lightroom database (so I activated "Metadata/Automatically write changes into XMP"). Even if Lightroom crashes or gets too expensive, IPTC will be there in each file  – this is what you recommend in your second post, right?

       

      I was not discussing backups, IPTC would only be a partial backup, and the proper way to make backups (which you may be doing) is to create automated and regular backups of the catalog file via the LrC built-in catalog backup feature.

       

      If LrC gets to expensive and you end the subscription, the Library module still works, 100% of it, and so you still have access to all of your work (edits and metadata and other things as well). The Develop Module and Map Module will stop working if your subscription ends.

        dj_paige
        dj_paige
        Legend
        November 1, 2023

        You can use a plug-in from John R. Ellis called AnyTag which will find all the un-committed location names, and allow you to commit them in bulk. This one part of the plug-in is free even after 30 days. The rest of the plugin requires payment for you to use after 30 days.

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