Sorting photos by some kind of user defined index

[joachims25232702]

After a long day of sorting fotos, mostly old out-of-order scans without a date, I like to "burn in" my sorting order. I can do that by renaming the files with a sequence number. But I do not like renaming files as it carries alway a small risk, and some if the photos might appear in other catalogs and renaming is then a no-no.

So, is there a method to embed  a sequence number in some metadata field and sort by that? Or is there another good method short of renaming files?

[johnrellis]

mostly old out-of-order scans without a date

For scans, I use Metadata > Edit Capture Date to assign the best date I know. For slides, I assign them the date of processing imprinted on the slide holder if I don't know anything else. Then I place the slides in the desired order, and for all the slides on a given date, I set the seconds of their capture time in increasing order.  E.g. for slides processed on 1973/10/19, I'll assign capture dates of 1973/10/19 00:00:01, 1973/10/19 00:00:02, etc.  The Capture Time To Exif plugin makes that incrementing easy.  Then when I sort by capture time, they appear in the desired order.

[joachims25232702]

Thanks, the automatic increment is a good option.

In my German Lightroom there is a sort option "Beschriftungstext", meaning some sort of text. This implies that I could sort the photy by such a text entry. But I can not find such a text label in the Metadata or anywhere else. Is this a wrong translation then?

Changing the time will require to rerun the time change after a new photo has been "discovered" and inluded. An increment of "10" for a text filed would allow new photos, even after years, to be inserted with more ease.

[johnrellis]

An increment of "10" for a text filed would allow new photos, even after years, to be inserted with more ease.

That's what I do, actually.

[joachims25232702]

So, is the Exif´s Tool Increment adjustabile?

[johnrellis]

So, is the Exif´s Tool Increment adjustabile?

I don't know if the plugin let's you change the increment -- if it doesn't, you could ask the developer to change it.  John Beardsworth is an active participant here.  (I use my own private plugin that works similarly but isn't in any shape to be released.)

I know the underlying ExifTool has the capability of incrementing seconds and minutes, but I don't know how much flexibility there is.  A quick Google shows this thread: How to increment file creation date from file to file

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Google translates "Beschriftungstext" as "Caption Text", but it isn't referring to what LR calls "caption" in English. Rather, Beschriftungstext refers to the text entered in what is called in English the "Label" field in the Metadata panel:

These labels are the text associated with the color labels you can assign to photos (red, green, blue, etc.) (Metadata > Color Labels). 

[joachims25232702]

I just tried it. "Beschriftungstext" is "Beschriftung" (6 lines below the arrow). And it works: I can enter a number in there and it will sort the photos with it, photos without text come first.

Now, does the Exif tool (or anything else), create automatic number for "Beschriftung"? (which is what in english?)

[johnrellis]

"Beschriftungstext" is "Beschriftung" (6 lines below the arrow).

Oops, sorry about that.

Now, does the Exif tool (or anything else), create automatic number for "Beschriftung"? (which is what in english?)

Google translates "Beschriftung" as "Labeling", and LR calls that field "Label" in the Metadata panel. It gets written out to the metadata field XMP:Label, which you can access with ExifTool. 

I don't know whether ExifTool can auto-increment that field if you store a number in it. If you can't figure it out from the thread I posted or from the documentation, you could post on the ExifTool forums.  People are fairly responsive there.

[joachims25232702]

That works. I downloaded the findreplace plugin from the same website as the exif plugin. The findreplace plugin allows sequential numbering of the Beschriftung field. So I can then sort by that. It does only do increments by 1, but I drop the developer an email, may be he listens.