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S
SiliRat
Participant
November 7, 2017
Answered

Supress color labels from image metadata/tags

  • November 7, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 568 views

Hiya.

Looked for an answer but couldn't find one.

I use color labels to help me visually organize my images in Lightroom. However, when I put a color label on a image, this is automatically adding a tag to the image's metadata.

The challenge is that I use the names of a color in my tags when an image is particularly saturated with it. As a result, I end up with tags for the colors in the image and tags for the color labels that I applied to the image, which is confusing and adds extra steps to my workflow.


Is there a way to suppress this and prevent these tags from being generated? Its not related to the actual picture and shouldn't be embedded when the image is exported.


Thanks for your time.


Dan

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer johnrellis

It definitely used to happen and happened to more that too many time to account for an accidental addition.

I adapted my work flow (by exporting my files before applying the color label) so it's possible that it stopped happening a few releases ago. It happened for the better part of two years though.


A suggestion to avoid confusion between label names and keyword names: Use Metadata > Color Label Set to define your own unique color labels instead of the default "Red", "Yellow", etc.  You'd have to change the existing label fields, but that could be done quickly using the Library filter bar to identify all the photos of a given color.

1 reply

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
November 7, 2017

I think by "tags" you're referring to multiple distinct concepts. 

I use color labels to help me visually organize my images in Lightroom. However, when I put a color label on a image, this is automatically adding a tag to the image's metadata.

When you add a color label to a photo, the text associated with the color label appears in the Label field of Metadata panel.  When you do Metadata > Save Metadata To File or when you export the pic, that field is stored in the XMP:Label  metadata field of exported pics.

There is no way to stop LR from saving it to XMP:Label when you do Save Metadata To File.

On export, you can select the option Metadata > Include: Copyright Only or Copyright & Contact Info Only to stop it from being included in the exported pic, but that will stop most other metadata from being exported as well.

I'd guess that there as many people who want the color label saved to metadata as don't, but just my guess.

The only workaround I know of is the Metadata Wrangler plugin, which can remove the XMP:Label field from pics when they are exported by LR.

The challenge is that I use the names of a color in my tags when an image is particularly saturated with it.

By "tags", are you here referring to LR keywords?  You can control whether keywords get included in the metadata of exported pics.  Right-click a keyword in the Keyword List, do Edit Keyword Tag, and then uncheck the option Include On Export.

S
SiliRatAuthor
Participant
November 7, 2017

Thanks for the in depth response.


To clarify, by tags I was referring to what Adobe calls 'Keywords'.

It turns out that my problem is the fact that the value of XMP:Label gets added as a Keyword on the files (on export at least.) And because I want to be able to export these same words as Keywords on the images that I have expressly added them to, I can't leverage the option to not export them.


I'm going to take a look at the plugin you referenced and see if blocking the XMP:Label element prevents it from adding the keyword.

Thanks.

D.

johnrellis
johnrellisCorrect answer
Legend
November 8, 2017

It definitely used to happen and happened to more that too many time to account for an accidental addition.

I adapted my work flow (by exporting my files before applying the color label) so it's possible that it stopped happening a few releases ago. It happened for the better part of two years though.


A suggestion to avoid confusion between label names and keyword names: Use Metadata > Color Label Set to define your own unique color labels instead of the default "Red", "Yellow", etc.  You'd have to change the existing label fields, but that could be done quickly using the Library filter bar to identify all the photos of a given color.

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