P: Improve control over reverse-geocoded Location metadata

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

LR 4.1rc2 under Windows 7 x64The reverse-geocoding function of LR4 is a great feature and a potential time-saver, yet it can lead to some minor disasters.Specifically, there is currently no way to "stabilize" the location metadata that has been automatically filled by LR (displayed in gray italics). Editing any value by hand e.g. a misspelled City name, leads to all other fields (Country, State, Sublocation) being emptied - problematic when filters are effective on these fields, as the photo suddenly disappears and end up with partly missing location info.Possible remedies: when location info has been automatically filled by LR :- provide (only in such a case) a checkbox offering to "keep these values", so they can from then on be appear as 'normal' metadata, and be edited as such without some tricky behaviouror- make these auto-filled values separate from each other, allowing to edit one without discarding all the others. That would also allow the reverse-geocoding feature to work with any photo which has *some* location fields empty, not only those which have *all* (that is: Reverse-geocoding would always fill missing values, yet keeping any user-defined ones - let's assume photographers know better than Google where they have been shooting...)My preference would rather go to the first solution, as it appears to give more control without making the inner workings of reverse-geocoding too complex.

[LarryLMMMTT]

John,

Thanks for the response. I had used Jeffrey's, but hadn't found your plugin. Been trying again with both. I tried your plug-in the other day, and it seemed to be working. Today I tried Jeffrey's again, geoencoding from a track log, and it did geoencode, but the data was stored in gray text, just like Lightroom! So, then I tried to commit the data with your plug-in, and I got an error. I've tried several times (including closing Lightroom and opening it again), but I always get a failure message. Any idea what this might be?

[johnrellis]

That's not good. Please contact me at my support email address: http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/a...

[humulu]

I am using LR5 and enabled reverse geocoding. The images that have the GPS coordinates automatically get the city, state and country. They are in italic gray. When selecting Metadata->Save Metadata to File it is actually NOT written to the file. In order for this to work I first need to click on the label for City and select the city, click on the label for State/Province to select the State/Province, click on the label for Country and select the country, click on the label ISO Country Code and select the ISO Country Code and THEN select "Save Metadata to File". This is extremely inefficient

We need a one-click solution so that we can commit ALL the reverse GeoTag information for ALL THE SELECTED IMAGES.

[johnrellis]

Rearranging.

Please reference the new conversation here: Lightroom 5: problems with GeoTagging and Comitting

[berliner_ffm]

Its still not added. For example, if u want to put geodata in a photobook it only recognizes comitted values. There is a workaround for exported pictures as described above and also search recognises uncommitted values, but the book module doesnt. A fix would be very much welcomed.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is still a problem - immediately when editing one field in one of a group of photos all other geolocation metadata disappears - very annoying.

[johnrellis]

Have you seen the clumsy workaround here: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_improve_control_over_reverse_geocod...

[Henrik Eidem Kurka]

Having many photos shot at several locations, I would like to change the country name on all of them. This is not possible in LR as if I change the country, the rest of the fields are gone. This clearly must be a bug?

The uncomitted fields can not be copied, not be saved, not be exported and not be accessed via the API.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would simply like to accept all suggestions of LR locations. I made 4.000 Pictures in Burma and I'm not willig to edit each picture 😞

[johnrellis]

I agree that it's a big design misfeature. As a workaround, see the Commit Locations command of the Any Tag plugin.  That command is free to use.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi John,
thank you for your tip. I checked "Any Tag" and JF's Geoencoding Support and both works well.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi, when exporting or renaming photos in LR5, there is the possibility to use metadata from the photos to create filenames. It's also possible to use location metadata retrieved through the reverse geo-encoding function. Well, it should be and used to be. This worked fine in Lightroom 4 but no longer in LR5 (since LR5 was out, and now with 5.3 it still doesn't work). City, Country and ISO country code were retrieved from google, but cannot be used when creating file names at export or batch renaming in the library. I have all the options checked in the catalog prefs under the metadata tab. It's not a major thing but inconvenient when I want to use it when exporting landscapes, etc

[johnrellis]

This problem behavior is present in LR CC 2015.8 / 6.8 too.  The problem occurs with the "unconfirmed" locations that are in grey italics (Windows) or unreadable dark grey (Mac) -- though such locations are exported, they can't be used in file renaming templates.

Several workarounds to this bad design (see the previous posts for details):

- Commit each field in each photo individually.
- Use the free Any Tag command to batch-confirm the locations.
- Don't use LR for geotagging -- use Geosetter or some other program that's better thought out.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks! Been awhile to get a reply until now as my topic got merged with another one. Workarounds 1 and 3 I know, the first not being useful for 100,000 photos, the Any Tag cmd I didn't know and seems the most easy and interesting. I'll try it out this weekend.

[pjmonline]

When a photo has GPD data, the Lightroom Map module shows suggested location data in gray italics. These can be accepted by clicking on the location element such as City.  However so far as I can tell, each element (City, State/Province, Sub-location etc) has to be accepted individually - and for each photo.  Multiple image selections do not work unless GPS co-ordinates are identical (not just close-by).

It would be very helpful to have an option to auto-select this data for all images in a selection or collection.

[johnrellis]

This is a poorly designed part of LR. As a workaround, see the Commit Locations command of the Any Tag plugin.  That command is free to use.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 was released today and should address this issue.  If you don’t see the update in your Creative Cloud App, hit the [Ctrl/Cmd]+ [Alt/Opt]+[R] to force a refresh. 

Give the new version a try and let us know if it solves the issue. 

[pjmonline]

Hi.  I have read the New Features summary and cannot see any reference to this function.  Also I have updated to the latest version 7.5 and cannot identify any functional differences to GPS data handling for suggested location data.

[johnrellis]

When LR makes an "address suggestion" of Sublocation, City, State/Province, and Country, they appear in grey font (and italics on Mac). Formerly, if you manually changed one of the fields, say City, then all the other fields would be erased. Now, you can manually change one of the fields, and the values in the other fields will be left untouched.

[pjmonline]

Thank you - but it really needs an option to select one or more images and "accept all location suggestions".  As it is now, each location field in each image has to be manually accepted.

[johnrellis]

That's what I thought at first, but on reflection, I don't think there's any need to "accept" or "commit" the address suggestions. You can freely edit them, and they'll be exported just like manually added values.

[pjmonline]

That has not been the case previously, but I will test on my next project and will be delighted if that occurs.  Thank you.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

If you want to use this in - for example - the filename when exporting, it will not work.

[johnrellis]

Sigh, the bugs with suggested addresses and file renaming, Save Metadata To File, and plugin access to the fields still remain.  Unfortunately, the reports of these bugs were buried deep in this topic, and the engineers have a history of not reading these bug topics very carefully.  I've started a new bug report for the remaining bugs:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-inconsistent-handling-of-suggested-...