Inspiring

Question

Delete "Document Title" entry directly from image file

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
August 23, 2018
2 replies
4214 views

Hello,

If there is an entry in a field such as "Document Title" for a file such as an image file in Photoshop (this is different from the file name), is there a way to remove this entry from the image file? In other words, can I remove the entry for "Document title" directly from the image file rather than opening the image file in Photoshop, removing the entry for "Document title" in Photoshop, and then resaving the image under the same file name as I had opened it?

"Document Title" can be found under File/File Info in Photoshop.

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Lumigraphics

Brainiac

You can use Bridge to remove metadata, either manually, with a saved template, or using a script (Extendscript, which is an offshoot of JavaScript.)

You could also do this with a script within Photoshop and not have to individually open and resave the file. Note that Photoshop (like most modern JPEG editors) does not recompress unchanged image blocks and so there should be no loss of quality.

Finally, you can use a third-party tool that can edit metadata. Exiftool was mentioned and there are lots of other programs available.

This is an example Bridge script that would delete the title field. Paste this into a text editor, save as a .jsx file, open Bridge preferences and the Startup Scripts folder, drag the .jsx file in, and relaunch Bridge.

-----------------------------------------------------

#target bridge

if( BridgeTalk.appName == "bridge" ){

FT = MenuElement.create("command", "Delete Title", "at the end of Tools");

}

FT.onSelect = function (){

DeleteTitle();

}

function DeleteTitle(){

try{

var thumbs = app.document.selections;

if(!thumbs.length) return;

if (ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript == undefined) ExternalObject.AdobeXMPScript = new ExternalObject("lib:AdobeXMPScript");

for(var a in thumbs){

if(thumbs.hasMetadata){

var md = thumbs .synchronousMetadata;

var xmp = new XMPMeta(md.serialize());

xmp.deleteProperty(XMPConst.NS_DC, "title");

var updatedPacket = xmp.serialize(XMPConst.SERIALIZE_OMIT_PACKET_WRAPPER | XMPConst.SERIALIZE_USE_COMPACT_FORMAT);

thumbs .metadata = new Metadata(updatedPacket);

sPretzelAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Lumigraphics. Could you point me to an adobe document where they would confirm that? Please add to that that the image is unchanged but resaved (in order to account for the deleted Document Title), it is not simply opened in Photoshop, viewed, and closed.

Lumigraphics wrote

You could also do this with a script within Photoshop and not have to individually open and resave the file. Note that Photoshop (like most modern JPEG editors) does not recompress unchanged image blocks and so there should be no loss of quality.

L

Lumigraphics

Brainiac

You can test this easily. Create a file and save as JPEG. Change the metadata and Save As. Now drag the Background layer from the new file onto the old one and set blending mode to Difference. To make sure you see variations, add a Levels adjustment layer with the white slider all the way to the left, so black is 0, gamma is 1, and white is 2.

Now look at all the pixels. If they are all black, there is no difference between the image data.

You can further test by saving at a different quality or using the brush tool set to one pixel to make tiny changes. Even if they can't be seen by the eye, the changes will show up this way.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

If you can see a metadata field in File Info in Photoshop, then it will also be displayed if you select the file in the Adobe Bridge file browser and look at the Metadata panel. So you can edit the Document Title without opening it, by viewing the file in Adobe Bridge and editing the Document Title in the Metadata panel. You also don't have to save the file; the edit applies as soon as you press the Enter or Return key.

The other nice thing about doing it in Bridge is that you can do it in bulk. If you wanted to set (or delete the) Document Title for 200 images, just select the 200 images in Bridge and edit the Metadata panel once.

The fastest way to do this, to avoid having to do too much navigation in Bridge, is:

Have the Adobe Bridge application icon visible on the desktop (in its folder, or in the macOS Dock or Windows Taskbar).
Drag and drop the file to the Bridge application icon. This navigates Bridge to the file's folder, with the file selected.
If the Metadata panel isn't visible in Bridge, open it.
Edit the Metadata field and press Return or Enter when done.

The metadata fields are stored in an industry-standard way, so you could also do it with any other IPTC-compatible file browser you have around, like PhotoMechanic.

S

sPretzelAuthor

Inspiring

Hello Conrad,

Thanks for your comprehensive answer. I will look into using Bridge for this. I was "content" on doing it in Photoshop. But I was looking for a way to do it with, for example, the file explorer in Windows. Is it possible?

Update:

This is for CS4. I went into Bridge, per your suggestion. I looked for a file which has a "Document Title" when viewed in Photoshop File>File Info>Document Title. In Bridge, for that same file, the Metadata Panel showed nothing under IPTC (IIM, legacy)>Document Title. So in Bridge>Edit>Preferences, for Metadata, I selected every possible options there is in IPTC (IIM, legacy) and IPTC Core, just in case the Document Title in Photoshop would be under a different label in Bridge. But once again, I could not see the Document Title name I was looking for in Metadata.

So, in Bridge, I manually wrote a value for a given file in Metadata>Document Title. I could then see that value in Bridge under Metadata. I opened that file in Photoshop and I could also see that value in File>File Info>Document Title (as expected).

It appears that something is broken regarding the Document Title field.

Now, if I manually remove the Document Title for an image file in Photoshop and save the file again, would that affect anything else, like the image itself? For example, if the image file is a jpeg file, I open it in Photoshop, delete its Document Title, and save it again (with Save, not Save As), would it process the image again?

Conrad_C

Community Expert

sPretzel wrote
I went into Bridge, per your suggestion. I looked for a file which has a "Document Title" when viewed in Photoshop File>File Info>Document Title. In Bridge, for that same file, the Metadata Panel showed nothing under IPTC (IIM, legacy)>Document Title. So in Bridge>Edit>Preferences, for Metadata, I selected every possible options there is in IPTC (IIM, legacy) and IPTC Core, just in case the Document Title in Photoshop would be under a different label in Bridge. But once again, I could not see the Document Title name I was looking for in Metadata.

Note that I am doing this in Photoshop and Bridge CC 2018, not CS4.

I was able to find a Document Title field in the Bridge metadata preferences, and when I selected it and then went back out into the Bridge Metadata panel, I could see the value I entered in the Document Title field in Photoshop. So it worked as expected in CC 2018. Maybe there is a problem with that field in the CS4 version, I don't know.

sPretzel wrote
Now, if I manually remove the Document Title for an image file in Photoshop and save the file again, would that affect anything else, like the image itself? For example, if the image file is a jpeg file, I open it in Photoshop, delete its Document Title, and save it again (with Save, not Save As), would it process the image again?

I’m pretty sure metadata can be edited without re-processing the entire image, because the metadata is in a different part of the file structure. But editing metadata will affect the File Modified Date.

sPretzel wrote
I was looking for a way to do it with, for example, the file explorer in Windows. Is it possible?

In Explorer in Windows 10, you can browse metadata for a selected file by opening the Properties dialog box and clicking the Details tab, you might know this already. But when I tried it with different file types, sometimes the fields could be edited and sometimes they couldn’t. When I tried a PSD file, Document Title was not there and the rest of the fields couldn’t be edited. I’m assuming that dialog box is set up by Windows, so maybe there’s a setting in Windows somewhere to change how it works. But that’s getting outside of what I know, as a Mac user.

Uneven support for Document Title might have something to do with it being in the Legacy category. I noticed it isn't in the IPTC Field Reference Table, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.

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