Editing Metadata

[jjlad]

Lightroom Version Number

10.0

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hi there,
I digitize many thousands of slides and would like the metadata to include the make, model and lens used for them in the metadata. I've been doing it in keywording which is OK but it would be nice if there was possible to do it in the metadata. I often edit the time to the year and month shown on the slide mount ...that's pretty easy, but I don't see any way of changing the camera or lens information. Is that even possible?

 

[Paul_DS256]

FWIW, when I scan slides and negatives, I use EXIFTOOL to set initial metadata. I come from a tech background so create a number of Windows BAT files to set values such as:

• Camera Make and Model
• Original Date & Time Taken
• Media Information is placed in User Comment e.g. Film type, ISO
• File Source e.g. File Scanner, Print Scanner,Digital Camera

I didn't need it but you can provide Lens info if you know it. There are many tags you can apply. Here is the EXIF tag list.

 

[johnrellis]

If using Exiftool directly is a little intimidating, you could try the Lenstagger plugin.

 

[Paul_DS256]

you could try the Lenstagger plugin

Now that's a nice plug-in JohnRellis.

It's interesting that they do the same thing as I do and put FILM related information in the USER COMMENT field. It's somewhat surprizing that standards like XMP and EXIF don't recognize digital archiving requirements of past media.

 

[johnrellis]

It's somewhat surprising that standards like XMP and EXIF don't recognize digital archiving requirements of past media.

I agree it's a hole, but I think the constituency is much smaller than that of other standards. EXIF is for metadata added by digital cameras. The IPTC standard was created by the press and media industry. The Metadata Working Group (which attempts to create some order and sanity out of the legacy industry standards) was created by large companies mainly for the consumer market.

(I created a personal plugin with custom metadata for recording metadata of my 20K slide-scanning project.)

 

[Paul_DS256]

I think the constituency is much smaller than that of other standards

You make some good observations of the origins of some standards so I did some digging. My short research uncovered that METADATA can be internally or externally stored. An old Library Catalog is considered metadata. I found some existing standards for external metadata related to archiving of information broader than just images. So the question of the need for embedded archiving related metadata, like film, is also a question of the need for internal or external metadata.

 

[PhilBurton]

I agree it's a hole, but I think the constituency is much smaller than that of other standards. EXIF is for metadata added by digital cameras. The IPTC standard was created by the press and media industry. The Metadata Working Group (which attempts to create some order and sanity out of the legacy industry standards) was created by large companies mainly for the consumer market.

(I created a personal plugin with custom metadata for recording metadata of my 20K slide-scanning project.)

John,

Would you consider making that plug-in available for others to use? I also have at least 20K slides and negatives to scan. Fortunately most of my slides are Kodachromes, not Ektachromes. The worst were the Agfachromes, which have faded to just clear film

 

[johnrellis]

My full plugin is too embedded in other hacky scripts and what not that I use for my archival project. But I stripped out all the gunk to leave a very simple plugin that defines custom metadata fields and a tagset for displaying them in the Metadata panel:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zon6b4jmi77rsl/slidetag-simple.lrdevplugin.zip?dl=0

Here's what the tagset looks like:

Those fields are intended to contain what's printed on the slide mount. (The slides I'm working with had been all jumbled together, ostensibly "organized" by the previous custodian, and the fields printed on the slide mount by the film processor helps me regroup the slides by film roll.)

You can type anything into the fields – there's no input validation. But LR does provide auto suggestions, as it does for all fields, to make it more likely you'll get the right previously used value.

You can search those fields and use them in the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser (and in smart collections):

You can sort by those fields using the Any Filter plugin's Sort command.

It's straightforward to add or delete custom metadata fields and the layout of the tagset by editing the files in the plugin. The Lightroom Programmers Guide for the SDK, which you can download here (from the world's worst web site), gives details, though it should be easy to figure out a lot from my sample plugin:
https://d1g4ig3mxc5xed.cloudfront.n...2020/doc/Lightroom Classic SDK Guide 2020.pdf
This custom metadata is stored only in the catalog. You could use the Any Filter plugin's Sort command to export it to a CSV file, but you can't store it in XMP metadata. The late Rob Cole had a plugin that let you define custom XMP fields, I think, and that plugin might be around somewhere.

 

[PhilBurton]

John,

Thank you very much. I now have more motivation to finally learn Lua.

 

[johnrellis]

If you just want the ability to enter the custom fields, you won't have to learn Lua -- it should be mostly self-evident how to edit the files in the Slide Tag - Simple plugin.