Exporting State metadata

[CalvinHilton]

Lightroom Version Number

12.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I'm using Exiftool to create a CSV file of a few fields from some photos. One of those fields is State.

Geotagging photos will cause LR to populate the location values which are displayed in an italic font.

The problem is that even when metadata has been saved to files State does not have an value that Exiftool sees unless I type the value and if I do that the other location values disappear.
Is there a solution that doesn't make me type the State values in order to make the values exportable and retain the other values?

See attachments.

 

[Califdan]

The location fields that are shown in italics are only suggestions. In order to make them actual data you need to go to each one and type text in the field. This is a real pain in the you know what and is a terrible design. Using LrC the easiest way is to type the first letter of the suggested name and pick the top item in the pull down list that shows up when you start typing. In your case, type a "W" in the state field and "Wicklow" should show up as the first entry in the pop up list. Maybe someone else knows a better way in LrC to convert the suggested text to real text

If it's only a few images this is not terrible but if you're doing thousands it is a nightmare. But you can do them in clumps. For example in the Grid view filter for metadata -> state -> is "Wicklow", then select all the images and with the "Seclected Photos" mode turned on in the metadata panel, type the "W" and select Wicklow.

In my case I just plain gave up on the LrC provided tool for doing this and use a 3rd party program. There are several to choose from but most use Exiftool under the covers to come up with the text names based on the GPS coordinates. I think that Jfried has a plug in that will do this (http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/gps). In my case I uae GeoSetter. I use this for adding the GPS coordinates using a GPS Track Log and also for inserting the text names for the locaiton. If you don't have a tracklog you can use LrC to insert the GPS coordinates, "save metadata to files" then use an external tool to insert the text names based on the GPS coordinates and when done, back in LrC "read metadata from files"

 

[Jim Wilde]

Is there a solution that doesn't make me type the State values in order to make the values exportable and retain the other values?

Unlike @Califdan I've never had any particular issue with converting the suggestions into "real" entries. Taking your the "State" suggestion of "Wicklow", just click on the word "State" and a suggested list will appear more or less under the cursor with "Wicklow" at the top, so move the cursor maybe a couple of millimetres and click again, and job done. It's very quick, especially when done in batches (i.e. when doing an event all the entries will usually be the same so I can select them all and do a 2k airshow in a couple of seconds). The only typing I ever need to do is to correct the abysmal Google suggestions for State and Country in the UK, but once the correct data has been entered once it will always appear in the list when doing the confirmation, it just means I have to move the cursor a bit further down.

Additionally, you can export all the suggestions as "real" entries without confirming them first....simply enable the appropriate option in the Address Lookup section of the Catalog Settings>Metadata tab.

 

[CalvinHilton]

@Califdan I've been geoencoding photos since 2004, initially using a Perl program that I wrote and using Image::ExifTool Perl library, then a commercial app and finally Jeffrey Friedl's LR plugin since 2010. I will occasionally us the builtin LR functionality but the plugin has advantages over the builtin LR functionality.

All the photos I'm working with now are already geoencoded.

@Jim Wilde I might consider your suggestion of exporting although I don't really need exported copies of the original files but it would be a way to create files that would have values that exiftool could see and I could delete the copies when I've finished this project.

I know that I can type the State (Irish county) names and it's not that tedious because the values are displayed in Grid view so I can select county by county and only type the name once each of the 16 counties assigned to my current batch of about 4500 photos. The problem with that is that I lose the other suggested location values. Lightroom has generated 141 Location values and 96 City values for my 4500 photos. I've only checked a few but the Location values appear to correspond to Irish townland names and those are valuable to me for use with other apps. Typing 16 or so State values I don't mind doing but I'd balk at typing more than 235 values for Location and City.

 

[GregJ]

This thread is interesting because from now on, I'm loading that geo data in. I don't have GPS on any of my cameras, but if I'm shooting in a city it's easy enough to go to the map feature and get the location checked. I ran into the same problem with State. For example, I was shooting in Guanajuato Mexico and for those 200 images I was trying to enter the Mexican State (Guanajuato) and typed it in. This thread helps me as I decide whether to do this or not. I think I will from now on. I'm not sure I need it. I always enter the location in the Title or Captions, but I guess it would be nice to have it in the metadata. I think it will be part of my workflow now. I'm just now starting to play with this so I don't have it all down yet. I know when I click on an exact location, like a church (even if the name of the church is on the map), the name of the church does not register - just the general location, like the city.

 

[johnrellis]

The free Commit Locations command of the Any Tag plugin “commits” the address suggestions of a batch of photos:
https://johnrellis.com/lightroom/anytag.htm

LR is very inconsistent — some parts of LR see the suggestions, others don’t:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...andling-of-suggested-addresses/idi-p/12664176

 

[CalvinHilton]

This thread is interesting because from now on, I'm loading that geo data in. I don't have GPS on any of my cameras, but if I'm shooting in a city it's easy enough to go to the map feature and get the location checked. I ran into the same problem with State. For example, I was shooting in Guanajuato Mexico and for those 200 images I was trying to enter the Mexican State (Guanajuato) and typed it in. This thread helps me as I decide whether to do this or not. I think I will from now on. I'm not sure I need it. I always enter the location in the Title or Captions, but I guess it would be nice to have it in the metadata. I think it will be part of my workflow now. I'm just now starting to play with this so I don't have it all down yet. I know when I click on an exact location, like a church (even if the name of the church is on the map), the name of the church does not register - just the general location, like the city.

If I'm taking photos while I'm walking and not staying in a single location I'll be recording a GPS track on my iPhone using the GaiaGPS app and/or my Garmin Instinct watch. I recently bought a Nikon Z6 II that doesn't have GPS builtin but can record lat/long real time using Nikon's Snapbridge app. I've found that the results using the app are not as good as the other methods. Snapbridge doesn't update Lat/long frequently enough.

I want to know where my photos were taken and the only thing I'm not recording with iPhone or watch is the direction but I'm often also taking similar photos with my phone which does record direction but I'm thinking my next camera will have GPS builtin and that problem hopefully be solved.