Help with custom metadata

[Alan Harper]

Hi
I have some custom metadata in my database, and I would like to fill it out using text in the Instructions IPTC field. For instance the Instructions might be:

Format: Positive 4x5
Film: Fuji RVP 100
Focal Length: 58
Exposure Time: .5
F Stop: 19
Filter: CF2
Push/Pull: 0.00​

And I have the custom fields "Focal Length", "Exposure (s)", "f/", "ISO", "Film", "Format", "Filter", and "Push-Pull" that I want to fill out.

Any thoughts about how to do this automatically?

[These circumstances came about because when I moved my (film) photos from my home-grown database to XMP metadata, I couldn't figure out where to put this data, so I just glommed together a long string and pushed it into Instructions. I thought that it would be easy to parse or search this field later, but Lightroom's search abilities range from poorly thought out to non-existent, depending on which field you are trying to search.]

Of course I would purchase a plug-in if one were helpful.

Thanks!

 

[tspear]

This is the closest solution I know of:
Jeffrey's "Metadata Viewer" Lightroom Plugin

You could at least find out the values....

 

[Alan Harper]

Thanks Tim. I have most of Jeffrey Friedl's plugins but not that one, but I'm not sure it helps when I already have his Custom Metadata Presets. I think I could develop a script in bash that scans the Instructions field and then sets various keywords, and then sort on keywords in Lightroom and set the custom metadata. The two reasons that I haven't done this are (a) the files are scattered across my disk, and so the script will take for ever, or I'll have to consolidate them in one folder and then return them to where they belong, and (b) every time I try to develop a script in bash, it takes 3 x as long as I expect, and i have low expectations.

 

[johnbeardy]

I've answered your post on Adobe's forum.

John