How do I add title to mutiple photos if Metadata status is "mixed"

[bill.fischer5]

Lightroom Version Number

11.3.1

Operating System

1. macOS 12 Monterey

I want to put the same title on several images at once. I have unchecked "Show metadata for target only". as recommended in a 2011 post. when I checked that the options to enter Caption disappears. It is replaced by Metadata status "Mixed".

What happens if I choose the icon on the right to resolve metadata? These images have other metadata like keywords that may be different on photos in the batch. I do not want to change or add keywords on the photos in the batch.

How do I add a title to mutiple photos without changing other metadata on them batch?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

‘Mixed’ simply means that different images have different metadata in that particular field. Irrelevant if you want to replace the contents of that field anyway, and irrelevant if that is a different field than the one you want to change. Other fields won’t change if you change a certain field.

 

[bill.fischer5]

thank you Johan: Your answer leads me to a further question. When I enter text in the title field for a mixed batch of photos will this text be added to each title , or replace those titles with the text I just entered?

I I am hopping to use theTitle field to display all the dog's names that appear in each photo. I have imported a few thousand dog photos. Each photo has had keywords add with the name of the dogs in it. Some have several dogs.

To do this I work with my keyword list. I choose a dog name keyword. Select all the photos that have that dogs keyword. Then enter that dogs name into the title. This works for one dog, but if I have other dogs that are also in that photo I want each dog to be added to the title when it comes up in the list. I do not want to not replaced the title. Is there a way to do this?.

 

[Califdan]

Typing in the Title or Caption field (or any other field in the Metadata Panel for that matter) replaces prior content.

 

[bill.fischer5]

I was afraid of that: So as I said before. I have lots of photos of dogs. I wan to produce a pamphlet that has pictures with the names of each dog in the picture . The names are already in my keywords. Is there a way to do this. There are also other keywords on the photos that I don't want printed. My first thought was to copy the dog names to the title or caption field. I have so many pictures that doing this manually would be very tedious

 

[johnrellis]

I wan to produce a pamphlet that has pictures with the names of each dog in the picture . The names are already in my keywords. Is there a way to do this

The Search Replace Transfer plugin and the Write Data Field command of the Bag-o-Goodies plugin let you copy keywords to the Title or Caption field, with a separator you choose. The former is simple, the later has lots of options.

 

[Califdan]

OK. A round about idea that might work. First of all you'll need John Beardsorth's "Search, Replace, Transfer" plugin (http://lightroomsolutions.com/).

1) Choose your "all photographs" special collection in the Catalog Panel, then filter for images containing the parent keyword "Dogs". This will result in the grid only containing images that have keywords of dog names (assuming these are under "dogs".

2) Expiort these images as a new catalog (you don't have to include the image files, just let the new catalog point to the same image files)

3) in the new catalog, make sure that "auto save metada data changes to files" is turned off. Also turn off Adobe Cloud sync if it's on

4) Delete all the keywords from the keyword list other than "Dogs" and the individual dog names underneath Dogs. If you explicitly assinge keyword "Dogs" to any images, remove that KW from those images.

5) Select all the images

5) Run the plugin. In the Transfer/Surce field select Keywords (it's in the IPTC section). Choose "Title" for the Target (It's in the "Common" Section.

Check "example" at the bottom. the left side will show the current title and the right side will show the new title. The new title should contain all the dog name keywords for one image seperated by commas. Check some of the others by scrolling through other images using the left right slider just abvoe the preview.

If all looks good, clcikd the "process xx photos" button at the top left. this will update the title field in the selected images.

Here's an eample with 3 people (each person has their own keyword)

Now, do your export.

Note: this does not change the title fields in your master catalog, only in this exported catalog.

Getting this done in the master catalog would be a bit trickier as you'll need to have the plug-in ignore all the keywords not under Dogs. I'm not familiar enough with this plug-in to know if there is a way to do this but the few things I've tried has returned all the keywords for selected images, not just the keywords under "dogs".

 

[bill.fischer5]

Clifton Thank you. This looks like it might just do the trick. It is good that it does not need to use a now original image. I could export to print from this new catalogue. Or does LRC have a good way to do this?

Once I get this done I will then need to find the easiest program to organize and print the pamphlet using the photos and the Title.

 

[bobsomrak]

You can append text to a Caption or Title and some other fields if <Mixed> is displayed. Just click the field with <Mixed> and then click again before the < for after the > to APPEND text before or after the existing data in the fields. The <Mixed> is just a token for the data.

 

[Gnits]

very useful tip.

 

[johnrellis]

You can append text to a Caption or Title and some other fields if <Mixed> is displayed. Just click the field with <Mixed> and then click again before the < for after the > to APPEND text before or after the existing data in the fields. The <Mixed> is just a token for the data.

I remembered that tip from a while ago -- perhaps from a post of yours.

But beware in LR 11.3 and 11.3.1, after doing this, when you click on an individual photo or click Target Photo, you could see the individual captions displaying "< mixed > appended text", even after restarting LR. The correct caption is actually recorded in the catalog and will get exported -- it's just displaying incorrectly in the Metadata panel.

This is another symptom of the bugs introduced in LR 11.3 when Adobe tried to make the Metadata panel faster by caching fields in the <catalog>Helper.lrdata file. A workaround is to set the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP.

 

[Califdan]

Scratch my last post. It will work, but JFriedl's "Bag of Goodies -> Write Data Field" is much better for your purpose and can be used in your master catalog. Much easier and better choice.

 

[johnrellis]

You can append text to a Caption or Title and some other fields if <Mixed> is displayed. Just click the field with <Mixed> and then click again before the < for after the > to APPEND text before or after the existing data in the fields. The <Mixed> is just a token for the data.

I filed a bug report about the incorrect display of the results of doing this in 11.3.1:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...ultiple-photos-captions/idi-p/12942952#M34439