jpg files importing question

[logit]

I have tons of jpg files to import into LightRoom. Each jpg file has a separate text file containing its information(title, location, date, author, etc).

The question is how to organize the files so that LR can recocgnize the information and keep them in metadata after importing?

Thanks.

 

[Andrew Hayton]

LR won't be able to read the external text file. LR will allow you to add metadata to a file and it then saves that information inside the jpeg and not as an external file.
There may be someone that can write a script in Photoshop to open the image and apply the text file metadata to it but I don't know.
Sorry I can't help more

 

[Halfje-Bruin]

Use an external tool to extract the information from the text files and into the JPG files. This will require some scripting of some sort.

 

[logit]

thanks for reply but does an external xmp file containing the information work?

 

[Halfje-Bruin]

For JPG I don't think so as the metadata is written into the JPG file but you could try to create an XMP file and try to update the metadata in LR for the associated JPG file.

 

[logit]

unfortunately LR doesn't read XMP when using "Read metadata from file" menu.

I don't want to write the infomation into jpg file since that will degrade the quality. So I may have to write a LR plugin.

I read the LR plugin SDK API reference, is there a function like photo:getFormattedMetadata (key) that allows write metadata to photos?

 

[Brad Snyder]

I don't want to write the infomation into jpg file since that will degrade the quality.

I believe Phil Harvey's Exiftool will write metadata to a JPG file without recompressing the image data. I know there are ways of scripting Exiftool, but I have no experience with them.

For a highly expert group on this subject, look at:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/controlledvocabulary/

There's a controlled registration process, but they welcome new members. Those folks know their metadata. Migration questions similar to yours appear frequently.

 

[logit]

OK, finally I succeeded in writing a LR plugin for this. What surprising me is that lua script runs in acceptable duration reading from huge amount of txt files.

I think I can write more plugin for LR.