Label scanned photos?

[LeeMiller]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version: 9.0 [ 201910151439-b660523e ]

Operating System

1. macOS 10.15 Catalina

I have hundreds of photos scanned from large format negatives that were taken by my grandfather in the 20's through 50's. I would like to get my father to directly caption and date them if there is some way that I can have him do it remotely. Any advice?

Lee

 

[Rob_Cullen]

One thought- Does your father 'have' Lightroom-Classic?
If so, you could export a Catalog of the scanned photos for him to add metatdata, then you merge the 'scan' catalog back to your 'master' catalog.

 

[Jim Wilde]

I have hundreds of photos scanned from large format negatives that were taken by my grandfather in the 20's through 50's. I would like to get my father to directly caption and date them if there is some way that I can have him do it remotely. Any advice?

Lee

What exactly do you mean by having your father "date them"? Change the capture date, or just include the capture date in the caption (along with other "what" and "who" information)?

If the latter, and your father has access to a tablet or smart phone (or even just a web browser), it would be simple to setup a collection of all the images in your Classic catalog, then sync that collection to the cloud. If you are prepared to give your father access to your Adobe ID, he could then either install LrMobile on the phone/tablet or simply login to LrWeb in any browser. With your ID he would then have access to that collection, and could add Title and Caption information to them, and that would sync back to your Classic catalog where the metadata of those images would be updated. Using LrWeb is probably the better option, as entering Title and Caption info via that app is more user-friendly than doing it on a phone or tablet (and there'd be no need to install LrMobile).

 

[LeeMiller]

Thanks for the quick suggestions. Ideally he'd be able to change the capture date so they would sort properly, but I could do that myself, if he just assigned it somewhere. Would merging an edited catalog allow hime to change it directly?

 

[Jim Wilde]

It depends on how complicated you want things to become. If you want to stay within the Lightroom system, only Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom (cloudy) desktop app allow the capture date to be changed.

For Classic you would have to export the images as a catalog and send the exported catalog to your father. In theory, you don't need to include the negatives in that catalog transfer, provided you ensure that library previews ARE included. On receipt, your father would need (obviously) to have Classic installed, but if he hasn't got a current subscription he could download and use the Classic trial and off he goes. The only issue is whether or not he could edit the capture date when the original images are "missing" (as they would be if you sent only previews), though it may be possible as initially it's only a catalog change and the image itself isn't changed until you save metadata to XMP, which you could do when you eventually merge the catalog back into your master catalog.

For the Lightroom desktop app, the best solution would be to allow your father access to your Adobe ID, which would allow him to install the Creative Cloud desktop app, which in turn would allow him to install Lightroom. In the meantime you would still have to sync the collection of the scans to the cloud, which he would then automatically get access to when he installs Lightroom. He makes the caption changes there, and can edit the Capture Date as well, which would sync back to your Classic catalog, after which saving metadata to XMP should also change the capture date in the file instead of only in the catalog.

There would be probably be off-Lightroom options (Bridge comes to mind), but I'm not overly familiar with those.

 

[Paul_DS256]

I would like to get my father to directly caption and date them

Lots of good ideas here but you did not mention how tech/LR savvy your Dad is. One thought is something like John Beardswoth's List View plug-in. This provides an option for editting metadata externally then having it updated back into LR. I can't test it since I run LibreOffice and it doesn't seem to want to work with it even though it's a descendant of OpenOffice. So, something close. Maybe reach out to him if working in Excel would be easier for your father.

 

[prbimages]

Alternatively, you share a collection with your father, and using a web browser he could simply add information into the "Comment" field on each photo. You then update the metadata in your catalog based on what he wrote in the comment.

Pros: He doesn't need much technical ability; he doesn't need any Adobe software; he doesn't need your Adobe login (although he will need his own ID to add the comments); there is no danger he could screw anything up.

Cons: You would need to do all the work of transcribing / updating the information in your catalog.

 

[johnbeardy]

Alternatively, you share a collection with your father, and using a web browser he could simply add information into the "Comment" field on each photo. You then update the metadata in your catalog based on what he wrote in the comment.
Pros: He doesn't need much technical ability; he doesn't need any Adobe software; he doesn't need your Adobe login (although he will need his own ID to add the comments); there is no danger he could screw anything up.
Cons: You would need to do all the work of transcribing / updating the information in your catalog.

I'd suggest the same reliance on Lightroom Web as it's likely to be simplest for him and you. However, since it is your own father I suggest letting him log in with your account details. He can then edit the title and caption, entering the date as text.

One idea might be to get him to enter only the date in the title field, and you could then transcribe it yourself or use my Search and Replace to copy the title into the Date Created field. But it's vital that he uses a very consistent style such as YYYY-MM-DD - otherwise you're probably just making work for yourself or causing unnecessary friction!