Metadata confusion

[jennipa]

Hello everyone..
I'm new to Lightroom and so far I'm loving what it does.
I am a little muddled with a few things that I hope can be explained by an experienced someone

I love that with the Metadata browser I can view all images taken at a certain shutter speed, aperture etc, but when I try to add my own Metadata info I get confused. I'm trying to add to the Location - namely adding country, city etc.. but LR doesn't seem to always recognise it. I preset some photos to import with "Korea" as the country, yet in the Metadata browser they show up as "Korea" and also as "Unknown Location".
I also tried with a couple of other pictures to input the country and city in the LR panel after import and the information doesn't make it into the Metadata browser - it still shows "Unknown Location".
I'm sure there is something so simple that I'm not doing, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Following up on my attempts with Metadatering - is there any way to delete erroneous Metadata from the browser? To tidy it up if nothing else..

Thanks for any advice and apologies if this is elsewhere in the forum (I did search!)

xx Jen

 

[RipIt]

Jen, I'll take the easy part first.

 is there any way to delete erroneous Metadata from the browser? To tidy it up if nothing else..

In the Metadata Browser Panel on the left side of the library: The data recorded here predominantly comes from the camera as you have discovered, shutter speed , aperture, etc. The remainder is your input. Rather than deleting the data, you can choose not to show the categories. Right click anywhere in that Browser panel and select "view options". Uncheck those tags that you do not want to see on a regular basis. That will clean the panel up a bit.

Importing the images with the Metadata assigned should have worked. I will assume you are in fact creating a Metadata template and not simply entering "Korea" as a keyword.
Since some of your images seemed to have retained the "korea" country label, attaching that label to the others is now simple. Select one of the images that has the correct Metadata, then select any others you wish to have the same. In the Library Module at the lower right of your screen, click the "Sync Metadata" button.

It may take a few moments for the Metadata Browser to update or you may want to quit and relaunch. Either way, the Metadata Browser should now be correct.

I find it far less frustrating to work with small groups of images first.

 

[Mick Seymour]

This looks like a little bug in the way Lightroom is displaying the Location metadata in the metadata browser.

The 4 fields Country, State/Province, City and Location are a hierarchical list that should be displayed in that order in the browser but for some reason, Unknown Location, the 4th level, is shown as an item on its own whereas Unknown City is shown under Unknown State/Province which is shown under Unknown Country. If you have all 4 fields filled with data, the 4 levels show correctly in the browser.

As a test, pick one of your Country = Korea photos and add some text in the Location field. You should see the count of the browsers Unknown Location top level item drop by 1 and the photo properly filed under Korea as the country.

 

[jennipa]

Thanks both of you - really helpful info.
David, I logged off LR and when I went back in the really extraneous info had magically disappeared in the relaunch so that solved that wee issue. I think perhaps it just wasn't updating as it should, as now it is altering the information as Mick described.
Mick - thanks for your info, as I was confusing the meaning of "location" and as the hierarchy, as you described, appears in reverse order on the right hand panel, I was assuming "location" was more relevant and so for "Korea" I assigned a location of "Asia" rather than narrowing down the location the way it is intended to be.

Thanks again, I am now back on track!

Jen

 

[Mick Seymour]

I've always thought those 4 fields in the right hand panel should be the other way around but that's only because I always enter Country then State then City and finally Location.

Glad you are back on track.

 

[Sean McCormack]

It's a known bug Mick and Jennifer. The browser state runs at a low level with Location and doesn't get refreshed properly when information is changed. I used to be able to force a rewrite by applying a label/rating/flag and then undoing the apply.
I haven't tried it in 1.3.1.
Re Restart: A quick tip which I mentioned in my recent blog post on Catalog Backup is to go to the Open Recent.. Menu and select the CURRENT catalog from the list. Lightroom will then relaunch. Easier than quitting and then finding the icon to restart Lightroom.