Populate Label field with a series

[mjroberts2000]

Lightroom Version Number

15.3

Operating System

1. Windows 11

I use F2 to populate the File Name with a sequential set of numbers, e.g. 2025-0001, -0002 etc, for sets of hundreds or thousands of photos, especially scans in LR Classic desktop. Is it possible to populate the Label field in the same way. I use both File Name and Label or different sorts of photos.

 

[johnbeardy]

The Label field is for Colour Labels. So you type Red in the field, and Lightroom will display that as a red label. There's a bit more to it, but Label isn't really intended as a general use field.

You can append a sequential value to many fields, including Label, but only with a plugin. My Search + Replace has a feature to do so. But your underlying purpose might make us recommend another approach.

 

[clee01l]

The Label field is tied to the active color label set that displays colors in the border of the grid, folder panel and Collection panel. The default label values are "Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple" Clicking on the colored icon in the tool bar at the bottom of the grid view assigns the label value associated with the active color Label set.

What process are you using to assign File name values using the Function keys?

 

[mjroberts2000]

The Label field is for Colour Labels. So you type Red in the field, and Lightroom will display that as a red label. There's a bit more to it, but Label isn't really intended as a general use field.

You can do append a sequential value to many fields, including Label, but only with a plugin. My Search + Replace has a feature to do so. But your underlying purpose might make us recommend another approach.

Hi John, digital photos are not a problem at all and I use the colour labels to categorise those. But they have EXIF data...
However, I have 20,000+ scans of colour/b&w slides/negatives taken over a 50+ year period (plus prints) and many more still to scan...
I find the existing LR sort fields far too basic! Essentially there are only 3:- File Name, Capture Time & Label Text. Occasionally, Added Order is useful but v rarely. I miss the EXIF data. I use your 'CaptureTime to Exif' plugin to populate camera & date info where I have it but most often I don't.
I use the Label Text field as an extra sortable text/numeric field but the info has to be entered 1 by 1 for each photo.
Sound as if I shall have to investigate your Search + Replace. But can it populate 100 photos at a time with sequential info?

 

[mjroberts2000]

The Label field is tied to the active color label set that displays colors in the border of the grid, folder panel and Collection panel. The default label values are "Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple" Clicking on the colored icon in the tool bar at the bottom of the grid view assigns the label value associated with the active color Label set.

What process are you using to assign File name values using the Function keys?

Hi Clee, if you look at the sort fields, you will see that you can sort on both Label Text and on Label Color. So Label is only partly used for colour. I find it more useful for text as an extra sortable numeric or text field, for scanned photos. Colour is good for digital photos where quality and other factors may be useful, photo stacking etc.
The File name sequences are different, e.g. for set of photos taken in London, I might label the 1st London-001 and use F2 to populate a sequence up to London-230 for 230 photos, etc.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Hi Clee, if you look at the sort fields, you will see that you can sort on both Label Text and on Label Color. So Label is only partly used for colour.

The label text field is used to define the color label of an image, as Clee said. Because you can create your own label names (so for example "Panorama" for a red label instead of "Red"), Adobe allows sorting by color and by text. That allows you to keep the sorting as before, even if you change a color label name.

Of course you can use the label text field for something else if you want to. The only consequence is that all your photos show a white label in that case, because the text in the label field does not match any text in the Label Set.

 

[clee01l]

Hi Clee, if you look at the sort fields, you will see that you can sort on both Label Text and on Label Color. So Label is only partly used for colour. I find it more useful for text as an extra sortable numeric or text field, for scanned photos. Colour is good for digital photos where quality and other factors may be useful, photo stacking etc.
The File name sequences are different, e.g. for set of photos taken in London, I might label the 1st London-001 and use F2 to populate a sequence up to London-230 for 230 photos, etc.

Color Label Sets (when used) assign a value in the Label field of EXIF. You can create your own Color Label Set (I have one that I use for image state in the workflow). So, Label is always used for color in Lightroom. While it can be used for other things. I see this as an either/or choice. Label values other than the current Color Label Set are assigned the White label in Lightroom as seen on the Filter bar.

This is fine if you want to exclude color labels from your workflow.
Instead of trying to sort on label value, you might look into creating Smart Collections. that gives you more options.


I still don't understand how pressing the F2 key allows you to assign a sequence to a field like File Name. If I press theF2 key on my Mac, it controls (increases) the display brightness.

Here is a list of all of the Classic Shortcuts:

 

[mjroberts2000]

The label text field is used to define the color label of an image, as Clee said. Because you can create your own label names (so for example "Panorama" for a red label instead of "Red"), Adobe allows sorting by color and by text. That allows you to keep the sorting as before, even if you change a color label name.

Of course you can use the label text field for something else if you want to. The only consequence is that all your photos show a white label in that case, because the text in the label field does not match any text in the Label Set.

That is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. And you can have both colour labels and text labels in the same catalogue but not for the same photo. The programmers of Lightroom obviously thought Label text was important as they include it in the sort list (& above Label colour). I use colour labels for digital photos and text for scans where there is no EXIF data.

 

[mjroberts2000]

Color Label Sets (when used) assign a value in the Label field of EXIF. You can create your own Color Label Set (I have one that I use for image state in the workflow). So, Label is always used for color in Lightroom. While it can be used for other things. I see this as an either/or choice. Label values other than the current Color Label Set are assigned the White label in Lightroom as seen on the Filter bar.

This is fine if you want to exclude color labels from your workflow.
Instead of trying to sort on label value, you might look into creating Smart Collections. that gives you more options.


I still don't understand how pressing the F2 key allows you to assign a sequence to a field like File Name. If I press theF2 key on my Mac, it controls (increases) the display brightness.

Here is a list of all of the Classic Shortcuts:

On a Windows computer, F2 renames the photos and will do a sequence if more than 1 photo is selected.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

I still don't understand how pressing the F2 key allows you to assign a sequence to a field like File Name. If I press theF2 key on my Mac, it controls (increases) the display brightness.

On a Windows computer, F2 renames the photos and will do a sequence if more than 1 photo is selected.

There are a couple layers to the confusion here. It’s clearer if we talk about this in terms of the actual menu command that F2 refers to.
In Lightroom Classic, F2 is the macOS/Windows keyboard shortcut for the command Library > Rename Photo. I use F2 on my Mac too, as shown in the picture below. Naturally, Rename Photo lets you rename multiple selected files using sequential numbering.

clee01l, if F2 does not open Rename Photo for you, it’s probably because of the setting for your keyboard. On macOS, the function key row defaults to media keys, not function keys. So the macOS default for F2 is the other thing printed on that key: Display Brightness. Apple assumes most users would rather use those keys for brightness, volume, play/pause…so they default them to media keys.

I prefer to have that row of keys work as function keys because I like using them in Lightroom Classic. Not just F2, but for example, F5/F6/F7/F8 to toggle the top/bottom/left/right panels respectively. You control this on your Mac in two ways. You can change the setting below in System Settings / Keyboard as shown in the picture below, so that it works that way all the time. Or you can toggle the key temporarily by holding down the Fn key. For example, if the function key row is set to work as media keys (F2 = display brightness), then if you also hold down the Fn key (Fn+F2) you temporarily make F2 a function key. (On a recent Apple keyboard, the toggle key may be the Globe key instead of the Fn key, as shown in the picture below.)

And by the way, the Fn toggle for multi-function keys works on every Mac and PC I’ve tried it on, so the Fn key toggle is basically an industry standard way to temporarily switch key functions on any keyboard, which is most useful on compact keyboards such as on a Mac or PC laptop that don’t have space for all the keys I use. For example, on a compact Mac/PC keyboard, I know I can usually press Fn+Down Arrow to make the down arrow key a Page Down key. Or Fn+Delete to temporarily make that key Forward Delete.

So, that’s the long version of why you can press F2 to rename multiple selected photos as a sequence in both macOS and Windows.

I think the reason the Label field doesn’t support sequential renaming is that the sequence naming feature is very specific to filenames. It was not anticipated that anyone would need to do sequential editing of the value for any other kind of metadata, such as captions, keywords, labels, copyright, etc.

 

[johnbeardy]

Sound as if I shall have to investigate your Search + Replace. But can it populate 100 photos at a time with sequential info?

Yes, and it allows for options like leading zeroes.

I'd still urge you to be cautious about this because you'd be unable to use the Label field to add colour labels. It would be very easy to hit the 6-9 keys too.

I understand the sorting problem. Maybe once you have photos are in the order you want, instead of updating Label you could add them to a new collection. The order they are in would be "added order" in that collection.

 

[clee01l]

It’s clearer if we talk about this in terms of the actual menu command that F2 refers to.

Thanks for the clarification. {F2} was not listed in the list of hot keys that I first looked at I see that it is listed in the complete LRQ shortcut key list. nam
What it actually does do is invoke the Naming template dialog which needs to point to a defined naming template. For me using the keyboard shortcuts is slower since I am already pointing and clicking with a mouse and I can invoke the file naming template with a quick click on the icon to the right of the file name field in the Metadata panel.

Is it possible to populate the Label field in the same way.

To answer the Op's initial question: There is no Naming template associated with the Label field and no way to invoke an automated process except to perhaps set up 4 labels in a Color Label Set and use the numeric keys 6-9.

 

[lightroomtoolbox]

I have asked chatgp how to do it with exiftools:

For example, if the files are:
aaa-000123.jpg
aaa-000124.jpg
aaa-001057.jpg


and you want the sequence number in the XMP Label field, use:
exiftool "-XMP:Label<${Filename;s/^.*-([0-9]+)\.[^.]+$/$1/}" *.jpg
(in case you do not know about regular expressions, this means "From the file name take anything from beginning up to the char "-", then a sequence of numbers and rembember it, then the char "." ; now use the number you have remembered and put it on Label metadata" )
You do not need to learn regular expressions, just let chatgpt know your file format and it will know what to do.

aaa-000123.jpg → Label = 000123
aaa-000124.jpg → Label = 000124
aaa-001057.jpg → Label = 001057

If you want the number without leading zeros
exiftool "-XMP:Label<${Filename;s/^.*-0*([0-9]+)\.[^.]+$/$1/}" *.jpg

But the label metadata is for colors and lightroom may recognize it as a non standar color or not recognize it at all. You can assign the sequence to another metadata, perhaps Description

This must be done prior to importing the file, so it reads the metadata.

if you have already imported the files, you can create the xmp sidefiles, close lightroom and then:
exiftool "-XMPescription<${Filename;s/^.*-([0-9]+)\.xmp$/$1/}" -ext xmp .
then lightroom will read the new xmp file and uptade the database

 

[MarkNicholas]

Not sure how relevant or helpful this is but I use the "Job" field as an additional filter. Of course you cannot batch sequenced inputs but I find it quite useful and available in the general filters columns. This might be better than taking up the more than useful colour label field.

 

[John R Ellis]

I find the existing LR sort fields far too basic!

The Any Filter plugin can sort the selected photos based on one or more of the hundreds of different photo fields in the catalog.

 

[Gnits]

Just to complement the comments above.

One of the few fields that is sortable and editable is the Address State field. The advantage is that it is a standard sort field in Library view. As I do not use the State Field it is convenient for me.. but recognise it will not work universally.

I used this field to put scores against competition images (filling in the leading zeros), to make it easy to select and or do a slide show. I have used it for other purposes as well.

I have implemented many Enterprise commercial systems.. Most have a few configurable fields on all master tables (eg customer, supplier, stock items) which can be configured as alpha or numeric and can label the fields. The content of these fields then travel with any transactions related to the master record, to make it easy to analyse, say, sales by customer groups, or inventory levels by product category.

At a minimum Lightroom Classic should have a spare sortable / editable alpha and numeric field.

 

[MarkNicholas]

At a minimum Lightroom Classic should have a spare sortable / editable alpha and numeric field.

Agree.

 

[johnbeardy]

At a minimum Lightroom Classic should have a spare sortable / editable alpha and numeric field.

I do hope you're not holding your breath.

 

[Gnits]

I do hope you're not holding your breath.

No... I have given up expecting any refinements to the Library, Slideshow and Print Modules.

I have my workaround (ie State field).. Adobe need to look after the wider Lightroom population. The State field is not perfect for me but usable..

I am glad that there are various plugins to enable sorting of various fields...

Do you know any numeric fields that are editable and sortable via plugin ?

 

[johnbeardy]

Do you know any numeric fields that are editable and sortable via plugin ?

All fields can be sorted and output to a new collection, but the plugin has to do lots of donkeywork. It's messy and imperfect.

 

[John R Ellis]

Do you know any numeric fields that are editable and sortable via plugin ?

The Any Filter plugin's Sort command will sort the selected photos by any of the hundreds of photos fields in the catalog, interpreting the fields as text or numbers:

 

[Gnits]

Vg. Thanks.

 

[johnbeardy]

Matt, ListView 1 has always had a feature to output to a sorted collection.

 

[Gnits]

Matt, ListView 1 has always had a feature to output to a sorted collection.

Yes.. I was looking for a suggested numeric field. Eg.. sort results of a competition where the scores are entered at image level.

But also.. a decimal value.. where for example every image is an object with a value (insurance valuation would be a scenario) .. I will check what field options are available that are numeric.

 

[johnbeardy]

ListView 2 is still bubbling away, and I will review that aspect.