Sync Syncing Keywords and other Metadata post LrC v13.3

[MarkNicholas]

Lightroom Version Number

13.5.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I posted this on the Adobe Community at the end of a long thread and thought I would share on here for anyone still wanting to sync keywords and other metadata between LrC and LR after the changes in LrC v13.3

For me there were 3 possible ways forward.
1. Apply all keyword in LRC and sync smart previews from LRC and then duplicate the keywording process in LR.
2. Apply all keywords in LRC and sync smart previews from LRC and either not bother with keywords in LR or apply minimal keywords.
3. Sync smart previews from LRC then apply all keywords in LR and minimal keywords in LRC.

After some testing and trial and error I have decided to go with option 1 - Apply all keyword in LrC and sync smart previews from LRC and then duplicate the keywording process and other metadata in LR.

It IS an additional process but not as painful as it first appears, especially after becoming more familiar with LR key wording process.

It is also a much simpler process if you do this on a regular basis with a manageable number of photos.

One of the issues I had was manually syncing metatdata for the large number of photos that had been synced during / post LrC v13.3. I was able to easily identify these photos within LrC but the difficulty (initial) was isolating the same photos in LR. So I had 2000 + photos on one monitor in LrC and I wanted to isolate the same photos in LR. LR does not have the same filtering capability as LrC and in the end the only effective (and sure) way of doing this was to flag the 2000+ photos in LrC as "picked" and then filter for "picked" photos in LR.
I was then able to determine whether any of those photos in LR actually had metadata synced from LrC and remove these from the "picked" photos.

I then started what I thought would be a very laborious task of copying the metadata from LrC to LR.

However, I soon noticed that although the keywords had not synced and that City and State data had not synced, the Location (Sublocation) and Country / Region information had synced. After some further investigation I found that the Location info synced whatever was typed in LrC. Even after syncing if I changed the Location info in LrC it then changed the synced info in LR so in effect the Location box in LrC is a "live portal" for syncing with LR. However, it doesn't work the other way round. If I type a new location in LR it did not sync to LrC. Also if I removed the Location info from LrC the "blank" Location did not sync with LR.

The Country / Region box is a little different. All the 2000+ photos had the correct country (there were only 2 different countries). However all the 2000+ photos had GPS data (either from the original photo or was applied in LrC). When I did a test with a photo with no GPS data and either left the Country / Region blank or typed in a Country the info did not sync with LR. So the data for "Country / Region" is clearly coming from the GPS data only.

As the "Location" data had synced I was able to basically filter those 2000+ photos in LR by Location and then manually "batch" copy metadata from LrC to LR. Fortunately you can select and copy all the keyword in the keywords panel in LrC and paste in LR.

After getting into a bit of a rhythm the process was quite fast. Finally I added a keyword in LrC to those photos "Synced with LR" so that I have a record.
I am now up to date but will gradually go back pre LrC v13.3 to check that the metadate did previously sync properly.

I hope this gives encouragement to anyone who still wants to have keywords and other metdata synced between LrC and LR.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Update. Having done the "manual" syncing of keywords between LrC and Lr for a while now I have refined my workflow as follows .
For each batch of photos I do my usual keywording in LrC. I then create a "temporary" synced collections in LrC for each keyword. Then in Lr it is just a simple process of clicking on each "temporary" collection and applying the appropriate keyword.

 

[Califdan]

And all because some misguided executive at Adobe decided that Keywords were not important enough to sync along with all the other metadata.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I think there was a bit more to it than just that. The biggest problem is that Lightroom Classic uses hierarchical keywords, while Lightroom does not. Another thing is that Adobe knows a lot more about how Lightroom is used than you may think. So I suspect that given the number of people using keywords in Lightroom, they felt it wasn’t worth it to spend a lot of developer time to get the hierarchical keyword sync problem solved. There were other priorities that affected a lot more users.

 

[clee01l]

I think there was a bit more to it than just that. The biggest problem is that Lightroom Classic uses hierarchical keywords, while Lightroom does not.

The IPTC core schema standard does not include hierarchical keywords. And while structured keywords are useful, they are not in the core standard. It probably for this reason that Adobe left them out of Lightroom (cloudy). If an image metadata does include structured (hierarchical) keywords, they are treated as a separate field. LrC does not distinguish between keywords and Structured keywords where stored in the data base. And if you export an image from LrC, you need to specifically write keywords as a Lightroom hierarchy. to get the separate hierarchical keyword field

 

[Califdan]

So I suspect that given the number of people using keywords in Lightroom, they felt it wasn’t worth it to spend a lot of developer time

this is a chicken and egg thing. If the only thing that some company sells is "X", then saying that the there is no demand for "Y" is ridiculous. Perhaps the reason that Keyword use in Lr/Clouid is so minimual is BECAUSE they don't sync with LrC. With the volume of posts here and at Adobe complaining about that lack of sync it is pretty apparent that there is a demand. I also suspect that if KW sync were present it would greatly increase the usage of the LR/Cloud ecosystem altogether.

The IPTC core schema standard does not include hierarchical keywords

You're only looking at this from the viewpoint of passing KW hierarchies back and forth.

In the first place the fact that the IPTC standard does not natively support hierarchical KW's is not relevent if you control both ends of an interface as well as controlling the channel between the two. I'm sure there are already plenty of things passed back and forth during sync that do not rely on the IPTC standard.

Secondly there is no requirement for Lr/Cloud to embrace a KW hierarcby in order to sync KW's, All that is needed is a mapping method between the two. Several folks (including myself) have proposed frameworks for how this could be done. My idea of how to do this is attached.

I have heard reports that during the development phase of Lr/Cloud, an Adobe executive directed that keywords were a thing of the past (thinking about Sensei type tagging I imagine) and would fade into irrelevence (paraphrasing) so would not be considered in the Cloud/Classic sync architecture. Of course later they based their Lr/Classic faced detection on KW's so go figure. But anyway, the scuttlebut is that since that time any discussion of syncing KW's has been DOA. I have no idea who that person was or if he/she is still with Adobe but I've heard this story from more than one source (which of course doesn't in itself mean it's true).

 

[MarkNicholas]

this is a chicken and egg thing. If the only thing that some company sells is "X", then saying that the there is no demand for "Y" is ridiculous. Perhaps the reason that Keyword use in Lr/Clouid is so minimual is BECAUSE they don't sync with LrC. With the volume of posts here and at Adobe complaining about that lack of sync it is pretty apparent that there is a demand. I also suspect that if KW sync were present it would greatly increase the usage of the LR/Cloud ecosystem altogether.

100% agree.