Library module What do you put in the IPTC State/Province field for the UK?

[Laura Smith]

Lightroom Version

9.3 [ 202005281810-476e492c ]

Operating System

1. Windows 10

After some Googling I gather that there is no standard for IPTC State/Province outside of the US. If you're in the UK, do you personally use it for county or for Wales, England etc? My photos with GPS coordinates get populated as Wales but I'm tempted to change them to counties to make them more useful. I suppose it's just a personal preference thing, but if there's a defacto standard for in the UK I guess it would make sense to follow that. Thanks!

 

[Jim Wilde]

I use mainly Counties (or major cities such as London), and in Country I change the default UK to the specific country....England, Wales, Scotland, etc.

 

[Laura Smith]

in Country I change the default UK to the specific country....England, Wales, Scotland, etc.

You've just made everyone in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland very happy . Thanks for sharing - I hadn't pondered that option.

It would be great to hear what others do, too!

 

[johnbeardy]

I do the same as, Jim. So England, Scotland, Wales, NI are my countries - though funnily enough today I almost put Ireland as the country for a shot of Giants Causeway. Future proofing, maybe! Counties and London fit into the state level, and the city level is for London boroughs such as Westminster or Southwark and for other cities and towns. I then have locations for E Dulwich, N Dulwich, Parliament Square, Whitehall etc.

Outside a city / town can become awkward, so maybe this example would help. I enter Keswick at the city/town level, rather than using Allerdale which Google Maps uses, and Landing Stages would be the location of photos along Derwentwater right by Keswick. But I use Derwentwater at the town/city level for other parts of Derwentwater which are away from the town, and then add Low Brandelhow or whatever for the location. The valley of Borrowdale is my town/city, and villages are the locations.

I find this gives a practical amount of information that I can then use in the Library Filter or smart collections to find images.

 

[Laura Smith]

That's two votes for disbanding the UK then (at least for Lightroom purposes ). It's definitely growing on me! Thanks for sharing, John.

 

[PhilBurton]

That's two votes for disbanding the UK then (at least for Lightroom purposes ). It's definitely growing on me! Thanks for sharing, John.

So what should non-Brits do?

Phil Burton

 

[Califdan]

do whatever makes sense to you. One way to think about it is that the UK is like the USA. In one case made up of named regions such as Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland, England and in the other case states. However, in the case of Ireland, and perhaps other regions, the county is a significant part of the location. so if you use UK as the country and Ireland as state/province you either have to skip county or put the county in the city field and the city in the sub location field and curse under your breath about not having 5 levels. Or, skip the idea of the UK and start out at the country level using the fields as they were designed but put county in the state/Province field.

But, IMHO all of this is quite subservient to using a keyword hierarchy to identify location. With keywords you can have as many levels as you wish (e.g. Earth -> North America -> United States -> Western States -> California -> Northern California -> SF Bay Area -> San Francisco -> Nob Hill) and are not locked into names such as country or state or province or city for any particular level. If you exploit Keywords for this then what is in the IPTC data as it may be useful, it is less important for finding images but you can then use the fields according to their label (country, State/Province, City, Sub location) which will make stock photo sites happy and then worry to much about about not showing "UK" or "EU" or "County Cork".

 

[johnbeardy]

So what should non-Brits do?
Phil Burton

Since the four IPTC field names seem designed for the US, I'd use them exactly as intended, rather than putting all the stress on Keywords.

LR treats these four location fields as first class citizens, by which I mean that you can target them directly in the Library Filter or in smart collections. You can very easily filter on the City field, for instance whether it is empty, unlike Keywords where you have to navigate items irrelevant to location.

So I don't enter location keywords directly. The four location fields are my starting point, and I copy them to keywords using the workflow filters commands of Search+Replace.

Keywords though do have advantages, such as the continental grouping and fluidity that Dan mentions, plus duplication where a picture shows two or more states, for example. But there's not really a cast-iron answer other than to do what makes sense.

 

[clee01l]

So what should non-Brits do?

Phil Burton

I used the countries of Scotland, England etc. like the Brits and I hope that I was right to list the Shetlands as a “county” of Scotland.
I also duplicate these with a hierarchical keyword. The first time I traveled internationally with my camera, I was forced to add a parent to my state keywords as well as U.K. To the British countries.

Most countries have provinces and the US state is that equivalent. So there is no problem with that IPTC field anywhere except places like the UK (where they also drive on the wrong side of the road btw)


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[Laura Smith]

However, in the case of Ireland, and perhaps other regions, the county is a significant part of the location.

Yes, the county is a significant part of the location anywhere in the UK (and in the Republic of Ireland).

But, IMHO all of this is quite subservient to using a keyword hierarchy to identify location.

I must admit, I'm using Lr cloud rather than Classic for my keywording, so no hierarchy for me! I know, I'm a heathen. But as a non-pro user, Lr cloud seems to be more and more where I'm heading, other than for things it can't do (yet) .

I used the countries of Scotland, England etc. like the Brits and I hope that I was right to list the Shetlands as a “county” of Scotland.

Shetland is an historic county, yes. I think administratively Scotland uses something other than counties now. Wales uses county boroughs. But I think everyone in the UK would happily put "the thing that exists at that level" in a county box!

except places like the UK (where they also drive on the wrong side of the road btw)

That may be true, but our roads are much safer than yours: we have a pavement to walk on, but you have to just walk on the side .

 

[davidedric]

If you walk on the "pavement" in the USA, you're in trouble!

I don't use keywords, but if I did I'd want England (country), Cheshire (county), Macclesfield (town), where I live (village)

 

[clee01l]

That may be true, but our roads are much safer than yours: we have a pavement to walk on, but you have to just walk on the side .

I would not make a blanket statement abut the UK. I have a sidewalk in front of my house and is true for most US cities and many towns. I can show you photos that I have taken in the UK where there is no pavement (sidewalks) for pedestrians. I don’t recall any sidewalks when I was in Wales except in the cities. All of our government maintained roads are two lane which is something that you can not say about roads in the UK. There are probably more miles of dedicated cycle paths in the US than in the UK.
Road deaths per 100,000 passenger mile are about the same for both countries
Caution about making blanket statements. Come visit and you will learn that life in the US is not as depicted on British Telly.


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[Laura Smith]

I would not make a blanket statement abut the UK. I have a sidewalk in front of my house and is true for most US cities and many towns. I can show you photos that I have taken in the UK where there is no pavement (sidewalks) for pedestrians. I don’t recall any sidewalks when I was in Wales except in the cities. All of our government maintained roads are two lane which is something that you can not say about roads in the UK. There are probably more miles of dedicated cycle paths in the US than in the UK.
Road deaths per 100,000 passenger mile are about the same for both countries
Caution about making blanket statements. Come visit and you will learn that life in the US is not as depicted on British Telly.

Sorry, that was just a silly joke on my part (as I assumed your comment about driving on the wrong side of the road was), which obviously didn't come across in writing!

 

[clee01l]

Sorry, that was just a silly joke on my part (as I assumed your comment about driving on the wrong side of the road was), which obviously didn't come across in writing!

Where are our our smiley faces? I did think your comments a little critical of the US (That’s our job!). I have a significant number of Brit friends and I consider myself a bit of an anglophile. Two or three are based in this group. I even made a house call to help a LR user onetime when I was in Scotland.
I did not take offense and I hope that you did not either


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[Laura Smith]

Where are our our smiley faces?

I did a winky face at the end of the sentence! But not with the forum emojis - just with the keyboard. On my screen it's come up big and yellow and happy, I'm disappointed its yellow glow didn't make it across the Atlantic . My comment "just walk on the side" was a play on the word "sidewalk". If I've learned one thing working in digital engagement is that the power for misunderstandings on the internet has no bounds!! So no worries at all!

 

[MarkNicholas]

I do the same as, Jim. So England, Scotland, Wales, NI are my countries - though funnily enough today I almost put Ireland as the country for a shot of Giants Causeway. Future proofing, maybe! Counties and London fit into the state level, and the city level is for London boroughs such as Westminster or Southwark and for other cities and towns. I then have locations for E Dulwich, N Dulwich, Parliament Square, Whitehall etc.

Outside a city / town can become awkward, so maybe this example would help. I enter Keswick at the city/town level, rather than using Allerdale which Google Maps uses, and Landing Stages would be the location of photos along Derwentwater right by Keswick. But I use Derwentwater at the town/city level for other parts of Derwentwater which are away from the town, and then add Low Brandelhow or whatever for the location. The valley of Borrowdale is my town/city, and villages are the locations.

I find this gives a practical amount of information that I can then use in the Library Filter or smart collections to find images.

How would you deal with Jersey, a self governing dependency and part of the Channel Islands but the sovereign state is UK

 

[Jim Wilde]

Sub-location: Whatever
City: Whatever
State/Province: Jersey
Country/Region: Channel Islands

 

[johnbeardy]

How would you deal with Jersey, a self governing dependency and part of the Channel Islands but the sovereign state is UK

Yes, probably as Jim suggests since the CI seems convenient. Isle of Man would be shifted up to country level. Not sure what I'd do about HK though

 

[LouieSherwin]

All of this highlights my frustration with the limited scope of the IPTC Location fields. As far as I can tell they almost never map to a real location so I am always having figure out how fill them. They seem to been created by a committee based in good ol' USA. most of the world does not have "states". And as a primarily a landscape photographer I am almost never in a "city".

So this leaves only Country and Sub-location as being the only two used with in a consistent fashion. Sub-location always being the name of the place where the image was captured. State and City are completely flexible depending where the image was taken in the world on how I want to organize them. Unfortunately that can become confusing since I may not remember exactly how I classified those fields in images previously. To that end I find Geo-encoding helpful to collect geographically related images together so that I can go back and at least standardize encoding of my State and City fields.

-louie

 

[PhilBurton]

All of this highlights my frustration with the limited scope of the IPTC Location fields. As far as I can tell they almost never map to a real location so I am always having figure out how fill them. They seem to been created by a committee based in good ol' USA. most of the world does not have "states". And as a primarily a landscape photographer I am almost never in a "city".

So this leaves only Country and Sub-location as being the only two used with in a consistent fashion. Sub-location always being the name of the place where the image was captured.

-louie

Now that we have discussed this issue in depth, I agree with Louie.

Am I doing something wrong, or does Lightroom not populate the sub-location field? I do a lot of photography in urban settings, and it would be very helpful if the sub-location field could be completed with a street name or landmark, or ideally the address of the closest building.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Yes, probably as Jim suggests since the CI seems convenient. Isle of Man would be shifted up to country level. Not sure what I'd do about HK though

Haha. I always put HK as the Country. Technically, I am probably infringing the new security laws.

 

[clee01l]

Yes, probably as Jim suggests since the CI seems convenient. Isle of Man would be shifted up to country level. Not sure what I'd do about HK though

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (HKSAR). Chinese equivalent to a province like Guangdong Province adjacent to it.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Am I doing something wrong, or does Lightroom not populate the sub-location field?

I doubt you're doing anything wrong. AFAIK, Lightroom merely populates the various location fields with whatever data Google gives it....sometimes it gets a sublocation, sometimes it doesn't (sometimes it doesn't even get the city data).

 

[PhilBurton]

I doubt you're doing anything wrong. AFAIK, Lightroom merely populates the various location fields with whatever data Google gives it....sometimes it gets a sublocation, sometimes it doesn't (sometimes it doesn't even get the city data).

Jim,

Thanks. I'm sure you are right, but your answer is very disappointing to me. I had high hopes for the sublocation field.

 

[sunnywilsonstore]

I must admit, I'm using Lr cloud rather than Classic for my keywording, so no hierarchy for me! I know, I'm a heathen. But as a non-pro user, Lr cloud seems to be more and more where I'm heading, other than for things it can't do (yet) .