Keywording in LR

[Allan Bell]

 

Anyone out there running "Exiftool" on a Mac.

 

If so has it caused any problems for you enough to ditch it?

 

I only ask as I have been kindly pointed in the direction of the software/app for use in my project but Apple are telling me it is not an approved app.

 

Allan

 

Phil Harvey (the author of Exiftool) has a good reputation. I've used it under Windows without problems, but haven't yet used the Mac Version. I'd have no reservations about installing it. There are checksums available on the download page if you want to verify your download.

 

NB. I would always have a backup of your photos before using Exiftool to update the metadata. Even if Exiftool works properly, it easy to get something wrong in the spreadsheet. I seem to recall it took me a couple of attempts to get things working as I wanted.

 

 

 

Thanks again Mark.

 

Allan

[Gnans]

On 29/11/2016 at 17:55, M.Chapman said:

Hi Allan,

 

I did some digging, it's actually Exiftool rather than Exif editor (sorry). Here are the instructions I downloaded from somewhere that seemed to work. I'm sure you don't need an SD card, just a root directory that isn't 😄

 

1) Insert an empty flashdisk or SD card with sufficent space to hold a batch of jpgs you want to import CSV data into. For this example I'll assume its drive letter is L:

2) Copy the batch of jpgs you want to add data to into the root directory of L: (NB. Keep a backup of your jpegs in case of problems)

3) Download the Windows Executable: exiftool-9.69.zip from http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

4) Extract the Windows Executable exiftool(-k).exe from the zip file and copy into the root directory of L:

5) Rename exiftool(-k).exe to exiftool.exe

6) Make/Edit the Excel document of filenames and keywords (descriptions) so that it conforms with the following

The first column must have "SourceFile" (without quotes) in the top row and the filenames of all the files must be in the rows underneath

The second column must have "XMP:Description" (without quotes) in the top row and the descriptions (list of keywords) that you want to insert into each jpg in the rows underneath. NB. There mustn't be any commas in the descriptions and they must all be in the second column.

7) Save the Excel file as a csv file called Data.csv (ignore the warning messages) in the root directory of L:

😎 OK now you're ready to try it.

9) Click the Windows start button and type "cmd" without quotes into the search box

10) Right click on the program "cmd.exe" and select "Run as administrator". A black "DOS Command box" will appear.

11) Type L: and press return to change the current directory, the prompt should then show L:\>

12) Type exiftool -csv=Data.csv -overwrite_original -v *.jpg and press return

13) You should see a scrolling display of messages as each jpg file is updated. It's quite slow, few seconds/image.

14) If you want to run the same command again (with the next batch of images) then type <uparrow> and press return

 

Hope that helps. I see that Exiftool has been updated since I used it, so it maybe there are new instructions or an easier way to achieve this? For example Exiftoolgui (= ExifTool + Graphic User Interface) maybe more powerful now

 

Mark

 

Thanks Mark for the trigger about ExifTool on another post (which I couldn't locate anymore). I have managed to update 1700+ previous files on my Mac now. A good time to start keywording in Lightroom for all future files.

[M.Chapman]

On 10/05/2020 at 12:50, Gnans said:

 

Thanks Mark for the trigger about ExifTool on another post (which I couldn't locate anymore). I have managed to update 1700+ previous files on my Mac now. A good time to start keywording in Lightroom for all future files.

 

You're welcome. I find both Exiftool and ExifToolGui very useful.

 

Mark