Unwritten Metadata

[evanwieren]

Good day... I've just started trialing iMatch. I've loaded all my photos into iMatch (> 120k). All went well. I had the images in Lightroom prior to this (well, actually, and still). It seems that all the images that had keywords in them are not marked with "Unwritten Metadata" and the pencil icon is visible. The specific message that appears when I hover of the pencil is:

This file has unwritten metadata.
Click the icon to write that data now.

List of tags to write:
IPTC::ApplicationRecord\Keywords
XMP::dc\Subject

I would not have expected that all the keywords would have to be written since they were retrieved from the file!

Thank you.

[Mario]

The typical cause for this is that the 'flat' keywords (legacy IPTC and XMP:dc:Subject) are not in sync with the hierarchical keywords in your files.
Check in IMatch under Edit > Preferences > Metadata if and how you make it flatten keywords. Help topic: Metadata Configuration
Different users need different ways to flatten keywords, depending on their workflow, tool chain, clients etc.

Depending on your Lr settings or whatever other software you have used, hierarchical keywords can be copied to flat keywords in different ways.

With hierarchy: Beach|Daytona
As individual keywords: Beach, Daytona
Leaf level only: Daytona

If you have used different settings in Lr and IMatch, IMatch wants to write "other" flat keywords that what you configured in Lr. And then all files of course become pending until this has been done.
Configure IMatch identical to what you have configured in Lr.
Then select the files in question with Shift+Ctrl+F5 and use the "Reload Metadata" command. This will take a while for 120K files.

The problem with Lr is often that it just "does" stuff, without bothering/confusing/asking the user. And as long as users stick to the Adobe word, they don't notice such issues.

[evanwieren]

Thank you. That does appear to be the case. However, I don't think there's an easy fix. It appears that the keywords are indeed a mix of hierarchy and flat.
What would you suggest is the best solution or workflow to correct this?
Thank you for the quick response too. It's been years since I've used iMatch. It is great to see the improvements. Good work.

[Mario]

Usually, when IMatch writes back modified (!) keywords, it sorts this out for you.
Add a keyword in the Keyword Panel and then write-back the file.
If this does not help, there is something unique and you will have to upload a sample image so we can have a look.

[evanwieren]

Thanks... I'll give it a go over the next couple of days.

[Mario]

You can also run the Metadata Analyst app on one of the files with this problem.
Then use the green button to copy the results into the clipboard and paste them here.