Colour Labels in imatch not displaying correctly in Photolab

[Stefanjan]

Just worked out why colour labels in imatch are not displaying correctly in Photolab.

In imatch preferences, xmp labels I've renamed most of the colours. e.g. Green = Final.

If I rename the label to green, then this appears correctly in Photolab. Photolab as far as I am aware does not have any method of renaming the labels.

It also seems that imatch has a lot of names e.g. retouching needed, which I don't think I changed. Or maybe I did a long time ago in Lightroom.

I'm wondering what would be the best strategy to get back to the default colour names so that I maintain consistency between imatch, Photolab and other applications?

Also if I rename Label Green to green, thousands of existing photos marked Final lose their colour label. What would be the best way to reinstate the correct colour after renaming labels?

[Mario]

There are no default label names or colors.
Every DAM and RAW editor uses different label names and color assignments, and often the labels are also localized  (different label names used in different countries).

IMatch by default ships with a larger set of label name => color presets (Edit > Preferences > Metadata). These are label names used by some of the more standard applications from known vendors.
This list also controls which labels are offered in the label menu in the File Window and the Viewer, and which labels are assigned when you press one of the label keyboard shortcuts. See XMP Labels for more information.

If Photoloab uses label names not in the list, you can just add them. Remove preset labels you don't use. IMatch's label handling is very flexible and allows you to adapt to any software out there.

Use the same name and spelling / case as used by Photolab. Else it might not recognize the labels!

To import Photolab labels into IMatch:

1. assign each available label supported by Photolab to an image
2. import these images into IMatch
3. use the Import command in Edit > Preferences > Metadata to import the labels into the label list.
4. Assign the same colors Photolab uses to the label names for optimal compatibility

If I rename the label to green, then this appears correctly in Photolab. Photolab as far as I am aware does not have any method of renaming the labels.
Also if I rename Label Green to green, thousands of existing photos marked Final lose their colour label. What would be the best way to reinstate the correct colour after renaming labels?

This is to be expected. A label is just text, stored in an XMP tag. If you add the label "BLA" to your files and assign a RED color, IMatch will show files with the BLA label with a red bar. If you change the BLA color to green, IMatch will show a green label bar.

If you rename the BLA label preset to FOO, IMatch will no longer show a color bar, because there is no color anymore associated with the label text BLA.

To change/swap labels, select all files with the old label ("Green") in the Collection View and assign the new label ("green" in your case). Renaming a label preset will not affect existing metadata, you must change the actual label assigned to files to match.

[Stefanjan]

Thanks Mario, that was a really helpful explanation. All sorted now following your instructions.