Moving keywords

Aubrey · March 29, 2018, 09:38:31 AM

I have moved keywords in main tree to a branch in the categories panel. After writing back keywords revert to their original position in the tree.
What am I doing wrong? I don't think it's anything to do with the thesaurus being out of sync as this is only used for creating keywords (I frequently tidy the thesaurus)

To illustrate:
-a
-1
-2
-b

to
-a
--1
--2
-b

Thanks,
Aubrey.

A further question.
I have an image with the following keywords:
~Where|America North|USA|Grand Tetons|Signal Hill; Signal Mountain
I then go to categories panel and delte the keyword "Signal Mountain". On write back Signal Mountain appears again
Can this be related to the IPTC issue (I used to use Capture NX) - I thought I had cleared out all my bad metadata writebacks....

Mario · March 29, 2018, 01:50:55 PM

You have moved categories under @Keywords? Moving other categories around will not affect your keywords in any way.
Always confirm via the Keyword Panel that your keywords are as you expect them to be.

Attach a sample file which causes keywords to re-occur. Or, before you do that, run the "List Keywords" preset in the ExifTool Command Processor and show us the output. Nikon Capture never bothered much about metadata and sometimes did the craziest things.

Aubrey · March 29, 2018, 02:07:31 PM

Quote from: Mario on March 29, 2018, 01:50:55 PM
You have moved categories under @Keywords? Moving other categories around will not affect your keywords in any way.
Always confirm via the Keyword Panel that your keywords are as you expect them to be.

Yes I moved the categories under @keywords. I'll double check with keywords panel , but that is usually open.

I have not used the "List Keywords" in ECP, I'll also have a look at this.

These are good pointers for me to troubleshoot... I'll work this for a day or so and see if I can resolve.

Thanks
Aubrey.

Aubrey · March 29, 2018, 05:08:09 PM

Possible Explanation:
On looking in keyword panel, (surrounds.jpg) it appears that all hierarchical keywords containing "surrounds" has been added in. How did this happen?

Overwriting:
I have tried to overwrite the Hierarchical subject with empty string, using the following commands in ECP, but this does not work, I think this has worked previously, I've checked carefully and cannot find a syntax error. What should be the syntax?

The ECP string used is:
-overwrite_original_in_place
-XMP::Lightroom\hierarchicalSubject\HierarchicalSubject\0=
-charset
filename=UTF8
{Files}

This is the output:
Warning: Tag 'XMP::Lightroom\hierarchicalSubject\HierarchicalSubject\0' is not defined
Nothing to do.

How could I overwrite the
xmp::dc\Subject ?

I cannot get this syntax correct.

ubacher · March 29, 2018, 05:33:09 PM

You need to specify {XMPFiles} not {Files}, I think.

Aubrey · March 29, 2018, 05:52:12 PM

Thank you for your suggestion, but that's not it
I've also checked Mario's default "Delete XMP Metadata" this has the syntax:

-overwrite_original_in_place
-xmp=
-charset
filename=UTF8
{Files}

There is something wrong with my tag
XMP::Lightroom\hierarchicalSubject\HierarchicalSubject\0

I know the first hierarchical, has a lower case h (I've tried upper case) , but also looking at tags within IMatch this is correct. I've tried re-rewriting by hand in the event there is a non printable character.... still no success.

Mario · March 29, 2018, 06:17:51 PM

Don't try to manually fix this by just writing a hierarchical keywords. You used the wrong tag name anyway. (see ExifTool web site for tag names and how to use them).
If you fix your hierarchical keywords in IMatch, a write-back will update the hier. keywords, flat XMP keywords and IPTC keywords automatically. Don't make matters worse by manually fiddling with the metadata in your files.

I also recommend to use the Keyword Panel to look at your keywords. It is better suited as the simple display in the regular metadata panel.

Aubrey · March 29, 2018, 08:21:39 PM

I think that keywords are such a mess that working slowly through the 60,000+ files it will slowly become sorted.
It's looking better each evening!

Aubrey.

Mario · March 29, 2018, 08:48:46 PM

While establishing your workflow and organization:

Always do quality checks.
Look at some of your files in the ECP to see what they really contain.
Open the files in other applications (if you use some which make use of keywords and metadata) to check if things are as you like them.

ExifTool is the reference when it comes to handling metadata. But it's always better to be sure.