Batch Photo Keyword Editor

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Level 1

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Batch Photo Keyword Editor

Hi there, Mac newbie here, I've only had my mac for a month or so, but slowly getting up to speed with it.

Does anyone know if there is any applications that enable users to batch edit keywords within images? I know iPhoto and Aperture perform such a task, but I dont want to use these as I already have my photos organised on disk, and importing them just adds another step. Ideally I'd like to be able to do this via an option in Finder, that would be very neat.

I then want to create Smart Folders (I am very impressed with Spotlight!) to look for certain keywords. I know this part works, but I've got thousands of photos that I need to add keywords to.

Thanks,

Jamin

iMac 21.5", Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 27, 2010 2:32 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,984 points

Jul 27, 2010 3:29 AM in response to Jamin Mac

You really would be much better of using a photo app for this kind of work.

The Finder is a *file browser* and cannot work with much of the metadata that your camera writes to the Exif. I'm pretty sure it hasn't a clue what to do with IPTC.

Dedicated photo apps are about the Photos. Unlike the Finder they write keywords to the metadata of the photos, not file metadata. And that's the standard way to store metadata about your pics. Fr a start, the Finder sorts on File dates, not on the Photos dates contained in your Exif and they are frequently not the same thing.

Using iphoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Picasa etc does not add extra steps. They replace your current workflow with one geared to working with Photographs not files.

Heres an answer I post over in the iPhoto forum when the question of using Keywords comes up.

I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.

Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 25k library in a couple of seconds.

So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.

File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars

Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?

New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending

Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars

The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.

Keywording takes time to set up, there's no doubt about it. I use Keyword Manager as it's much more powerful than the inbuilt system, and adds the possibility of nested keywords. So, for instance, if I add John to a photo it also adds 'Family'. Now I can add many keywords to a pic quickly.

In the end, organisation is about finding the pics. The point is to make locating that pic or batch of pics findable fast.

Try that in the Finder.

Regards

TD

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Answer 2

Jamin Mac Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 27, 2010 5:09 AM in response to Jamin Mac

Many thanks for the thorough reply, most helpful. I have looked at both iPhoto and Aperture, I guess I need to re-visit these and try and learn a little more on how I can use them.

Thanks

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Answer 3

Jamin Mac Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 9, 2010 3:20 AM in response to Jamin Mac

Ok, just some feedback into how I managed to get this to work. Sorry but importing thousands and thousands of images into iPhoto or Apeture really would take a very long time, so my current solution is as follows:

Create an Automator application that filters for image files within a selected set of files, or folders (including sub folders), and then prompt to add a spotlight comment to the selection. This was really easy to do, and I've never used Automator before - I like this feature almost as much as Smart Folders!

Then create a Smart Folder looking for the Spotlight comment added above, and hey presto, I get all images tagged using the Automator app. You can even choose to append comments, or simply overwrite them.

Whats more the application (I called it 'Add Spotlight Comments' appears in the menu, so I can tag spotlight comments using finder!

It also has the added benefit of returning the result when you actually use the spotlight search.

I'm happy with my solution, just thought I'd provide some feedback, thats all.

I gotta say though, I've used PC's for a very long time, but I am just lovin' the Mac!!!

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Answer 4

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,984 points

Sep 9, 2010 3:25 AM in response to Jamin Mac

I'm glad you've found a solution that works for you. However, for the benefit of other folks who might face the same question:

Spotlight Comments are not Photo Keywords.

And the problem is "Spotlight Comments" are +file metadata+ that are available only on Macs. So, if at some point you migrate to Windows or another OS you'll lose all of that. Also, if you share the files with someone on another OS, they won't get those keywords.

Photo apps (on every OS) look to the IPTC metadata for keywords. That's they standard way to do it.

Regards

TD

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Answer 5

A.Carlo

Level 2

270 points

Sep 9, 2010 5:04 AM in response to Yer_Man

Just to re-emphasize Terence Devlin's point, Spotlight comments can be easily lost (➚), since they are not stored within the image file. Spotlight comments are stored within the .spotlight-v100 file that exists at the root level of each indexed volume. Any Move or Copy action that ignores invisible files will likely separate the image from its associated comments. Utilities that clean invisible files from .zip archives and cross-platform USB drives will also erase those comments.

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