Can't edit tag "Subject" in Adobe Lightroom

[mihaill49480614]

Hi. I decided to put in order my photos, fill in all photo tags. However, I found that this program for some reason does not see the tag "Subject".

I really do not want to open the properties of each photo one by one and enter "Subject" manually.

Could you answer me - Is such an advanced program like Adobe Lightroom does not see the "Subject"?

And is there a way to fill in a box with "Subject" in Adobe Lightroom for multiple photos at once?

Just in case, I will attach a screenshot where I will show "Subject".

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Windows File Explorer uses a proprietary metadata field for storing the Subject field shown in the Properties window.  (Technically, it's the XPSubject field in the EXIF metadata section, where "XP" refers to Windows XP.)

LR generally adheres to the industry standard Guidelines For Handling Image Metadata published by the Metadata Working Group, which includes Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony.  This standard came out long after Windows XP, but I guess Microsoft hasn't thought it important to update Windows File Explorer to align with the standard.

If you want LR to be able to read all of the values you've entered in File Explorer's Subject field, you could use the free ExifTool utility on the command line:

$ exiftool '-MWG:Description<EXIF:XPSubject' *.jpg

This copies the XPSubject field to the industry-standard fields containing what LR calls "caption".   If you've already imported these pics into LR, do these steps:

1. Select all the pics and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File

2. Run the ExifTool command above.

3. Select all the pics and do Metadata > Read Metadata From File

[johnrellis]

And is there a way to fill in a box with "Subject" in Adobe Lightroom for multiple photos at once?

If by this you mean that you'd like multiple photos to all have the same contents displayed in the Caption field in LR's Metadata panel:

1. Select all the pics.

2. Go to the Metadata panel in the right column of Library.

3. Type what you'd like their new caption to be in the Caption field.

[annac24265653]

Is it possible to explain in more detail how to use the ExifTool to bring comments from windows explorer into already imported pictures in lightroom? I can't seem to figure it out.

"This copies the XPSubject field to the industry-standard fields containing what LR calls "caption".   If you've already imported these pics into LR, do these steps:

1. Select all the pics and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File

2. Run the ExifTool command above.

3. Select all the pics and do Metadata > Read Metadata From File"

I am new to LR but have a catalogue of nearly 10 000 photos!! I had painstakingly sorted them by tagging and adding comments in Windows Explorer, but now I can't see any of the comments and I can't figure out how to use the ExifTool using the steps above.

Thanks.

[johnrellis]

I had painstakingly sorted them by tagging and adding comments in Windows Explorer, but now I can't see any of the comments and I can't figure out how to use the ExifTool using the steps above.

Have you installed ExifTool?  If not, see here: https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/install.html . Follow the "Stand-Alone Executable" steps, including steps 3 and 4.

[annac24265653]

Hi John,

I have got ExifTool to work now, but I don't understand how you tell it which pictures you want to effect.

This is what I am doing...

In Lr, select the pictures that have comments in Windows Explorer. Then Save Metadata to file, as per step 1.

Then what? I can't figure out step 2. How do you tell ExifTool which pictures you are interested in?

I tried selecting the pictures from windows explorer and dragging them into ExifTool, but it only seems to see one picture at a time.  Am I meant to enter the picture location where it says description in the command?

I'm sorry to seem silly but I just don't seem to get this.

[johnrellis]

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this.

You tell ExifTool which files to process by first "cd"-ing to the folder containing the files and then listing one or more of them on the command line:

cd c:\users\john\pictures\2017-05-03

exiftool '-MWG:Description<EXIF:XPSubject' IMG_0321.jpg IMG_9015.jpg

You can process all of the JPEGs in a folder by using wildcards:

cd c:\users\john\pictures\2017-05-03

exiftool '-MWG:Description<EXIF:XPSubject' *.jpg

If you need more control over selecting which files to process and all of those files are already imported into LR, you could use the Capture Time To EXIF plugin, which despite its name lets you pass arbitrary command-line arguments to ExifTool to apply to photos in the LR catalog.