Using keywords with Adobe Bridge and Picasa

Does anybody have any experience using Adobe Bridge and Picasa together. What I

want to do is keyword photos in Bridge, but then I want to be able to see

keywords and search for photos using keywords in Picasa. I currently have

Picasa and Bridge installed on my machine, and used Bridge extensively to

keyword photos. However, Picasa does not display display the keyword data. Is

it that the keyword info in Bridge is proprietary since it just XMP data? I

don't think that it is. Anybody have any ideas on this.

 

Thanks

I always had the oppinio that keywords in Picasa are not stored in the image. Those are tags in the Picasa data base of your pictures. In contrast, Bridge stores the keywords in the images in IPCT format.

<p>Phil:</p>

 

<p>This is a multi-pronged issue.</p>

 

<p>The first issue is that Picasa appears only to allow you to write embedded keywords into Jpeg files. You can't write captions or keywords into TIF or RAW files (at least in a way where they travel with the file). In addition, when it comes to files that have been annotated outside of Picasa, it only seems to recognize keywords within Jpeg files. </p>

 

<p>The second issue has to do with the type of metadata and the order in which it's added (as well as the file type). Picasa <b>only</b> recognizes the legacy form of IPTC metadata called IIM (Information Interchange Module), period. </p>

 

<p>Photoshop CS and more recent (CS2/CS3,Lightroom, etc.), use the next generation IPTC called IPTC Core which is built on the XMP format. When you save an image in Photoshop into which you wrote info in the File Info panel (ie Embedded Metadata) then this information is written in both legacy IPTC and IPTC Core. </p>

<p>

If you want to learn more about these various flavors of IPTC visit <a href="http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html" target="_blank">http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html</a> for details.</p>

 

<p>There may also be an issue with some earlier versions of Bridge as they only wrote XMP. Thus Bridge did not put the metadata into the file using the legacy form of IPTC, and many other programs outside of those that used XMP could not read the metadata.</p>

 

<p>If you take a Jpeg from the camera that has no IPTC metadata and catalog it in Picasa, you can write a caption and add keywords.</p>

 

<p>If you then open that image in Photoshop, it will read this information. This is because Photoshop first looks to see if there is XMP information in the image file. If there is none, then it will look to see if there is legacy IPTC. If XMP style info is in the file, it doesn't look to see if there is any of the older legacy IPTC style info.</p>

<p>

However it doesn't work the other way.</p>

 

<p>For example, If you add metadata to a jpeg first in Photoshop, you can view this information in Picasa. However, if you modify the information (caption or keywords in Picasa, this information is written to the Jpeg, however it will only be visible in Picasa, or in other applications that are only aware of legacy IPTC metadata. </p>

 

<p>If you open that image in Photoshop (CS or later), then you will only see the metadata that was previously entered in Photoshop.</p>

 

<p>There are a few rare applications that can write captions and keywords to image in a way that Photoshop will see them, but these are rather rare. They do so, I believe, because a "flag" is updated within the file that Photoshop looks for in order to identify which set of information is the "freshest."</p>

 

<p>So, the moral of this story is, if you are only using Jpegs you can metadata (captions and keywords only) in Picasa, and have that picked up in Photoshop.</p>

 

<p>Personally, I would avoid that, as adding metadata, especially keywords, in Picasa is quite cumbersome, and to top it off, Picasa can't deal with any multi word terms (it breaks them into single words). </p>

<p>

There are some other issues as well, but they tend to get even more arcane. </p>

 

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

 

<p><a href="http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/products/" target="_blank">David Riecks</a></p>

I want to do exactly the same than Phil try to do, but I still can't understand why it doesn't work.

 

I have done many try, and I can't really understand what is not working.

David, I'm not sure what you say is exact in regards of my experience below, just have a look :

 

I have added keywords on 5 different jpeg files with Picassa, pixvue, Bridge CS3 by the keywords list, Bridge CS3 by the file info, and photoshop by file info.

I can view all keywords with pixvue

I can view all keywords with bridge

I can view all keywords with photoshop

I can only view keywords put by pixvue, picasa and Photoshop in picasa but not keywords put by Bridge, even the keyword put by file info !

 

If I look the 5 files with file info in bridge or photoshop, all 3 following fields are filled for each file : IPTC Core, IIM and dublin core.

 

So why Picasa doesn't see keywords filled by Bridge ???

What are the difference between my files ?

 

Note that Picasa see I modify the file by bridge, because he reload it.

 

I become crazy, as I can't understand !

I have more experience now about this and understand whats happen, but still has no solution !

 

Yes, Bridge only filled XMP keywords. And the problem is Picasa only look IPTC keywords, not XMP.

 

Thats a pity, because Bridge seems to be the best software to put massive metadata keywords, and Picasa is very user friendly to search and look your picure...

Maybe one day Google add this functionality in Picasa, but there are still no evolution since 2.0 release, so no solution for me until now.

Hello all,<br>

<br>

I've found the solution for this.<br>

<br>

Make sure you have a back-up of your photo's.<br>

Download the windows executable EXIFTOOL from http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ <br>

<br>

copy EXIFTOOL.EXE somewere windows can find it.<br>

Open a CMD (DOS)window (start menu / run - type cmd <enter><br>

<br>

I will write an example inbetween the lines<br>

<br>

change directory to your photo directory<br>

---<br>

D:<br>

CD D:\Gebruikers\Michel\Pictures\<br>

---<br>

write all exif info to a file so you can read afterwards what was in it originaly. (You don't need to, but it is handy I

think)<br>

---<br>

exiftool -r -a -f -g -u "D:/Gebruikers/Michel/Pictures/" >info.txt<br>

---<br>

In the file info.txt you can read all exif info. Be aware to use forwardslash instead of backwardslash<br>

Be sure to use the path if you don't it will start in the root of the drive, also when you changed directory.<br>

<br>

Next the copying of Adobe keywords to picasa keywords.<br>

Be aware that picasa keywords already in your picture will be deleted.<br>

<br>

---<br>

exiftool -r -v "-xmp:subject>iptc:keywords" -overwrite_original "D:/Gebruikers/Michel/Pictures/" > out.log<br>

---<br>

again with forward slashes.<br>

A logfile is created named out.log.<br>

<br>

This way I converted 11000 photo's in 474 directories in about 10 minuts on a 1.8 GHz processor.<br>

<br>

If you do not use the -overwrite_original option, all files are copied in the same directory witch is not nice when you

want to remove them later, that's wy it is easier to make a back-up before.<br>

<br>

Last step of the actions is to let Picasa rescan your photo's by removing and adding again so Picasa read the new

keywords. Altough Picase will scan your photo's after this exiftool process automatically, it will not read the new

keywords untill you remove the map via management (menu extra, don't know the English menu because I am using

Picasa in Dutch) and add it again.<br>

<br>

Btw Picasa's scan take's longer than converting the keywords by exiftool.<br>

<br>

Good luck and please write again if it works for you too.<br>

<br>

Kind regards,<br>

Michel Huijssen,<br>

The Netherlands.<br>

I would like to find something to use to keyword tiffs so that it passes thru to Picasa. Any ideas? Obviously Bridge doesn't work. Please help.

 

Thanks,

Whitney

<p>Now I have tried with Lightroom, and it's better :-)<br>

Lighroom manage IPTC and XMP keywords, so it's compatible with Picasa. He can also replace Picasa...</p>