Deleting Keywords

[BogdanH]

Hi,

Because I somehow lost the track of whole issue, I've read complete thread again.. and here's my finding based on example file you gave at beginning (cem-alta_mesa1.tif):
A: Inbetween Phil changed treatment of "multiple" (AFCP) IPTC metadata -now it works as he said it will.
B: In your example, keywords are inside IPTC2 section -thats why Windows Explorer doesn't show them.
C: To see them inside Win Explorer, keywords must be in (main) IPTC section or in XMP section -that's the place where they belong anyway.

What you should/can do:
1. Select desired image file(s), click on Exiftool direct button and write:
-iptc:keywords<iptc:keywords
and hit Enter key. This will copy keywords from IPTC2 into "standard" IPTC section and Win Explorer will show them.
The problem is (or might be), keywords inside IPTC2 aren't deleted.
Maybe Phil knows the way how to move keywords from IPTC2 to IPTC and delete them in IPTC2 afterwards...?

2. Select desired image file(s), click on Exiftool direct button and write:
-xmp:subject<iptc:keywords -iptc:keywords=
and hit Enter key. This will copy keywords from IPTC2 to XMP and delete keywords in all IPTC sections afterward. Again, Win Explorer will now show keywords.

Note: Both of above will only work as expected, if there are no keywords inside main IPTC before execution one of above commands -if there are some keywords inside main IPTC section, only those from main IPTC will be copied.
Thus, if you have no keywords inside main IPTC section (as in your example file), then it's easy to clean things.

Summary (from what I've found out):
When editing IPTC keywords, you can't specify particular AFCP section (IPTC2, IPTC3..). If more than one IPTC section exist, adding/deleting keywords will affect all IPTC sections. IMO, that's the main limitation of AFCP -despite the fact, that Win Explorer (and some other tools) can't handle AFCP properly.

Your new arrangement is taking out some of the keywords, the XMP I think, but it's not touching the AFCP. I really need to be able to do this.

You can edit any IPTC metadata in GUI (as before) by using ExifTool direct button (the only difference in v4.xx is, it became more "user fiendly" with XMP than with IPTC).

Bogdan

[JL]

I somewhat understand what you're saying but the ExifTool Direct commands are way too complicated for me to ever get this work done. I have over 12,000 photographs to go through.

Is it possible to get a version of ExifToolGUI that existed before you made the major upgrade? I was able to do this work then much more easily although with the staggering amount of photographs 'easy' is a relative term.

[BogdanH]

Hi,

You can download last old GUI version here: ExifToolGUIv3.42
Sorry I couldn't help you further...

Bogdan

[JL]

Thanks. That's fine. The way you explained above it won't work for me because I'll end up deleting all my keywords and I just want to AFCP deleted. That worked for me the last time when I used the old version.

[JL]

The problem is that Windows Explorer does see AFCP. That's how I discovered it in the first place. It seems to not read standard IPTC necessarily, just the first thing it sees.

[Phil Harvey]

Just throwing in my 2 cents:  The number of images should not matter as long as you are doing the same thing to each image since it is the same command to process 1 or 1000000 images with exiftool.

- Phil

[JL]

I wish. It's not the same thing to 12,000 images as there's a variety of keywords and copyright notices that have to be taken out. They exist across 125 folders. Perhaps I could Select All on each folder and wipe out what's there using one command? I don't think so as the text is different across the fields. With the old version of the GUI I can select all the pictures and simply empty the field and then Save.

[Phil Harvey]

The crossing of multiple folders is a problem for ExifTool GUI, but not for the command-line version.

But I understand if you don't feel comfortable using the command-line version.

- Phil

[JL]

I might be comfortable someday but I'd have to learn first. There's so much damage to my photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery I'm very carefully picking through it one photo at a time. The AFCP is 'extra' and I believe came from MediaDex long before WLPG happened. It will likely be the last 'repair cycle' the photos go through, now that I'm starting to establish a pattern with my process. So, I really wouldn't want to screw it up, from inexperience, after spending what looks like will be hundreds of hours and weeks repairing the WLPG damage.