Combining and optimizing command lines

[Sieb]

Hi there,
I'm using Mylio Photos to facetag my images and then combine all legacy tags from XPKeywords with the PersonInImage tags into the IPTC Keywords.

It seems to work with the sequence of the following command lines. Anyone willing to review the below and advice on optimizing and/ or combining these in a single operation? I'm just a bit cautious to apply this to my full image database...

Copy XPKeyword tags to Keywords
-XPKeywords+>Keywords -sep ";" -P -r C:\Users\me\OneDrive\Documents\Myliotest

Copy facetags to Keywords
-Keywords+<PersonInImage -P -r C:\Users\me\OneDrive\Documents\Myliotest

Making sure all tags are separated (person names contain spaces, splitting names but maintaining the original strings as well)
-Keywords<Keywords -sep ";" -P -r C:\Users\me\OneDrive\Documents\Myliotest
-Keywords+<Keywords -sep " " -P -r C:\Users\me\OneDrive\Documents\Myliotest

Remove duplicates
-Keywords<${Keywords;NoDups(1)} -P -r C:\Users\me\OneDrive\Documents\Myliotest

Thanks in advance!

[StarGeek]

There's not much you can do to condense this because you are using two -sep option.

Try these commands

exiftool -P -r -sep ";" -api NoDups=1 "-Keywords+<XPKeywords" "-Keywords+<PersonInImage" "-Keywords+<Keywords"/path/to/files/

Here, I'm not sure if you actually want to use +< or not, as that will re-add all the separated keywords while keeping the original.  So if your keywords was "John Smith", the result would be "John Smith, John, Smith".  If you just want a result of "John, Smith", then use < without the plus sign.

exiftool -P -r -sep " " -api NoDups=1 "-Keywords+<Keywords" /path/to/files/

I haven't tested exactly how the -api NoDups option works yet, so I don't know its limitations.  You'll have to check to see if you have to run your last command or not.

[Phil Harvey]

StarGeek posted while I was composing my answer, but it isn't all in vain because for once I came up with an idea that StarGeek didn't consider...

First, your quoting is odd because most shells will require quotes around arguments containing "<" or ">".

I think you may be able to do everything you want with a single command.  Here are the arguments in -@ ARGFILE syntax:

Code Select Expand

-addtagsfromfile
@
-Keywords-<XPKeywords
-Keywords+<XPKeywords
-Keywords-<PersonInImage
-Keywords+<PersonInImage
-Keywords-<${PersonInImage;tr/ /;/}
-Keywords+<${PersonInImage;tr/ /;/}
-sep
;
This will split PersonInImage on semicolons as well as spaces.

The -addtagsfromfile is necessary to prevent subsequent copy operations from overriding previous queued values.

Here is how it works for me using the above argfile named "a.args":

Code Select Expand

> exiftool a.jpg -keywords -xpkeywords -personinimage
Keywords                        : original 1, original 2
XP Keywords                     : this that;the other
Person In Image                 : phil harvey
> exiftool a.jpg -@ a.args
    1 image files updated
> exiftool a.jpg -keywords
Keywords                        : original 1, original 2, this that, the other, phil harvey, phil, harvey
- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

OK, small fix:

Code Select Expand

-addtagsfromfile
@
-IPTC:Keywords-<XPKeywords
-IPTC:Keywords+<XPKeywords
-IPTC:Keywords-<PersonInImage
-IPTC:Keywords+<PersonInImage
-IPTC:Keywords-<${PersonInImage@;tr/ /;/ or $_=undef}
-IPTC:Keywords+<${PersonInImage@;tr/ /;/ or $_=undef}
-sep
;
The original version would duplicate single-word PersonInImage values, and this version fixes that.

The reason is that the -= syntax apparently doesn't remove matching values from those already queued to be written.  Maybe it should, but I won't think about changing the behaviour at this point.

- Phil

[Sieb]

Works for me, thanks both!

[Sieb]

Again, works like a charm. Any chance I could limit the operation to updated/ changed files?

[StarGeek]

Any chance I could limit the operation to updated/ changed files?

If you keep track of the last time you ran the command, you could compare to the FileModifyDate.  For example, if the last time you ran the command was on the November 1st
exiftool -if "$FileModifyDate gt '2023:11:01' " ...rest of command

However, this will not work if you use the -P (-preserve) option as you do in your first post.

If you are on Windows, you could unset the Archive attribute with this command.  The /s option is for recurse.  Remove it if you don't want to remove the Archive attribute in subdirectories.
attrib -A /s /path/to/files/*
Once the Archive attribute is removed, any change to the file will automatically set the attribute.  You could then use this to check only the files that have been changed
exiftool -if "$FileAttributes=~/Archive/" ...restofcommand

Example.  The file starts of with Archive set, indicating it has been changed.  The attrib command is run and Archive is no longer set.  The exiftool checks to see if this file needs to be updated, but since there hasn't been any changes and Archive is not set, the file is skipped.  Exiftool is run to change the DateTimeOriginal.  The file then shows that it has been altered.

Code Select Expand

C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -FileAttributes y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[System]        FileAttributes                  : Regular; (none); Archive

C:\>attrib -A /s y:\!temp\Test4.jpg

C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -FileAttributes y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[System]        FileAttributes                  : Regular; (none); Normal

C:\>exiftool -P -overwrite_original -if "$FileAttributes=~/Archive/" -DateTimeOriginal=now y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
    1 files failed condition

C:\>exiftool -P -overwrite_original -DateTimeOriginal=now y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
    1 image files updated

C:\>exiftool -G1 -a -s -FileAttributes y:\!temp\Test4.jpg
[System]        FileAttributes                  : Regular; (none); Archive
Important: Any backup program you run may be dependent upon the Archive attribute.  If you unset it, then the backup program might skip that during your next backup.

[StarGeek]

StarGeek posted while I was composing my answer, but it isn't all in vain because for once I came up with an idea that StarGeek didn't consider...

And added to my notes.  I really need to organize them in some way.