Iview MediaPro Catalog Sets

[slip]

I would like to copy my Iview MediaPro Catalog Sets to Keywords.
Photoshop CS2 recognizes these Catalog Sets in File Information, but LightRoom 2 apparently does not.

I've tried Iview MediaPro scripts I've found for doing this, but they haven't worked.
Can Exiftool do this?

Once I get Catalog Sets copied as Keywords, then I would manipulate the strings and then write the result to the XMP:Instructions tag.
ALso, could there be a way to bypass the Keywords step between Catalog Sets and the Instructions tag?


Steve

[Phil Harvey]

The answer is: Yes, ExifTool can do anything.

But the problem is that you must figure out what you want to do.

Use exiftool with -G1 -a -s to extract all the information from a file containing the information in the locations that you want, then just copy the tags you want to these locations.  If you are lucky the values won't need reformatting, but if they do you can accomplish this with user-defined tags as you have seen.

I'm not sure what catalog sets you are talking about, but using exiftool you should be able to write this information directly to wherever you want without going through extra steps.

- Phil

[slip]

Hi Phil,

"Catalog Sets" are freely named categories you can assign to an image using Iview Media Pro or Microsoft Expression Media 2.
They are like categories and keywords. They can be organized in a hierarchy.
I just discovered that they do have a tag in two different groups, XMP and IPTC, as follows:

XMP:Catalog Sets
Here, all the Catalog Sets attached to an image are written on one line, each Set separated by a comma. (An image may assigned to several Catalog Sets.)
If the Catalog Set sits under another Catalog Set, then the (hierarchy) tree is written in the tag, and each Catalog Set name is separated by a pipe ("|") character.

IPTC Application Record 255
Here, each Catalog Set for an image has its own tag.
If there are two Catalog Sets assigned to an image, then there are two separate "IPTC Application Record 255" tags.

Here's a generic example:
An image "image.jpg" has been assigned to two Catalog Sets -- "Paris" and "metro".
The Paris Catalog Set in under the "France" Catalog Set.
The "metro" Catalog Set is under the "transportation" Catalog Set.

---XMP---
Catalog Sets      :France|Paris, Transportation|metro

---IPTC---
IPTC Application Record 255   :France|Paris
IPTC Application Record 255   :Transportation|metro

I would like the following results:
Keywords:  Paris, metro
Instructions:  Paris by metro

More advanced example:
"France" is under the "Europe" Catalog Set.
If the image is assigned to "France" and to "Paris", the XMP tag will be:

Catalog Sets      :Europe|France, Europe|France|Paris
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France|Paris

Here, I want to create only the keywords "Paris" and "France".
And then use only the "Paris" Keyword for the Instructions tag, e.g., "I was in Paris".
Or maybe, "I was in France", ignoring the Paris keyword.

For my own use, I need to do some more extensive string manipulation, and I'm tackling that on my own.
For example, reading the keywords "Manchester 20 United" and "N.Y. Yankees 50" and writing to the Instructions tag:
"Manchester United v. N.Y. Yankees"
If you think that this could be too much of a challenge (or very time-consuming) for a rank beginner in Perl string manipulation like me, please warn me.

I really appreciate your help.

Steve

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Steve,

Do you have a source of documentation on these IPTC extensions (including Application record 255)?  I would like to add support for these.

What you want to do is possible, but unfortunately a bit trickier than normal because you are dealing with list-type tags instead of simple single-value tags.  The biggest hurdle though is probably just understanding the regular expressions.

- Phil

[slip]

Hi Phil,

I discovered the tags through an obsure command-line program called ExifTool.
Maybe you've heard of it.   

exiftool -a image.jpg listed the tag XMP:Catalog Sets.
exiftool -a -u image.jpg listed the tag IPTC:Application Record 255.

There's probably a trial download for Microsoft Expression Media2.
I doubt if its documentation mentions that IPTC tag, but you can make a quick catalog, import an image and assign it to a Catalog Set you've created. Probably a 5-minute project in total (depending on your bandwidth). Or I can send you an image with the Catalog Sets tag.

The best resource that I'm aware of is John Beardsworth. Here's a link:
http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/lightroom/iview/

-Steve


Steve

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Steve,

Thanks.  I searched myself and couldn't find any documentation for this.  It seems from your description that the IPTC Application record 255 is equivalent to the XMP CatalogSets, so I will give it this name.  Please let me know if this doesn't make sense, or if you find more unknown IPTC tags.

- Phil

[slip]

Hi Phil,

The only difference I see here is that there are two "IPTC Application Record 255" tags  --  one for each Catalog Set that the image has been assigned to. (I'll explain below.)

Catalog Sets      :Europe|France, Europe|France|Paris
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France|Paris

The hierarchy of Catalog Sets is as follows:
Europe > France > Paris

But I assigned the image only to 'France' and 'Paris', not to 'Europe'.
That's why 'Europe' does not show up by itself in the tags.
If I had explicitly assigned the image to the 'Europe' Catalog Set, then here would be the results (I presume, not having tested it):

XMP:Catalog Sets    :Europe, Europe|France, Europe|France|Paris
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France
IPTC Application Record 255  :Europe|France|Paris

Since the IPTC tags here have the same name but different contents, I don't see how they could be useful.
It seems that the XMP tag is the only relevant tag to deal with.

-Steve

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Steve,

Great, thanks for the feedback.  In IPTC, list-type tags are stored individually.  So if I make this a list-type tag exiftool will automatically accumulate the values into a list to match what you see in the XMP tag.

- Phil