Lessons

Lesson Info

How to Add Meta Data

So, metadata can take two forms, so it can be just, if we go to this tab here, which is known as the metadata tab, so it looks like the kind of info button, like so. So this is where we can add metadata. So, metadata can be two things, so it can be basic metadata, like this, and you'll actually see this is the metadata that got added in the import process because I made a metadata preset. So, metadata can be things like this, all the IPTC metadata, which Capture One supports or it's also keywords and we come back to keywords in a minute. In terms of adding this metadata, is just a simple case of selecting one or more images asz such and then adding various metadata into these fields. The fastest way to do that, as you saw, is via a preset. So, I simply, before we started here at Creative Live, I just simply went through some of the entries here and added some, let's just add something else, added some pertinent information to myself, if you like, and then like every single tool, the fo...

urth icon along, allows you to save a preset. So, in this case, we saved a metadata preset. So, if I say save user preset, then it brings up a saved preset box here and then have a look at, don't just hit save, have a look at what's actually ticked. Because one thing you don't want to save as a preset is a rating, because that's individual to the imagery one global stuff, specially in this case, if it's just like my name and address and so on. Then we don't want ratings or color tags as part of that. So, as soon as you say save user preset here, then I'm gonna uncheck rating, now I can save my preset. So, let's just call that basic metadata and that becomes now available as a preset, which we could use on import as you saw earlier. So, in the import window, it popped up down here. So, user presets, that's the one I just made, that's the one I made earlier like so. That's a really good thing to do with, if you don't do anything else. And that preset, you can use at anytime, just by clicking on it. So, let's say you did an import process and you forgot to add your metadata, for whatever reason, you can simply select all the images and then choose your metadata and then it will add to all the different shots basically. So, except it didn't in that case, let me just try that again. Let's say, basic metadata, let's do this one, like so and there you go, then it adds to the shot. So, there's no reason why you can't do it after, after the fact as well. So, that's some form of metadata. Now again that metadata is buried inside the Catch One Catalog, like so. If you want to, or like, if you're using another application to add metadata, like Photo Mechanic, or Bridge, or something like that. If you ask those applications to write metadata as xml psycopg files, then what you can ask Capture One to do in the preferences is load that metadata in, on import. So, under image preferences, you can say load and then Capture One will read psycopg files which have metadata in them. Certainly lots of press photographers use Photo Mechanic for writing tons of metadata to the images and then when they import into Capture One, they can then read all that metadata and then you don't have to, kind of, do it again in Capture One. So, metadata here and you can see there's some fixed metadata all the various information about the camera itself and the other probably maybe more important aspect of metadata is adding keywords. Now, adding keywords is something I'm very poor at, don't know about you, Jim, but I'm certainly not a prolific keyword adder. We all should be because the more information we can describe about an image, it makes it easier to find. So, if you can do that, great, if you can be motivated to keyword, great. You have a couple of options in Capture One, you've got the keywords tool and the keyword library tool. So, the keywords tool, like if we just select say the top, you know, the five images here, I can start to begin to enter keywords. So, this was in Las Vegas, for example, I can't spell, comma, separate to add more keywords. So, this was a Pontiac, I think, car fans, correct me if I'm wrong. Desert and so on. So, we can add keywords, like so, very simply. My advice is, not to do that. It's to, again, to make things easy for the future, start, as you need to go on and create the keyword library first, which you're then gonna pull consistent keywords from. Because I might spell Las Vegas like this today, and then I might spell it like that tomorrow, and then I might spell it wrong the day after and so on. And then I'm gonna have a bunch of keywords pertaining to the same thing. So, if you start with a keyword library, then you're gonna always have consistent keywords. I'm also terrible at thinking about keywords, I look at an image and I go, this is a car, it's in the desert and then I'm stuck, but if you've got a keyword library it's amazing all the other, sort of, categories that pop up. So, in the keyword library tool, again with the sub-context menu, the three dots, you can create a keyword library. Now, if you have tons of time and you're super motivated, you can simply say new and you can just start plugging away and adding your own keywords to this library, but if you can and if you search around the Internet, you can find keyword libraries that you can buy, you can find keyword libraries that are often for free and, or different keyword libraries, for like, wildlife or Architecture and so on. So, if you just spend a bit of time on the Internet, you can pull out quite a few of these libraries. And even if they say they're for Lightroom or Aperture or whatever, generally, it's gonna work in Capture One as well. Normally, they're provided in the form of, if we have a look, a text file, just a basic text file, like so, and these keywords in particular, are hierarchical. So, they have parents and childs. So, if we say dog, for example, that would be mammals, whatever, then dog, etc. If we had a whale, is a whale a fish or a mammal? I don't know, bad example, or a you know, lizard of whatever, it would be a reptile and so on. So, if you can find a keyword list, your job is gonna be much, much easier. So, that keyword list, basic text file. So, if we go back to Capture One and we say create keyword library from a keyword text file, then we find that keyword list and say open, give it a name, let's just use the name, and say create, then straight away, you've got this nice wonderful keyword library with all these sub-keywords and so on, and it didn't take me any time to do it. So, now when I start typing in my keyword library, if I type, desert, for example, I've now got what, land, desert, which I never would have thought of myself, for example. Or if we type car, then I've got, transportation, and so on, so if I say enter, enter, now adds those keywords to that image and that's, you know, totally consistent as well because if then I come, you know, to a later point and then find shots of other cars and this is in aircraft. So, if I type aircraft, we've got, similar thing going on. So now, I've got aircraft, transportatation and so on, so that's in a hierarchy. So, if I hover the mouse there, you can see how that hierarchy flows. It's a what, it's transportation, it's by air and it's an aircraft. So, that's way better categorization than I ever would've thought of personally, and it also means if we go back to all images, and we look at filters and just collapse down, and we look at keywords, you can now see all the keywords there, but it only shows me the keywords that are present in this collection. So, right now, I can search by transportation, so now I can see all my transport shots. And I could say, well, actually, let's just look at aircraft or lets look at land stuff or lets look at cars. So, right away, that's giving a really nice dimension to finding images, by having those hierarchies, which I never would have thought of. So, I think if you can find a keyword list, then it's way more helpful than trying to make your own. And I think if you come to an image that the keyword isn't present, chicken is there, like so, it's a pretty good list, this one, but if you start typing a keyword that doesn't exist, go and add it to the library in the right catalog, don't just add it up here and then that way it's easy. So, if you wanna add a keyword here, let's say we wanted to add a new action, we can right click and say create keyword child, so we just right click next to the subheading and create a child. So, this is action, so this could be, bet I can't find one, which isn't already in there, jumping, damn, that's what I was gonna use. But then I would just simply type in a new keyword there, which would add to that category. So, start with a keyword library then your keywords are gonna be consistent, you're not gonna get different spellings, different capitalization, it'll help you think of keywords that you didn't know before, basically. Just the last little bit about keywording, if we just select these four images, let's just type vacation, for example, like so, the keywords look like these little tokens or lozenges. If I for example, want to delete the keyword, I can just hit the x next to it and that would take that keyword out of that image. If I make a selection where some of those images don't have those keywords, you see there's a little minus that pops up. So, if we just select that first line again. So, all of these images contain those keywords, if I expand my selection, you see the little minus pops up because some of those keywords, sorry, some of those images in that selection don't contain that keyword. If I wanna quickly add it, I can just tap on that minus and it will add it to those images. So, a really speedy way to do it. Equally, if you go to an image and you hit the rest button, which is this little tiny, backward facing arrow, then it will simply obliterate all the keywords on that image, or you could select all and reset as well. So, it's extremely simple to use, but as I said, you know, rather than trying to think of random keywords, get a keyword library in place first and then start keywording. Like, metadata, you can save a preset, which you could also add on import. So, if you had a preset, for like, landscape photography, for example, you know, then you could have landscape, blah, blah, blah, you could save that as a preset and then you could introduce that on import as well. So, you can add keywords on import, only via preset, there's no like, keywords, sort of, list in the import dialogue itself, but we would simply pick it up as a preset.