Batch editing IPTC

[judophotos]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and in the process of trying FPV Pro. I am greatly impressed with the speed of the program and would like to be able to incorporate it into my workflow but I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there any way of being able to batch annotate a series of images?

2. I use a database in Expression Media Pro in my final workflow process. The main database consists of hundreds of names and I am adding names all the time. Some are used once but others hundreds of times for searching through EMP catalogues.

I have added the database of names to the IPTC Keywords in FPVP and they very quickly work when annotating the keywords section. However, I can't seem to be able to add new names to the database quickly via the IPTC input area. Is there a way round this without having to go right the way back to adding to the database list?

Any advice would be appreciated.
David

[Axel]

1. Yes the IPTC Editor has a batch mode. The default is to apply the edits to the current image only, but you can just as well select "Apply to all images" and have the program apply the same data to all of them. You can start for example by loading a boilerplate template ("stationery") that you made before, with your name, contact info, usage terms etc and apply it to all images in one click. Then you can go image-by-image and add the specifics, i.e. proper caption, description, keywords etc.

2. You can add as many keywords as you like in the keyword dictionary collection(s) - within reason. We tested the auto-suggest features with 200'000 keywords and it worked seamlessly on our test computers so no worries. However there is no mechanism to edit the keyword collection directly from the program at this time, the keyword catalogs are considered read-only. We are considering adding a simple feature to add new keywords, similar to the "Add to Dictionary" feature found in the spell checker, but for full hierarchical edition with categories, sub-categories and synonyms you need to edit the keyword file itself, which is ultimately quite simple as it can be done with any text editor.

[judophotos]

Thank you for the prompt reply Axel.

I am really impressed with FPVP and would like to include it in my full workflow. At the moment I am trying a work around with Expression Media Pro on one screen and FPVP on the other, culling and checking the pictures full frame on FPVP and using the annotations facility on EMP.

My difficulty is that I may only want to batch edit between 10 to 50 images at a time and currently that is not possible with FPVP. In one day I am likely to have up to 3k of images so I need a quick system of identifying people in the images and their countries and to easily and permanently record that on each image. Also every event includes new 'people' so I need to be able to add their names very quickly and some events will last as many as seven days. At the end of the day, weekend or longer event I need to easily find all those people so that is where the database in EMP is so helpful.

I will keep an eye on any updates that arrive.

[Axel]

I am really impressed with FPVP and would like to include it in my full workflow. At the moment I am trying a work around with Expression Media Pro on one screen and FPVP on the other, culling and checking the pictures full frame on FPVP and using the annotations facility on EMP.

Sounds good: using various tools together for their respective strenghts!

My difficulty is that I may only want to batch edit between 10 to 50 images at a time and currently that is not possible with FPVP. In one day I am likely to have up to 3k of images so I need a quick system of identifying people in the images and their countries and to easily and permanently record that on each image. Also every event includes new 'people' so I need to be able to add their names very quickly and some events will last as many as seven days. At the end of the day, weekend or longer event I need to easily find all those people so that is where the database in EMP is so helpful.

FPV Pro being primarily a viewer, it does not offer organization features such as cataloguing and search, and does not replace a proper Digital Asset Manager with database. It is a very good, sharp tool for photo culling and rating and I'm sure you'll come to appreciate it in that role, in particular if you are dealing with 3'000 images per day as you described.

The current IPTC editing facility allows fast batch editing of all the loaded images, or easy editing one-by-one but the "partial batch" aspect, where metadata is only applied to a sub-selection is not handled well at this time (you could put the sub-batches in their own folder, then process them as a separate sets but this would not be very practical except for occasional use). I'm thinking about solutions to enable at least some support for this, building upon the existing features.