Location to Keywords / IPTC Extension

This tab has two main purposes:

• To copy IPTC location fields to the corresponding IPTC-Extension fields - read more
• To integrate the IPTC fields with keywords
  • Copy from IPTC fields to the keywords - read more
  • Copy from keywords to the IPTC fields - which means you can apply locations by dragging and dropping (like in iView or Expression Media) - read more

IPTC-Core to IPTC-Extension

These three buttons copy the contents of the IPTC Core location fields into their equivalent IPTC-Extension Fields:

Keywords

... from IPTC Locations to Keywords

This button copies the IPTC Locations to a 4 level keyword. Here for example you can see how the location fields from the above picture of The Wave have been transformed into a keyword structure - ~IPTC locations > USA > Arizona > Paria Wilderness > The Wave.

This has a couple of purposes. The immediate one is so that location fields like country and city are also included as keywords when you export the pictures. This saves you from having to enter the information in both places - you enter location data in the correct place and then just run the plug-in.

However, the second purpose is where this command comes into its own. Once you have your location metadata in this hierarchical keyword structure, you can assign images to locations by ticking or by dragging and dropping images to the appropriate location. So here I might select some images and tick Antelope Canyon. It's that easy and means

• Metadata entry is more efficient. That image will also get the parent keywords - Page, Arizona and USA. This tick or drag & drop method is much quicker than typing each entry into the corresponding fields in Lightroom's Metadata panel.
• Data entry is more consistent. If I have been to Vegas before, I can see I used "Luxor Casino" for and so can avoid entering a different name such as "Sphinx" for new pictures of that location.

Once you have your locations as keywords, you can then copy....

... from Keywords to IPTC Locations

This last button "closes the loop" and copies the top 4 levels of the special "~IPTC locations" keyword over to the corresponding IPTC locations fields in the Metadata panel. So you can use ticking or dragging and dropping to assign images to locations - you'll like this if you've used iView/Expression Media - and you then quickly update the Metadata panel fields using this button.

One way to use this feature is

• For a first run, copy the IPTC locations over to keywords
• From this point on, assign new locations through the special "~IPTC locations" keyword
• After assinging a lot of locations, run the "from keywords to IPTC locations" command

Opportunities

Of course, if you choose to place Arizona at the country level of keywords, the command will assign Arizona as the country. So it's important to follow the 4 level logic: ~IPTC locations > USA > Arizona > Paria Wilderness > The Wave.

However, you may choose to have extra levels. So for example, if we take the 4th level (location) keyword "Luxor Casino", one might want to add a 5th level with keywords such as "Indoors"or "Outdoors". Then a 6th level might include more specific parts of the complex such as "Hotel lobby" or "Penthouse suites". This may be useful if you are an architectural photographer and need to manage your locations efficiently while also being able to find all your pictures of hotel lobbies.

These extra level keywords are regular keywords in every respect, so they will be exported and can be used to find pictures. But they cannot be written back to the IPTC location fields because they are only 4 levels.