Working with XMP & Metadata in Lightroom Classic

If you've decided to use Metadata stored in XMP files as an extra level of backup for your Lightroom Classic catalog file, then you should know all the details of working with that type of "backup".

What do all the little icons with up and down arrows and exclamation points mean that show up in the upper right of your images?

What choice should you make when dealing with metadata conflicts?

How can you quickly find images that need to have their metadata updated or are in conflict?

How can you check and update an entire folder without having to click those funky arrow icons?

You'll learn all that and more in this video.

[keithpinn]

Hi Ben: Thank you so much for creating and sharing this video. I only wish I had found it a few days ago. I have been working with LrC and Photo Mechanics to cull through my very large image catalogue. I thought I had everything straightened away in LrC only to find more images through PM. To compound things, more, I was added keyword information to my images via Excire Search in LR and this caused compatibility issues in PM. What a mess? After watching this video, I understand exactly what is happening in both application much more clearly. I have also subscribed to your channel, so I am looking forward to more important content. Cheers, Keith

[DavidJones-yuky]

Ben, absolutely needed this 20 years ago!!! Wow!! This is by far the best video explaining Metadata, its symbols, what they mean and how to understand not only what it all means but explained how to fix, how to use, what to save, what is important. I have asked this question to many other teachers, many adobe techs, never explaining very well or at all THANK YOU!!! I will have to watch again, so much good info!

[Sparky-peace]

Best explanation of this otherwise confusing topic. At last I understand. Many thanks

[MrKapkin]

Thank you for the detailed explanations and information. It was an excellent lesson as always. You know, I bought your CS2 Studio techniques book, it is still very valuable to me like a treasure and I still benefit from it.

[sheilafoster-hancock]

I’m glad I found this, it’s been very useful. Thank you.

[rickverbanec]

Excellent explanation of a rather opaque feature. Thank you! I've been struggling with this since LR3 and no one has been able to explain it clearly, with examples. After 50, 000 photos edited over 10 years, quite a few images show md conflicts. It would be most helpful if we were told the dates of the md choices we are offered so we know which is most recent. Or is there some way to tell now?

[jenedwards]

I'm a bit of a newbie to Lightroom and just had my catalogue corrupt message experience and it's been hell so far lol. I cant even get LR to open. Any tips on to go forward?

[antonios_barakos]

friend please help, im trying to import same presents in lightroom and appears the message ' the xmp metadata for the file contained no settings' what can i do and some of the presets ive import now working? what is going wrong?

[JohnAMozzer]

Can you please show or explain exactly what happens when you import a TIFF with the embedded XMP metadata into Photoshop. Does it automatically display the image with the adjustments that were done in Lightroom Classics? Or does it involve another step? And does it depend on the version of Photoshop whether it works? Thanks.

[BC-nihp]

When I select save metadata it just does nothing, last day of the semester and I can’t get my work in :)

[luisgonzalochumacero]

This video was great Bent! but I can't solve my problem with one photo. The problem is that I can't see the changes of my photo when
I open my in Lightroom Classic. When I check the folder, my xmp is still there. Do you have some advice please?

[mandy.keathley]

Hi Ben, thank you for this video! I'm running into the issue with the (Exclamation without the box) or "error writing metadata" that you discuss. This started last week when I updated to the newest Lightroom Classic 13. I've never had this happen in years of using Lightroom. I also recently started using a new external SSD, but it is happening on the old one as well. When I click "Retry Metadata Export", it creates an XMP file (which I would prefer not to have). I do NOT have the "Automatically write changes into XMP" box checked. Regardless, even after creating an XMP file, it looks ok for a while, then it shows the exclamation point error again. I can see all my raw files, nothing looks like it is missing, and I can still export with my edits -- yet it keeps showing this error over and over, randomly. Not to all photos, just some of them. I cannot figure out what is happening. I tried talking to Adobe, they had NO clue, and seemed like they didn't understand it at all. If you have any suggestions, I super appreciate it!

[CJGlynnPhotography]

Automatically writing to XMP files used to slow LR down significantly. Is there still a performance impact when ticking the preference Catalog Settings > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP

[haaa]

Ben is there a way when I open my catalogue in laptop to keep the virtual copies I made in desktop? Thank you.

[dmcglade]

I thought you had just overcome I problem I had had for nearly a year. The photographer for my daughter's wedding did not set the time on her camera, so all the dates and times were twelve years astray, for hundreds of photographs. All of the EXIF editing tools I found did not allow that big a correction and refused to update things. I did not want to do dozens of updates of a few days for every photo. In any case, they updated 'DateTime' not 'DateTimeOriginal'. However, by exporting the XMP sidecars, I could write a simple bit of code to apply the correction, then upload them. Sorted!

Then I discover they are JPEG so it doesn't work. Damn!

[oneeyedphotographer]

I set LrC to store data in .xmp files for interchangeability with Bridge.