06 Dec, 07

I’ve covered how to import tags into Lightroom.
So how do we get them into the right format (starting from Photoshop Elements) in the first place ?

Well first of all, we need to export them from Photoshop Elements.
In the Organiser, choose the Photo Browser (as opposed to the Date View), then click on the “Tags” tab and select “Save Tags to File”.

Choose a filename (let’s call it “Keywords.xml”) and there you go.
Except that what you have is an XML file that needs “decoding” into something more straightforward.

I’ve included an easy way and a slightly less easy way….

The Easy Way

-This doesn’t handle hierarchies (parents).

1) Open this link, select “View Source” in your browser and copy the code into a text editor (such as Notepad).
Ten save it in the same folder as your output file, naming the file ‘psetags.xsl’. (This is an XSL transform routine, which reformats the XML data)

2) Then edit your “Keywords.xml” output file (again, using NotePad) and insert the second line of code by Viewing the Source of this file.
.. then save Keywords.xml.

3) Double click to open the file in your browser, and you should see all your tags as a table (similar to the file in step 2).
Select the table (CTRL-A) and copy the data (CTRL-C).

4) Open up NotePad and paste the data (CTRL-V)
Save the file (as – for example – “Keywords.txt”) and you’ve done the complicated bit – this is ready for import into Lightroom!

5) Import to LightRoom

The Slightly Less Easy Way …

This will support one level of hierarchy, but includes an extra step.
All Keywords must have a parent.
I’m assuming you have access to a spreadsheet such as OpenOffice’s Calc. You’ll probably be able to dothis with Excel as well (although I don’t have a copy with me).

1) As above, except that you should copy the code from this link

Steps 2) and 3) – as above

4) When you open this in your browser, you’ll see that the second level of tags is indented.
Again, select and copy, but this time load it into Calc as a new spreadsheet.
You should see two columns – one for parents, one for the “Child” tags.

Save this as a .csv type file but with a .txt filetype (e.g. – again – “Keywords.txt”).
Check the “Edit Filter Settings” box

In the next dialogue, set the “Field delimiter” to “{Tab}” and empty the “Text delimiter” box …

5) Import to Lightroom – as above

A slight variation on the Slightly Less Easy Way

1) Using the code from 1) As above, except that you should copy the code from this link will uncheck the “Include on Export” box for parents. However, the “Export Containing Keywords” box will still be checked at detail level, so those have to be sorted out manually.
All other steps as for the Slightly Less Easy Way …

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 2:57 am and is filed under Keyword classes, Post-Processing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.