Author Topic: Stationary Pad adding Meta  (Read 2576 times)

Offline grumpy jim

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Stationary Pad adding Meta
« on: November 23, 2018, 05:11:15 AM »
Hi there.
 I am just starting out with photo mechanic and the only problem I am having is adding data to the stationary pad.
I select the images I am adding meta to but EVERY image ends up having the meta in the stationary pad. I have tried different ways of selecting images but as soon as I enter the data all images get the data added in stationary pad. So I know I am doing something wrong!! as I'm used to Lightroom Classic cc but can't figure out what?
I use photo mechanic for culling and entering data for stock photography sites but the stationary pad is giving me problems >:(
I have read all the instructional stuff but I am doing something wrong! could someone sort me out please. Thanks Jim

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Stationary Pad adding Meta
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2018, 07:09:55 AM »
Jim,

The IPTC Stationery Pad dialog is operating correctly and is doing what it is intended to do: apply the same set of data to a selection of images.

If you want to edit the individual metadata on images, you should be using the IPTC Info dialog.  You can access the IPTC Info dialog by clicking on the 'i' button that appears on any image when you put your mouse over it.  There you can see and edit the data for an image (if you have a selection of images, then you can edit them one-at-a-time from within the IPTC Info dialog by using the various "Save &" navigation buttons.

HTH,

-Kirk

Offline grumpy jim

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Re: Stationary Pad adding Meta
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2018, 08:49:43 AM »
Thanks Kirk for the quick response I will do that from now on "Steep lear Ning curve but getting there" Thanks Jim

Offline bazography

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Re: Stationary Pad adding Meta
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2018, 01:51:46 PM »
Hi Jim,

Having both the Stationary Pad for adding info to a batch of images, and the IPTC Info dialog for adding to individual images is brilliant. In fact with many aspects of Photo Mechanic you'll find there are multiple ways of doing the same job depending on the circumstances and your own personal preferences. I've used PM for over 15 years and it has become indispensable for me, and that flexibility is a big part of it.

As you get to know the program you'll probably find you use both the Stationary Pad and the IPTC Info dialog regularly. My typical workflow is to add most of the info using the Stationary Pad during ingest, such as photographer name, copyright info, city, province, country, event etc. (basically any info that is common to all the images I'm ingesting). That means 75% of it is done before I even look at my images. Then when I'm done culling out the garbage, I'll go through the keepers and finish adding the rest of the info, usually Keywords like people's names for example. Lets say there are 20 photos of John, 20 photos of Paul, plus a few photos of other random people. I'll again use the Stationary Pad to add John and Paul's names, as it is faster to batch 20 photos at a time. For the other random people I'll switch to the IPTC Info panel and add those names one at a time. If there are a few images needing the same info you can use the copy/paste buttons inside the IPTC Info panel to copy all info from one image to another very quickly.

Here's another hint. Often times I'll shoot an event with a group people, let's say John, Paul, George, & Ringo. Some images have all 4 people, some have John, Paul & Ringo, some have just Paul & George, etc. It's a real pain when there are so many combinations, but rather than enter the names into each photo one at a time, you can kinda batch those too. I'll add all 4 names to the all the images using the Stationary Pad, then browse through each image using the IPTC Info dialog and just manually delete the name of anyone not in the photo. It saves me lots of typing time. You could do basically the same thing with the copy/paste buttons in the IPTC Info dialog too. Having both the Stationary Pad and the IPTC Info dialog at your disposal allows you to come up with all sorts of time-saving techniques to suit your needs.

I'd also highly recommend learning all about Variables. They are extremely handy for IPTC tasks, for file naming & renaming, and more. When I first figured out what I could do with variables my head nearly exploded... a very powerful tool.

Good luck!

Gord

Offline FVlcek

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Re: Stationary Pad adding Meta
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2018, 04:32:13 AM »
If you just want to add some keywords to a bunch of photos, you can use the Keywords panel as well right from the contact sheet. Using variables and IPTC stationery, you could even first fill in the keywords for a bunch of photos (let's say names of different people in different photos), and later add them to the caption field for all the photos using variables, right from the keywords field. In most of the dialogs (IPTC stationery, IPTC info, upload, etc.), you can save pre-populated information using the lightning bolt icon, so you can have several special automation IPTC stationery pads saved just for such tasks.

And the IPTC stationery pad has an add/replace functionality, you can either replace the text in most fields, or just add to it (it's controlled by the little checkbox with plus sign). Much helpful if you need to just add some further info for just some photographs from many.

I suggest to read the manual and help center at http://docs.camerabits.com throuroughly, there is a lot of functionality if you are new to PM.