Copy Previous Photo Shortcut

[flyfifer]

REQUEST: A keyboard shortcut that automatically overwrites the current photo's metadata and keywords with those in the previous photo.

DESCRIPTION: I'm a sports photographer and use PM for all my keyword tagging. Sometimes, I will have a burst of photos that I want to keep because they combine to tell a story. Generally, these photos will all require the same metadata and keywords. Something like the Previous button in Lightroom would be really useful here. But, given I'm typing into these text boxes, it needs to be able to be invoked from the keyboard so that I never have to take my hands away from the keys.

WORKAROUND: My current process is:
1. To go to the next photo
2. Recognise that it requires a copy of the previous photo's keywords
3. Go back to the previous photo
4. Select all in the keyword text box and copy
5. Go back to the next photo
6. Select all in the keyword text box and overwrite through paste

ISSUES:
1. If I'm editing a game's worth of photos, I typically won't recognise that I need to do this until I've already gone to the next photo.
2. If there are multiple fields that require synchronisation, then I either have to do this iteratively or using a clipboard manager.
3. Way more steps/keypresses than I want to do.

[Kirk Baker]

Sounds like you want this Previous button to exist on a field-by-field basis?  If every field had a Previous button, it wouldn't be manageable to have keyboard shortcuts for each of them.  Would only specific Previous buttons have assigned keyboard shortcuts?

Perhaps I have misunderstood you?

-Kirk

[flyfifer]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for getting back.

Because this is about recognising that I may have a sequence of photos that need identical metadata, I'd say that there are two solutions where a keyboard shortcut would work well in my workflow.

1. COPY ALL METADATA: It's almost certain that I won't want any difference between the images beyond filenames and timestamps. All IPTC metadata and keywords should be identical. Therefore, a single button and keyboard shortcut that copies all fields would work.

2. COPY IMAGE CONTENT FIELDS: When I ingest, I apply an IPTC metadata template. Therefore, post-ingestion, the only data that I modify are the fields in the Image Content section of the Metadata Info window. As a result, these are the only fields that I would be copying as part of this process.

In my workflow, both achieve the same thing. I understand that there may be reasons why the added flexibility in the second option would make it more usable for others

It might help if I give a real world example from last weekend...

I'm the team photographer for a professional ice hockey team. That means I probably keep more photos from a game than a press photographer because I'm also building an image archive for the club.

During last Saturday's game, there was a collision along the boards where one of our players ended up folding spectacularly into the boards. Shooting at 12 fps, I've got ten images in a sequence that I want to keep to show the entire scene in context. Given it is a ten image sequence covering a one second long scene, every single photo in that sequence is getting the same Description/Caption, Headline and Keywords because they all show the same thing, just at different points of its progression.

This request is to have a keyboard shortcut where, going through those 10 images post-ingestion, I can recognise that the image I'm currently viewing is essentially identical to the last one that I viewed and all of its image content data can therefore be copied from that previous image.

Graham.

[Kirk Baker]

I could see adding a "make same as last" button with a keyboard shortcut, but the image content fields are only a default layout (you can customize the layout entirely and move fields around and change the labels) and different users will have different layouts so it would be a stretch to have a button that worked with separate fields.

-Kirk

[flyfifer]

I'd actually forgotten about changing the layout. Mainly because you do it once and then forget it was ever another way...

Make same as last for only those fields that you've made visible through the layout customisation would also be a useful solution for me. It would allow a level of control over the fields that you want the solution applied to.

[Bob M]

This suggestion doesn't exactly address flyfifer's request but I think it comes close.

Currently, both the "metadata info panel" and the "metadata template" have the ability to save and load data from a file.  This can be a useful means to copy data from one photo to multiple others.  But if you were to implement a "copy to clipboard" and "paste from clipboard" function for these two dialogs, the process would be even more efficient.  Conceivably these two operations could have keyboard shortcuts.  I accept that you would still need to backtrack for the initial save operation, but it would work well for copying to multiple photos.

[ahoward]

This suggestion doesn't exactly address flyfifer's request but I think it comes close.

Currently, both the "metadata info panel" and the "metadata template" have the ability to save and load data from a file.  This can be a useful means to copy data from one photo to multiple others.  But if you were to implement a "copy to clipboard" and "paste from clipboard" function for these two dialogs, the process would be even more efficient.  Conceivably these two operations could have keyboard shortcuts.  I accept that you would still need to backtrack for the initial save operation, but it would work well for copying to multiple photos.

Don't the Copy and Paste buttons (and their accompanying shortcuts which can be viewed by hovering your cursor over the buttons) on the Metadata Info window already accomplish this?

EDIT: you can also copy the contents of the Info dialogue to the Metadata Template by holding the shift key and clicking the button that is typically "Apply Metadata Template" which becomes "Copy to template"

[Bob M]

Well now I feel stupid.  I never noticed those buttons previously, only the save and load buttons at the bottom.

[flyfifer]

Actually, ahoward makes me realise that I'm overthinking the solution.

A single button with a corresponding keyboard shortcut that carries out the following actions invisibly:

1. Go to previous photo.
2. Copy.
3. Go to next photo.
4. Paste.

That would do exactly what I'm after.

Graham.