Dennis,
Let me make sure I have the syntax correct, though. Delane wrote "xxx_{suppcat3}_yy" which results in "xxx-JOHN DOE-yy", is this right? Using an underscore results in a dash in the name?
No. A dash is a dash. An underscore is an underscore. Look at the screenshots. Everything is dashes. Delane just made a minor mistake is all.
Also " put that player's name, number, position, team name, etc. into various IPTC fields." Any way to use code replacements to do this automatically? And when you say "various IPTC fields, there are only so many fields, correct, and these fields are limited in number, or can we use any field that appears in the IPTC matrix beyond the "supp" fields (as long as it isn't already being used)?
While code replacement is a great way to speed things up, it can't do anything automatically. You have to setup a code replacement file and you have to use it manually. For instance in one of Delane's thumbnails I can clearly see that the player's number is 35 and his name is Durant. I would create a code replacement file for the two teams that are playing, listing all of the player's names, numbers, positions, etc. Like so:
x35[tab]Durant, Center
x75[tab]Whatshisname, Forward
x14[tab]Whoishe, Guard
Then when I am captioning a photo with the player whose number is 35, I enter (into whatever field works for you, let's use Category) \x35\ and Code Replacement replaces that with Durant, Center
That's what Code Replacement does. And now that Category is filled in, I can go to the Caption field and do something like:
{category}, yells at a referee.
And when I save that IPTC data, the Caption field will look like this:
Durant, Center, yells at a referee.
In case you haven't been told this already (at least a million times) captioning is far any away the most time consuming portion of my workflow (especially when captioning action and stock images, where I may have over 100 shots per game to get out), and ANYTHING that can be done to reduce this will be greatly appreciated.
Clearly there is a lot of power to PM that I am only beginning to unleash, and through helpful folks like you guys, I might just learn 10% of what it has to offer.
One thing you can do to speed this process up is to do captioning in passes. First use the IPTC Stationery Pad when you are ingesting your images. Apply only the metadata that is common between all photos. This would be things like City, State, Country, Country Code, Photographer, partial keywords, and Copyright.
For the copyright field you can do the following which will automate your copyright text:
Copyright {year4}, your name
Set the "Apply checkboxes" to the left of any fields you want to apply, clear any that you don't want to apply. Note that if you want to clear a field, you can make it empty and set its Apply checkbox and when applied, that field will be cleared.
So now in this workflow example, all of my images now have their City, State, Country, Country Code, Photographer, partial keywords and Copyright finished. Now I can do another pass with similar images. I would then identify all of the pictures with common players in them and I would select them. Then I would filter them to be the only pictures shown in the contact sheet with the F2 key. Then bring up the IPTC Info dialog and work with all of them, using Code Replacement to get each of the player's info into various fields like Category, Supp Cat 1, etc.
Now I would exit the IPTC Info dialog and press F1 to show all images. (These are keyboard shortcuts corresponding to the View menu items.) I would then repeat this last step for all common photos, to the least common photos.
Then I would make a keywording pass since keywords are a really great way for people to find your images and it is important to use synonyms like Delane has in his example. His subject is basketball, but he also put in the word "hoops" in his keywords. This way if someone looks for images with basketball, his images will be found and if someone uses the word hoops, his images will also be found. Some of this keywording can be automated by using the IPTC Stationery Pad again, but this time we'll mine our current metadata to add keywords.
In the Keywords field of the IPTC Stationery Pad, enter {category}, {suppcat1}, {suppcat2}, {suppcat3} and make sure that the Apply checkbox and the Append checkbox (it looks like '+') are set. Then apply this IPTC Stationery Pad to all of your images. The images now all would say something like this:
basketball, hoops, team1, team2, madison, square garden, Durant, Center
Then I would go through the individual captions and add any final details to make them complete.
Next would be to do any image manipulation (toning, sharpening, etc.) in my favorite image editor and then upload them to a service of some kind via PM's FTP.
I hope this gets you going toward an efficient workflow. Captioning does indeed take a lot of time and PM does it's best to provide you with enough power and flexibility to get things done the way you want to work.
-Kirk
