Perhaps some of you could help me on the following.
I read:
http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php ... s&start=15
which I think could be very instructive for me, except that I don't quite understand it. Non native English has something to do with that, probably.
Off course, I am trying to help myself by reading again and trying, but some tiny hints from people with more in depth knowledge will surely speed things up.
I have a very nice set of hierarchical keywords in my database. I guess they should be called hierarchical catalog labels? It works. I do find my photos easily and rather fast.
When looking into the files and in the database, I see that not allways the entire hierarchy of labels is entered. Sometimes only the most detailed ones, this is probably due to reorganising the structure at later stages. For instance, 'zonsopkomst' sunset used to be a daughter of 'moments' in 'Others', now it is related to 'licht' light in 'Styles'. Problem 1): When I drag 'zonsopkomst' to 'licht', photos that are prior assigned to 'zonsopkomst' don't get the tag 'licht', only new assigned ons (yes, not forgetting to select all these and to check them on and off solves this in future use). Problem 2): simply dragging the 'zonsopkomst' to 'licht' leaves 'moments' as a checked catalog label to the photo (same thing about not forgetting to uncheck). (I guess this could be called a 'widow' label / keyword).
1) Is there a fast way to get the actual hierarchy of labels set to all the photos in the database? I do nature photography, with all kinds of plants, birds, insects, so I've got quite a few entries to run through.
Next, like Harald, I keep finding a series of old and faulty keywords in the photos, which are not related to my desired PSU catalog labels (there is the difference to Haralds case). I am seeing those again now while looking for a substitute for Capture NX2 as raw-convertor.
I thought I cleaned these up years ago while building up an ID-Imager database from iView / Microsoft Expression Media written keywords (that has taken quite some effort). But it appears they are still there (at least partly). While typing this, I realise this could be due to putting back old files from a back-up after a HD-crash (Ouff, with quite some luck I was 100% save, except for some work...). However, I am not really sure that I cleaned the files, my focus being on the catalogue at the time.
2) What would be the fastest way to delete orphaned keywords from the files? I hope this can be done without needing to mess up my quite nice and rather tidy database by reading again the keywords from file and enter them as new catalog labels.
2a) Would running through all directories and apply 'synchronise XMP' be enough? Or, 2b) is it better/faster to run some other program to clean the EXIF and rewrite the desired labels back to the files as keywords after that? If so, 2c) which software would you advise for Nikon NEF's (99%), JPEGs and Tiff's).
(Yes, I am very confident that these old tags are rather a pain and I am sure I want to get rid of all of them. Some snowy dutch pictures are tagged Oman and klauwier)
3) What am I doing wrong on the following: when I change some catalog label from 'A, B' to 'A B' (without the ','), I still find a lot of 'A, B' tags in the files - and missing 'A B' -, while synchronisation is on, and has been running and snoring wildly on the process? It seems synchronisation doesn't always keep up? This also happens when updating from catalogue labels like 'firstename' to 'Firstename Lastname'. Database ok, (some) files not ok.
4) please do advice me to make a back-up in advance ...

(... Hey, in case that 2a) is not enough, perhaps I could - 2d) - work in a copy my database? Read all keywords from exif to catalog labels in that copy (probably for each directory separately), and subsequently delete all catalog labels with synchronisation on. That could be an extremely fast operation when deleting the parent catalog labels 2e), but probably it should be done per directory to avoid new orphans 2f (also considering point 3)? And, after that, delete the copy of the catalog, open the good old catalog and synchronise the directories again to load the correct labels to keywords... This 2c) and 2f) would imply running through the directories twice, so I just hope 2a) turns out to be enough...)
My first action will be: check again if 2a) works after all on a directory where I find orphaned keywords tagged to the files. I'll report in a few hours.
Next, I'ld like to understand point 3 first, since this could be crucial in the process.
thanks for reading, and possibly your reply