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Exporting Metadata and Attributes with the Text Exporter

The ability to export metadata in various formats is a key feature for every digital asset management system. IMatch includes a wide range of export modules which allow you to export attributes, metadata and other data in a variety of formats.

Exporting Metadata and Attributes

This know-how article covers the flexible Text Export module which enables you to create text files in a variety of formats. The export module supports both UTF-8 and UTF-16 (Windows^® UNICODE) encoded text, which allows you to create output which works on all platforms and operating systems. IMatch enables you to output virtually every metadata field and Attribute it maintains in the database, ready to imported into other applications and systems.

These output formats are supported:

CSV Files (e.g. for Import into Microsoft^® Excel or similar products)
Tab-delimited formats (ideal for many databases)
XML Files (popular cross-platform format)
JSON Files (to process the results in JavaScript or similar)

Each format can be customized to match whatever format the importing application expects. As a result, you can export virtually anything that is stored in your IMatch database conveniently into other applications.

What To Export

You control the data to export via standard IMatch variables, which gives you complete access to all metadata and Attributes IMatch maintains for your files. Using variable formatting functions you can further format and modify the output to meet your requirements.

Each file processed by the export module produces one ‘record’ in the output. The resulting record can have any number of ‘fields’. A field has an (optional) name and a value. The name is plain text and the value is composed from one or more variables and literal text. For example:

FileName:{File.NameExt}

The name of this field is FileName and the value comes from the variable {File.NameExt}, which returns the file name and extension of the file (e.g., beach.jpg). Field name and value are separated by a colon:

To export multiple fields per record, just add additional declarations on additional lines:

FileName:{File.NameExt}
DateCreated:{File.MD.createdate|format:YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss}
Description:{File.MD.description}
Credit:{File.MD.credit}

This declaration exports 4 fields per record. To keep things tidy, this example uses shortcodes like createdate instead of the long standard variable names. See the IMatch help for details about shortcodes.

Formatting Variables

By default IMatch exports date and time information in your local date&time format (as configured in Windows). This may cause problems when the importing application expects date and time in a specific format.

To prevent any problems in this area, we use the format function together with the createdate variable to produce a date and time format in standard ISO YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format. This avoids any ambiguities.

IMatch supports dozens of variable formatting functions. Please see the Variables help topic in the IMatch help for a full list and examples.

Tip: Var Toy And Other Helpers

Not only for this case, but in general when you work with variables in IMatch, the Var Toy App can be a big help. This app allows you to enter a mix of literal text and variables and to immediately see the result.

Open an App Panel via View > Panels > App Panel (or <F9>,<1>) and select the Var Toy App in the drop-down list at the top of the App Panel:

The VarToy allows you to interactively try out variables. You can paste variables and text into the upper edit field and the App immediately displays the result. Use the Browse Variables… button to open the standard Variable Browser.

Copy as Variable

The Metadata Panel has a useful command which allows you to copy the corresponding variable for a metadata tag into the clipboard. Right click any caption in the Metadata Panel to open the context menu:

The Copy as Variable command copies the variable for the clicked metadata tag into the Windows Clipboard. From there you can insert it into the VarToy App or into whatever feature you want to use it with.

Running the Text Export

Select the files you want to include in the export and drop them on the Text Export module in the Import & Export Panel. You can also drop one or more folders, categories, collections or time-line nodes.

Drop files or other objects on the Text Export module in the Import & Export Panel

If the panel is not visible, open it via View > Panels > Import & Export or <F9>,<X>.

After you have dropped the objects, the Text Exporter opens a dialog box where you can configure the format and options for the export:

The options in this dialog are mostly self-explanatory. Press <F1> to open the corresponding topic in the IMatch help, which explains each option in detail. The help also contains examples and suggested output formats for a variety or common applications.

We create a standard CSV (comma-separated values) file in this case. Fields are separated with a comma (,) and each row (aka ‘record’) is delimited with a carriage return / line feed pair. This is the format expected by most Windows applications and Office suites.

At the bottom of the dialog you see the field definitions we have defined earlier. We just coped them from the VarToy App into the input field in the Text Export module. You can of course also enter and edit them in this dialog directly.

The Result

After running the export for 3 sample files, we can open the resulting file in Windows Notepad for a quick check:

Or we open it directly in Microsoft^® Excel (or Open/Libre Office):

CSV files like this using , ; or <tabulator> as field separators can be imported by most Office applications, statistic software, database systems etc.

XML Output

If you have more sophisticated applications, they often support XML or JSON as an import format. If we run the same export again, but this time switch the output format to XML, we get a result that can be easily re-formatted and imported by a wide range of applications across all platforms:

Note that the only change was switching the output format to XML. Our field definitions are the same as before. The Text Export module automatically used the field names as node names for the XML file and converted the values into proper XML data records.

Summary

The Text Export module in the digital asset management system IMatch is a flexible tool for exporting metadata and Attributes into other applications. It can produce plain text and CSV files, but also more advanced formats like XML and JSON. Using a mix of IMatch variables and text you can control the data you export, and the format in which the data is exported.

Whether you want to reuse data stored in your IMatch database in Excel or a Word Processor or you want to copy data into other database systems, the Text Export module is a great and easy way to handle this.

See also the related know-how article Using the Copy Data App With Your Office Application for another way to quickly transfer data from IMatch to other applications.

Using Custom Icons in the File Window

IMatch File Windows use a range of icons to present metadata and digital asset states. The file collections, the XMP rating and label, category assignments and more.

Sometimes it may be desirable to display additional icons. Maybe you want to indicate images taken at high-ISO settings, which may require extra care during post processing. Or you want to show a warning icon for files which have no keywords or description – as part of your quality management.

File Window Icons: Final — Some custom icons in the IMatch File Window.

Using Custom Templates

The general idea is to use a custom template in your File Window layout. This allows you to display arbitrary variables inside the File Window panels, and also to use some XAML markup to load and display icons.

To use a custom template, open the File Window Layout Editor, add a new layout (or clone an existing layout) and switch the Attribute property of the cell you want to use to the Custom Template setting.

File Window Icons — Switching the Header 1 cell to a custom template allows us to display a free mix of text, variables and XAML markup directly in File Window panels.

Add a ‘No Keywords’ Indicator

For this example, we want to display an icon when a file has no keywords. The variable {File.MD.hierarchicalkeywords} returns all keywords of a file. If it is empty, the file has no keywords. We use this to produce this variable expression for our custom template:

{File.MD.hierarchicalkeywords|hasvalue:;default:No Keywords}

We combine the hasvalue and default functions (see IMatch help on Variables for details) to output the text ‘No Keywords’ if a file has no keywords. To test this, copy and paste the above expression into one of your file window layouts. Or use the Var Toy App in the App Panel to try things out.

Use <Image> to Load Images

To display a custom icon instead of the text ‘No Keywords’, we add a XAML instruction which allows us to render an image. The <Image> tag does the job:

<Image Source='file://c:\data\imdb\nokeywords.png'></Image>

In this example, we load the image file stored in ‘c:\data\imdb\nokeywords.png’. This file is a 32 x 32 pixel PNG file with a transparent background. This size works best for our layout, but you can of course also use smaller or larger icons.

We combine this markup fragment with the custom template created earlier to produce the final custom template:

Write everything in a single line. The line breaks ↵ here are for layout purposes only.

{File.MD.hierarchicalkeywords|hasvalue:;↵
default:<Image Source='file://C:\data\imdb\icons\nokeywords.png'>
</Image>}

We also set the Size of the ‘Header 1’ cell to 34 pixel to make room for the icon. The result in the File Window looks pretty cool:

File Window Icon

This little icon tells us that the file has no keywords yet. Awesome.

Add a ‘Missing Description’ Icon

You can display custom icons in any of the four header and eight footer cells – and you can even display multiple icons per cell. A lot of flexibility here.

To add a second icon which indicates missing descriptions, use this custom template:

{File.MD.description|hasvalue:;default:↵
<Image Source='file://C:\data\imdb\icons\nodesc.png'></Image>}

As before, we test if a given metadata tag (in this case the XMP description) is empty. If this is true, we use an <Image> XAML tag to load and display an icon.

For this example, I have combined both tests and icons into the same ‘Header 1’ cell:

{File.MD.hierarchicalkeywords|hasvalue:;default:↵
<Image Source='file://C:\data\imdb\icons\nokeywords.png'></Image>}↵
{File.MD.description|hasvalue:;default:↵
<Image Source='file://C:\data\imdb\icons\nodesc.png'></Image>}

The result in the File Window looks like this:

File Window Icons: Final

The left file has keywords, but no description. The file in the middle is missing both, and the file on the right has a description but no keywords. You immediately see which files require some additional work.

A Note on ‘Escaping’

IMatch by default escapes variable values to make them safe to use with XAML. This means that special characters like < or > are replaced by their safe counterparts < or > to prevent metadata contents to accidentally break XAML markup in the File Window. This is usually exactly what you want, to be able to safely display all metadata in File Windows.

If the variables you use actually produce XAML, escaping may get in the way, preventing you from displaying images or other markup content. The default: function used above is an exception, because it does not replace unsafe characters. But if you use markup in other functions, you need to use a trick to prevent escaping. This trick involves the pereplace function, which allows you to replace text after IMatch has performed the escaping when processing variables.

In this example we use two steps:

1. Emit the value HV when the file has keywords (hasvalue) and XAML markup for the default: case

2. Replace HV with XAML markup using pereplace.

{File.MD.hierarchicalkeywords|hasvalue:HV;default:<Image Source="C:\temp\checkbox_unchecked.png"/>;pereplace:HV==<Image Source="C:\temp\checkbox.png"/>}

This way, when IMatch performs escaping on the variable, it only sees the safe value HV. Afterwards we replace these placeholders with XAML markup that loads and displays images.

Summary

By using custom templates in file window layouts you can display arbitrary variables in exactly the format you want. By adding a bit of XAML code, you can also load images or use custom colors for text and background. See the IMatch help for more info on XAML markup supported by IMatch.

Use the techniques presented here to add custom indicators for all kinds of purposes. You can improve your digital asset quality management by adding visual clues right into the File Window. When you catalog images, you can use icons to indicate high-ISO files, files taken with specific cameras, by specific photographers. Or you use icons to highlight files with specific keywords or metadata contents.

The code to load and display the icon is always the same. You just vary the variables you use to determine whether or not to display the icon, or which icon.

Use Metadata Tag Shortcodes To Save Typing

Variables are a flexible tool for displaying custom metadata in features like File Windows, Viewer, Slide Show, Renamer, Batch Processor and elsewhere. The digital asset management software IMatch gives users access to over 10,000 metadata fields, from all relevant formats, including XMP, IPTC, EXIF, GPS, ID3, PDF and more.

Accessing Metadata Fields via Tag Names

IMatch uses a consistent naming schema for metadata variables, based on the native ExifTool syntax. For example, to access the frequently used XMP title and description tags via variables, you use:

{File.MD.XMP::dc\title\Title}
{File.MD.XMP::dc\description\Description\0}

Of course you don’t need to remember or type these rather long variable names. You can just pick them in the Tag Selector dialog. See the IMatch help system for details.

IMatch Standard Tags & Shortcodes

IMatch defines a set of standard tags, which include the most frequently used metadata tags from XMP metadata and other formats. The Tag Selector dialog presents these tags in a separate tab, which makes them extra easy to work with.

A second (and often overlooked) benefit of standard tags is that IMatch defines a shortcode for each of these tags which can be used in variables. The above example using shortcodes would look like this:

{File.MD.title}
{File.MD.description}

A lot cleaner and easier to remember. And when you work with complex sets of multiple variables, shortcodes can improve readability a lot.

Search the IMatch help system index for shortcode to find the corresponding topic which lists all 80 available shortcodes.

How To Find Files Without Metadata

Sometimes you need to find all files which have no data for a given metadata tag. Maybe you need to find files without a description, or files which have no keywords yet. This can be easily achieved with the digital asset management system IMatch.

We use the Value filter for this purpose. Open the Filter Panel via View > Panels > Filter or the keyboard shortcut <F9>,<L>. If no Value filter is visible in the panel, click on the Gear icon in the toolbar and choose it from the drop-down menu.

In the Value filter, select the metadata tag to use. For this example, we used the Description tag. This procedure of course works with all 14,000 metadata tags currently supported by IMatch.

Enable the option Files with value. This tells the filter to search for all files which have data in the selected tag. It removes all files without data from the File Window.

Now enable the option invert the result. The filter now filters out all files which have data for the tag, leaving only files without data in the file window. And this is what we wanted: All files without a description.

As usual, the filter works on the current scope (what you ‘see’ in the File Window). To find all files without a description in a folder, select the folder. Or multiple folders. You can also select one or more categories, collections, time-line nodes…

To find all files without a description in your entire database, just select the Database node in the Media & Folders View or the @All category in the Category View.

[font_full1 title=”” icon=”info-circle” color=”light” size=”large”]If you need this filter often, save it. You can then apply the filter any time by just clicking it in the filter list in the Filter Panel.[/font_full1]

Using Adobe Lightroom® and IMatch together

IMatch complements Adobe Lightroom^® (Lr) with powerful and flexible cross-application digital asset management (DAM) features. This article explains how to configure IMatch and Lightroom to work optimally with each other.

When you manage files in IMatch and process these files in Adobe Lightroom, IMatch stays in control of the entire process. You can launch Lr directly from within IMatch, you can drag files from IMatch to the Lr application window to open/import them etc.

Changes made to files and metadata in Lightroom (e.g. when you edit a rating, label, title, description or keywords) are automatically recognized by IMatch and it re-imports the files to keep your IMatch database up-to-date. IMatch also records such events in the file history so you can always track back and see who changed which files.

Settings in IMatch

IMatch implements the Metadata Working Group recommendations for metadata processing. It by default embeds XMP metadata in standard formats like JPEG, TIFF, DNG, or PSD, and uses external XMP sidecar files for RAW image formats. Adobe Lightroom behaves the same, which makes metadata exchange between LR and IMatch easy and automatic. You usually don’t need to adjust any of these settings in IMatch.

Changes made to metadata in IMatch show up in Lr when you write-back the changes to the files in IMatch – which can be done on-demand or immediately. The default is to save changes to the database but to delay the update of files until you explicitly execute a write-back command. This improves overall performance considerably.

Note that you may have to explicitly reload the metadata in Lr with the Read Metadata from File command. Lr will indicate that metadata for files has changed on disk.

If you want IMatch to automatically write-back modified metadata at the earliest opportunity, enable this feature under Edit > Preferences > Background Processing. IMatch then always writes back changes to files in the background. While data is written to files, some features in IMatch may be slower than normal. You can monitor the write-back progress via the Info & Activity Panel.

Settings in Lightroom

Lightroom by default keeps modified metadata inside its catalog database. To make metadata visible for other applications (including IMatch), you have to enable the option Automatically write changes into XMP available in the LR Catalog settings or you have to manually write back files.

Lightroom XMP Settings — Lightroom XMP write.-back settings

If this option is enabled, LR writes changes made to metadata into its catalog database and updates the XMP metadata record contained in your image files or the associated XMP sidecar file. This allows IMatch and other applications to see the updated metadata and to process it.

You can also write-back metadata for one or more files manually via the corresponding icon in the thumbnail panel.

Lightroom Manual Writeback — Manually writing back metadata changes to individual files.

Keywords

Both IMatch and Lightroom flatten hierarchical keywords when writing metadata. In IMatch you control how this is done under Edit > Preferences > Metadata. Lightroom offers less control over this step.

Face Tags

When you tag a face in Lr, it includes the face region (the ‘box’ surrounding the face) and the tag into the XMP record associated with the file.

In IMatch you have several options under Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2 which allow you to control if and how IMatch imports face data from XMP. These settings control the automatic mapping of XMP face regions into IMatch Face Annotations, how IMatch imports the face tag into your hierarchical keywords and other things. Please search the IMatch help index for the word face to find detailed information.

GPS-Data and Location Info

IMatch has powerful features to work with GPS data, track logs and location data like country, city or location.

The IMatch Map Panel (DAM) — Working with GPS coordinates in the IMatch Map Panel.

IMatch can add add GPS coordinates to files or edit existing GPS data. IMatch has built-in reverse geo-coding for GeoNames.org and Google Maps. IMatch stores GPS data as part of the GPS EXIF record embedded in your images and/or the XMP record embedded in the image or the sidecar file. This makes this data accessible to all applications which support GPS or XMP metadata.

If you prefer to add GPS coordinates to your files in Lightroom, this data will become visible and usable in IMatch automatically. The data is part of the XMP record stored in your files. No specific settings are required in IMatch.

Crop

If you crop an image, Lr usually saves a crop record with the XMP metadata. IMatch can use this data to (virtually) apply the same crop when displaying the file. Unfortunately, this cannot not always work due to limitations in XMP and Lr. Please see the IMatch help topic for Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2 in the IMatch help for details about this feature.

See Your Files in IMatch as in Lightroom

When you make changes to a RAW image in Lr, these changes are only virtual. Lightroom remembers your settings and applies these to the image via the proprietary Lightroom render engine. These changes are not visible or usable for other applications. The notable exception are RAW files in DNG format. Here Lr stores an ‘as-intended’ preview in the DNG file. IMatch and other applications can use this preview display the image identical to the Lightroom rendition.

For regular RAW formats this is impossible due to the way Lightroom and other RAW processors manage non-destructive (virtual) edits.

IMatch here offers a solution via a so-called visual proxy.
First you export a JPEG version of your images from Lightroom. This produces an image with all Lr development settings applied. Store this JPEG in the same folder as the original RAW file, or a sub-folder (some users prefer to use the name proxies for this folder).

In IMatch, you define a file relation between the RAW files and these proxy JPEG files. IMatch then knows that the RAW files are masters and the JPEG files are versions of these masters. If you enable the visual proxy attribute for this file relation, IMatch uses the JPEG image to represent the master in the File Window and other features. This means that your RAW files will look in IMatch as they look in Lightroom.

File Relations and Visual Proxies in IMatch — **Left:** The original RAW file without Lightroom settings applied.
**Right:** Using an IMatch File Relation and a visual proxy image. The NEF file is now represented by the preview taken from the JPEG proxy image created by Lightroom.

Also make JPEG files a buddy file for your RAW file format(s). This ensures that IMatch keeps master and versions together during rename, copy, move or delete operations. Very comfortable. For more information about the powerful File Relations concept in the IMatch DAM see the corresponding topic in the IMatch help system.

The Lightroom Importer App

IMatch includes a specialized app (version 2017.12.2 and later) which enables you to import selected data from your Lightroom catalog into your IMatch database. IMatch offers to run this importer after you have created your database. You can run it later at any time via the Import & Export Panel (View menu > Panels > Import & Export Panel).

‘Downloading’ Files from Cameras, Cards or Phones

IMatch has no built-in downloading feature. Use the built-in functions in Windows to download images from your camera, card or phone to your disk.

Tip: Create a Download folder on your disk and add this folder to your IMatch database. Download images always into this folder. If IMatch is running it will automatically detect the new files and include them into the database. Else IMatch picks up the new files when you start it the next time.

Renaming Files

IMatch has a powerful feature named Renamer which allows you to rename file using a wide range of criteria, from date and time to metadata. The Renamer can move and copy files, create new folders on-the-fly and more. To use it, select the files you want to rename and press Ctrl + F2.

Use it at any time, or on the Download folder (see section above) to automatically rename and distribute new files into date-based folders.

The Renamer is fully integrated into IMatch and supports the buddy file management features of IMatch. This means that when you rename, copy or move files with the Renamer, IMatch moves, copies and renames all associated buddy files automatically. Very convenient.

Exporting Files and Batch Processing

IMatch is a DAM and no image editor or RAW processor. You can still use it to export and convert images into a wide range of formats with the built-in Batch Processor. The Batch Processor not only converts files, it also has options for text or image overlays, borders, canvas, watermarking, controlled metadata export and a more. See the IMatch help topic for the Batch Processor for more information.

Printing Contact Sheets or Photo Books

The Design & Print feature in IMatch is a very powerful tool for printing contact sheets, photo books, calendars, albums and more. It is easy to use for beginners but has highly sophisticated features for advanced users. See the IMatch help topic for the Design & Print feature for more information.

You can output the results directly to any connected printer, as individual images or in PDF or XPS formats using the built-in printer drivers in Windows.

General Tips

The XMP metadata format and the rules and recommendations of the Metadata Working Group allow multiple applications to exchange metadata in a (fairly) standardized way.

Avoid changing metadata for the same files at the same time in multiple applications. XMP has no concept to handle concurrent updates to metadata and thus one application may accidentally wipe out the changes made to metadata by another applications.

When using a DAM like IMatch, most users find it easier to edit and manage metadata only in the DAM, and use the RAW processing or image editing software for their original purposes: developing and editing images.

You can also use the protection features available in IMatch under Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2 to protect XMP data changed but not yet written to be replaced by XMP data changed in other application. See the IMatch help for details.