Disappearing iptc fields - script to lift and stamp metadata

Question

Hi there,
I don't know if this is a general thing or not with Aperture 2.1, but in my library (all referenced images on 3 external disks) lots of not really recent photos get their thumbnails and previews updated anytime I browse the library. Although it slows down aperture a little, it's not really a big issue. The problem is that many older images lose their IPTC data upon refresh. It just disappears, leaving only the keywords in place. Caption etc are all gone. I have tried to update some of this manually, but as soon as I use reveal in an applescript, so I can lift and stamp metadata from another picture in the shoot, some more files get updated etc. etc. I don't really know what's happening here, probably a bug, but I've written a little applescript to update them automatically.
What it does:
It goes through all albums in the library (you can probably change this to something less granular if you only use projects as the basis of your library) and applies the iptc of one of the images with iptc data to the ones without it. It's not 100% error proof but works in my setup. The way it works is it puts all images in one of 2 lists, with and without caption information. It then gets the exif date and the iptc data from the last image on the list with captions and applies the iptc data to any image on the list without captions with the same exif date (to avoid stamping images from albums that have images from various sources.
My library is organized into folders with the name of the external drive the referenced images are on. It then contains projects (with or without a certain theme) and withing those projects are albums that reflect the directory the images on the disks are in. This is a leftover of my old days with iview media pro. All images are within an album. One last thing: Run the script from the Aperture menu. From the script editor it's very slow, due to large amounts of text passing through.
Anyway, here's the script, I hope it helps, maybe it can serve as an example for scripts like it:
-- create lists for photos with and without captions applied and references to the lists (supposed to be faster)
set imagenscomcaption to {}
set imagenssemcaption to {}
set refimagenscomcaption to a reference to imagenscomcaption
set refimagenssemcaption to a reference to imagenssemcaption
tell application "Aperture"
--get all albums of the main library, i assume pictures in albums are related to each other and captions from one image can be applied to another
set albumsdefotos to albums of library 1
repeat with contadordealbums from 1 to the count of albumsdefotos
set cadaalbum to item contadordealbums of albumsdefotos
set fotos to image versions of cadaalbum
--get the name of the album and display it
set nomedoalbum to name of cadaalbum
display dialog (nomedoalbum as string) & " - album " & contadordealbums & " of " & (count of albumsdefotos) giving up after 2
-- get all photos in album and put them in the right group, with or without caption information
repeat with contadordefotos from 1 to the count of fotos
set fotocorrente to item contadordefotos of fotos
tell fotocorrente
-- get all iptc tags and convert to string to be able to search without having to flip through all of them
set nomesdostags to name of IPTC tags as string
-- add to either list depending on having an iptc tag or not
if nomesdostags contains "Caption" then
copy fotocorrente to the end of refimagenscomcaption
else
copy fotocorrente to the end of refimagenssemcaption
end if
end tell
end repeat
display dialog (((count of refimagenscomcaption) as string) & " images with captions - " & (count of refimagenssemcaption) as string) & " images without captions" giving up after 2
--code to apply iptc tags of last photo in list with captions -if it exists- to all photos without them
if (count of refimagenscomcaption) is greater than 0 and (count of refimagenssemcaption) is greater than 0 then
--use last item of the list as source pic for iptc
set fotoorigem to last item of refimagenscomcaption
tell fotoorigem
try
set dataexiforigem to value of EXIF tag "ImageDate" as date
set dataorigem to my date_format(dataexiforigem) as string
set tagsorigem to IPTC tags of fotoorigem
on error
set dataorigem to "0000-00-00"
end try
end tell
--handle pics without caption, check image date first and as extra security only apply iptc of origin to destiny if the date is the same
repeat with contadordestino from 1 to count of refimagenssemcaption
set fotodestino to item contadordestino of refimagenssemcaption
tell fotodestino
set dataexifdestino to value of EXIF tag "ImageDate" as date
set datadestino to my date_format(dataexifdestino) as string
end tell
if dataorigem is equal to datadestino then
repeat with tagcorrente in tagsorigem
set nometag to name of tagcorrente
set valortag to value of tagcorrente
tell fotodestino
try
make new IPTC tag with properties {name:nometag, value:valortag}
end try
end tell
end repeat
end if
end repeat
end if
set imagenscomcaption to {}
set imagenssemcaption to {}
end repeat
end tell
--routine to format a date into yyyy-mm-dd
on dateformat(olddate)
set {year:y, month:m, day:d} to old_date
tell (y * 10000 + m * 100 + d) as string to text 1 thru 4 & "-" & text 5 thru 6 & "-" & text 7 thru 8
end date_format

Answer 1

Hi there,
I don't know if this is a general thing or not with Aperture 2.1, but in my library (all referenced images on 3 external disks) lots of not really recent photos get their thumbnails and previews updated anytime I browse the library. Although it slows down aperture a little, it's not really a big issue. The problem is that many older images lose their IPTC data upon refresh. It just disappears, leaving only the keywords in place. Caption etc are all gone. I have tried to update some of this manually, but as soon as I use reveal in an applescript, so I can lift and stamp metadata from another picture in the shoot, some more files get updated etc. etc. I don't really know what's happening here, probably a bug, but I've written a little applescript to update them automatically.
What it does:
It goes through all albums in the library (you can probably change this to something less granular if you only use projects as the basis of your library) and applies the iptc of one of the images with iptc data to the ones without it. It's not 100% error proof but works in my setup. The way it works is it puts all images in one of 2 lists, with and without caption information. It then gets the exif date and the iptc data from the last image on the list with captions and applies the iptc data to any image on the list without captions with the same exif date (to avoid stamping images from albums that have images from various sources.
My library is organized into folders with the name of the external drive the referenced images are on. It then contains projects (with or without a certain theme) and withing those projects are albums that reflect the directory the images on the disks are in. This is a leftover of my old days with iview media pro. All images are within an album. One last thing: Run the script from the Aperture menu. From the script editor it's very slow, due to large amounts of text passing through.
Anyway, here's the script, I hope it helps, maybe it can serve as an example for scripts like it:
-- create lists for photos with and without captions applied and references to the lists (supposed to be faster)
set imagenscomcaption to {}
set imagenssemcaption to {}
set refimagenscomcaption to a reference to imagenscomcaption
set refimagenssemcaption to a reference to imagenssemcaption
tell application "Aperture"
--get all albums of the main library, i assume pictures in albums are related to each other and captions from one image can be applied to another
set albumsdefotos to albums of library 1
repeat with contadordealbums from 1 to the count of albumsdefotos
set cadaalbum to item contadordealbums of albumsdefotos
set fotos to image versions of cadaalbum
--get the name of the album and display it
set nomedoalbum to name of cadaalbum
display dialog (nomedoalbum as string) & " - album " & contadordealbums & " of " & (count of albumsdefotos) giving up after 2
-- get all photos in album and put them in the right group, with or without caption information
repeat with contadordefotos from 1 to the count of fotos
set fotocorrente to item contadordefotos of fotos
tell fotocorrente
-- get all iptc tags and convert to string to be able to search without having to flip through all of them
set nomesdostags to name of IPTC tags as string
-- add to either list depending on having an iptc tag or not
if nomesdostags contains "Caption" then
copy fotocorrente to the end of refimagenscomcaption
else
copy fotocorrente to the end of refimagenssemcaption
end if
end tell
end repeat
display dialog (((count of refimagenscomcaption) as string) & " images with captions - " & (count of refimagenssemcaption) as string) & " images without captions" giving up after 2
--code to apply iptc tags of last photo in list with captions -if it exists- to all photos without them
if (count of refimagenscomcaption) is greater than 0 and (count of refimagenssemcaption) is greater than 0 then
--use last item of the list as source pic for iptc
set fotoorigem to last item of refimagenscomcaption
tell fotoorigem
try
set dataexiforigem to value of EXIF tag "ImageDate" as date
set dataorigem to my date_format(dataexiforigem) as string
set tagsorigem to IPTC tags of fotoorigem
on error
set dataorigem to "0000-00-00"
end try
end tell
--handle pics without caption, check image date first and as extra security only apply iptc of origin to destiny if the date is the same
repeat with contadordestino from 1 to count of refimagenssemcaption
set fotodestino to item contadordestino of refimagenssemcaption
tell fotodestino
set dataexifdestino to value of EXIF tag "ImageDate" as date
set datadestino to my date_format(dataexifdestino) as string
end tell
if dataorigem is equal to datadestino then
repeat with tagcorrente in tagsorigem
set nometag to name of tagcorrente
set valortag to value of tagcorrente
tell fotodestino
try
make new IPTC tag with properties {name:nometag, value:valortag}
end try
end tell
end repeat
end if
end repeat
end if
set imagenscomcaption to {}
set imagenssemcaption to {}
end repeat
end tell
--routine to format a date into yyyy-mm-dd
on dateformat(olddate)
set {year:y, month:m, day:d} to old_date
tell (y * 10000 + m * 100 + d) as string to text 1 thru 4 & "-" & text 5 thru 6 & "-" & text 7 thru 8
end date_format