Importing IPTC keywords into iPhoto

Question

I have >10,000 photos from my research project with imbedded metadata including four keywords. These are in the IPTC field separated by commas.
keyword_1, keyword_2, keyword_3, keyword_4
When I import these into iPhoto I get a single keyword
keyword_1, keyword_2, keyword_3, keyword_4
If I click to edit this keyword, it immediately is broken into four separate keywords plus the original one.
keyword_1, keyword_2, keyword_3, keyword_4
keyword_1
keyword_2
keyword_3
keyword_4
The four individual keywords are what I want but I have to click on the keyword of each photo to achieve this. Extremely time consuming.
Does anyone know if iPhoto can be made to import each keyword individually or a faster way to make iPhoto convert these to the correct format? I do have the ability to edit the IPTC data via terminal scripts so I could modify the original IPTC data if I only knew what iPhoto needs to import properly.
I tried using semicolons to separate the keywords.
i.e. keyword_1; keyword_2; keyword_3; keyword_4
This failed as it just gave me a single keyword that no longer was automatically edited upon clicking.

Answer 1

Hi Phil,
I originally started this on your ExifTool forum. A chap there graciously provided, and helped to refine, a script using ExifTool which has me 95% of the way to my goal.
I'm not a programmer so my understanding of the script is incomplete. It first extracts the data from a csv file and then uses ExifTool to write that data to the jpg files. I copied what I believe to be the relevant sections hoping that maybe someone here could spot the error.
PHYLUM_CSV=`grep ${BASEIMAGE} "${RUBRICFILE}" | cut -d , -f 9`
CLASS_CSV=`grep ${BASEIMAGE} "${RUBRICFILE}" | cut -d , -f 10`
ORDER_CSV=`grep ${BASEIMAGE} "${RUBRICFILE}" | cut -d , -f 11`
FAMILY_CSV=`grep ${BASEIMAGE} "${RUBRICFILE}" | cut -d , -f 12`
KEYWORDS_CSV="1_PHYLUM_${PHYLUM_CSV}, 2_CLASS_${CLASS_CSV}, 3_ORDER_${ORDER_CSV}, 4_FAMILY_${FAMILY_CSV}, 5_GENUS_${GENUS_CSV}, 6_SPECIES_${SPECIES_CSV}"
fi
CAPTION_ABSTRACT_F=`exiftool -s -s -s -caption-abstract "${FILESPEC}"`
KEYWORDS_F=`exiftool -s -s -s -caption-abstract "${FILESPEC}"`
SUBJECT_F=`exiftool -s -s -s -caption-abstract "${FILESPEC}"`
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place \
-keywords="${KEYWORDS_CSV}" \
-subject="${KEYWORDS_CSV}" \
"${FILESPEC}"
Here is part of the ExifTool output for one of the files processed with the script. I edited out parts which I thought irrelevant.
bash-3.2$ exiftool -g 0M9I5019.jpg | less -i
---- ExifTool ----
ExifTool Version Number : 8.50
---- File ----
File Name : 0M9I5019.jpg
Directory : .
File Size : 527 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2003:11:01 20:54:18-05:00
File Permissions : rwx------
File Type : JPEG
MIME Type : image/jpeg
Exif Byte Order : Big-endian (Motorola, MM)
Current IPTC Digest : e6ec6c038fb4c40ebc0252d089a24f1e
---- IPTC ----
Object Name : 0M9I5019, Petrosia (Petrosia) sp. 1895
Keywords : 1_PHYLUM_Porifera, 2_CLASS_Demospongiae, 3_ORDER_Haplosclerida, 4_FAMILY_Petrosiidae, 5_GENUS_Petrosia (Petrosia), 6_SPECIES_sp. 1895
Caption-Abstract : Malaysia, depth 10, depth range 6-10m, wet weight 1168
Application Record Version : 4
---- XMP ----
XMP Toolkit : Image::ExifTool 8.50
Location : 04 20.67N, 113 53.76E
Description : Malaysia, depth 10, depth range 6-10m, wet weight 1168
Subject : 1_PHYLUM_Porifera, 2_CLASS_Demospongiae, 3_ORDER_Haplosclerida, 4_FAMILY_Petrosiidae, 5_GENUS_Petrosia (Petrosia), 6_SPECIES_sp. 1895
Title : 0M9I5019, Petrosia (Petrosia) sp. 1895
The keywords are written into both the IPTC:Keywords and XMP:Subject fields of the metadata. I'm not sure why they are written to both or which field iPhoto imports keywords from.
I added the 1_PHYLUM_, etc tags so that the keywords would sort in the correct order in iPhoto.
Strangely enough, the keywords are imported into Picasa as individual keywords but sort in reverse order.
I'm studying your exiftool faq now.
Thanks,
Paul