Preset Template Tokens in My Lightroom Plugins

Many of my plugins for Adobe Lightroom Classic offer the ability to construct certain kinds of data dynamically, such as setting image titles when uploading photos to a remote site.

The rest of this page documents the template notation as it exists for the latest versions of the plugins running in the latest version of Lightroom. If something doesn't seem to work as documented, please make sure you're using the latest version of your plugin, via the check now button in the upper-right section of the Plugin Manager.


A template is a combination of prose and special tokens wrapped in { ... } that insert photo-specific items.

For example, the template

     Copyright {YYYY} {Artist}

includes the text Copyright, a space, the token YYYY (which stands for the year that the photo was taken), a space, and the Artist token (which stands for the value of the Artist metadata item).

For one of my photos taken in 2006, this example would become

   Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl

Here is the list of tokens that are currently supported:

Photo Date
YYYY The year the photo was taken, as a four-digit string
YY The year the photo was taken, as a two-digit string
MM The month the photo was taken, as a two-digit string
DD The day of the month the photo was taken, as a two-digit string
HH The hour value for the time the photo was taken, in 24-hour notation, as a two-digit string
HH12 The hour value for the time the photo was taken, in 12-hour notation, as one- or two-digit string
AMPM The AM/PM designation for the time when the photo was taken
MIN The minute value for the time the photo was taken, as a two-digit string
SS The seconds value for the time the photo was taken, as a two-digit string
SST1 The sub-second value for the time the photo was taken, as a single-digit number of tenths of a second. If the photo time was not captured to detail beyond integral seconds, the value is 0.
SST2 The sub-second value for the time the photo was taken, as a two-digit number of hundredths of a second. If the photo time is not available to detail beyond integral seconds, the value is 00.
SST3 The sub-second value for the time the photo was taken, as a three-digit number of thousandths of a second. If the photo time is not available to detail beyond integral seconds, the value is 000.
Weekday Localized day of the week that the photo was taken (e.g. Wednesday).
Wday Localized short form (usually three-character string) of the day of the week that the photo was taken (e.g. Wed).
Mon The month the photo was taken, as a localized three-character string
Month The month the photo was taken, as a localized string
Date The day of the month the photo was taken, as one- or two-digit string
DAYNUM The ISO-8601 day of the year that the photo was taken on, as a three-digit string.
WEEKNUM The ISO-8601 week of the year that the photo was taken on, as a two-digit string.
ISO8601Date The ISO 8601 date/time string of the photo. Unlike other date-related fields, this may include a timezone indication, and/or a sub-second timestamp.
D1 The full date of the photo, in the system-localized short format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 2010-03-24.
D2 The full date of the photo, in the system-localized medium format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of Mar 24, 2010.
D3 The full date of the photo, in the system-localized long format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of March 24, 2010.
T1 The full time-of-day of the photo, in the system-localized short format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 3:38 PM.
T2 The full time-of-day of the photo, in the system-localized long format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 3:38:02 PM.
PhotoDaysSince=date The number of days from the given date and the date of the photo. This is intended for use along the lines of My 2010 In Photos: Day {PhotoDaysSince=2009-12-31}

The date argument is in the form YYYY-MM-DD but may also have an appended time, in HH:MM 24-hour notation, to delimit when dates start. If you're a night-owl who might want to include a photo taken late in the evening, after midnight, as being part of the previous day, you might want to use something like My 2010 In Photos: Day {PhotoDaysSince=2009-12-31 04:00} to have photo taken until 4am be considered part of the previous day.

One concern to watch out for with this date/time example is that photos taken during the first four hours of Jan 1 2010 would appear to still be part of the previous day, day 0.

PhotoDaysUntil=date Like PhotoDaysSince, but in the counting-down-until sense.
IptcDateCreated The IPTC Date Created field.
Current Date
yyyy The current year as a four-digit string
yy The current year as a two-digit string
mm The current month as a two-digit string
dd The current day of the month as a two-digit string
hh The current hour value, in 24-hour format, as a two-digit string
hh12 The current hour value, in 12-hour format, as a one- or two-digit string
ampm The current time's AM/PM designation
min The current minute value, as a two-digit string
ss The current seconds value, as a two-digit string
weekday The current day of the week, as a localized string, e.g. Wednesday.
wday The current day of the week, as short-form (usually three-character) localized string, e.g. Wed.
mon The current month, as a localized three-character string
month The current month, as a localized string
date The current day of the month, as one- or two-digit string
daynum The current ISO-8601 day of the year, as a three-digit string.
weeknum The current ISO-8601 week of the year, as a two-digit string.
d1 The current full date, in the system-localized short format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 2010-03-23.
d2 The current full date, in the system-localized medium format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of Mar 23, 2010.
d3 The current full date, in the system-localized long format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of March 23, 2010.
t1 The current full time-of-day, in the system-localized short format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 3:38 PM.
t2 The current full time-of-day, in the system-localized long format that you can set in your operating system's preferences dialog. On my system this is something along the lines of 3:38:02 PM.
DaysSince=date Like PhotoDaysSince, but measures the current date to the date (or date/time) given in the argument, without regard to any photo date. You might want to use this along with something like My 2010 In Photos: Day {DaysSince=2009-12-31} if you want to have the Day counter refer to when you do the upload, not when you took the shot. With this token, you'd want to use the date/time form if you're a night owl and want an upload done late in the evening, after midnight, to be considered as having been done the previous day.
DaysUntil=date Like PhotoDaysUntil, but in the counting-down-until sense.
Master File Filesystem Dates
These are available only if the master image file is currently available.
FileYYYY File creation year, as a four-digit string
FileYY File creation year, as a two-digit string
FileMM File creation month, as a two-digit string
FileDD File creation day of the month, as a two-digit string
FileHH File creation hour value, in 24-hour notation, as a two-digit string
FileMIN File creation minute value, as a two-digit string
FileSS File creation seconds value, as a two-digit string
FileModYYYY File modification year, as a four-digit string
FileModYY File modification year, as a two-digit string
FileModMM File modification month, as a two-digit string
FileModDD File modification day of the month, as a two-digit string
FileModHH File modification hour value, in 24-hour notation, as a two-digit string
FileModMIN File modification minute value, as a two-digit string
FileModSS File modification seconds value, as a two-digit string
Filenames, Paths, and Catalog Organization
FullExportedFile When an Export or Publish operation is ongoing, the full path and filename of the exported copy
FullExportedFolder When an Export or Publish operation is ongoing, the full path to the folder of the exported copy
Filename When an Export or Publish operation is ongoing, the filename – without path and without extension – of the exported copy
FILENAME Like Filename, but includes the extension
FilenameNumber

The numeric part of the Filename, e.g. with IMG_1234.jpg, {FilenameNumber} is 1234.

If the filename contains multiple sequences of digits, such as with BODY2_FRAME1234.JPG — which has 2 and 1234 — the longest sequence is used (1234 in this example). If more than one sequence are equally long, the rightmost sequence is used, so with BODY2_FRAME1.JPG the result is 1.

Without an argument, {FilenameNumber} returns exactly that string of digits. However, if you add an argument like {FilenameNumber=####} then the result is padded with zeros (or leading zeros are truncated) as needed to make the length match the number of # in the argument. Some examples:

FilenameTokenResult
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber}000123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=#}123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=##}123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=###}123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=####}0123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=#####}00123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=######}000123
IMG_00123.jpg{FilenameNumber=#######}0000123
FullMasterFile The full path and filename of the master image on disk
LibraryFilename The filename – without path and without extension – of the master file in the library (which is not necessarily the filename being generated for the exported copy)
LIBRARYFILENAME Like LibraryFilename, but includes the extension
FolderPath The full path of the folder in which the master image in the catalog resides
RelativeFolder The part of the full path to the master image that appears in Library's Folder panel. This differs from FolderPath in that it omits the leading part of the full path that leads to the lowest-level folder shown within the Folder Panel.
FolderName

The name of the folder (without path) in which the master image in the catalog resides.

You can also pluck folder names from the hierarchy that the image lies in by counting down from the end:

{FolderName=-1} is the parent folder that {FolderName} is in.
{FolderName=-2} is the parent of the parent of {FolderName}.
{FolderName=-3} is its parent, etc., until you pass the base folder shown in Library, after which the token becomes blank.

(For completeness, {FolderName=-0} is the same as {FolderName})

You can also count up from the root folder shown in the Library Folders panel:

{FolderName=+0} is the name of the most-root folder for the image.
{FolderName=+1} is the next successor that leads to the image.
{FolderName=+2} is the next successor after that, etc., until you get beyond {FolderName}, after which the token becomes blank.

As a concrete example, consider this folder hierarchy shown in Lightroom:

The following examples are for an image in the deepest level (in the Nanzen Temple folder):

Result
{FolderName} Nanzen Temple      
{FolderName=-0} Nanzen Temple
{FolderName=-1} Temples
{FolderName=-2} Kyoto
{FolderName=-3} Japan
{FolderName=-4} Asia
{FolderName=-5} Travel
{FolderName=-6} MyPhotoLibrary
{FolderName=-7} blank
{FolderName=-8} blank
{FolderName=+0} MyPhotoLibrary
{FolderName=+1} Travel
{FolderName=+2} Asia
{FolderName=+3} Japan
{FolderName=+4} Kyoto
{FolderName=+5} Temples
{FolderName=+6} Nanzen Temple
{FolderName=+7} blank
{FolderName=+8} blank

You can leave off the + if you like, so you can refer to the root folder as {FolderName=0} or {FolderName=+0}.

CollectionNames

A comma-separated list of names of non-smart non-publish collections that the photo is part of. (Due to limits in Lightroom's plugin infrastructure, smart collections and publish collections are not considered.)

As an example, a photo of the Eiffel Tower included within the two highlighted collections seen in the screenshot at right produces Monuments, Paris.

You can use a special form where you can dress up each collection name: with our example, {CollectionNames="%s"} results in:

"Monuments", "Paris"

In this special form, the text after the equal sign is used, with the %s marking where the name itself should be placed. In the example, that text is

"%s"

so each keyword gets wrapped in double quotes.

Also see the CN table and the CNf function, available to the special {LUA} token.

CollectionFullNames

Like {CollectionNames} above, but each name is the full hierarchical name of the collection, such as Travel > France > Paris for the Paris collection.

Therefore, our sample Eiffel Tower photo in the screenshot above produces Monuments, Travel > France > Paris.

The special form mentioned with CollectionNames above also works here.

Also see the CFN table and the CFNf function, available to the special {LUA} token.

Image
Filetype One of: JPEG, RAW, DNG, TIFF, PSD, DNG, or Video
OriginalWidth The width of the (possibly pre-crop) original master image (not the exported one), in pixels
OriginalHeight The height of the (possibly pre-crop) original master image (not the exported one), in pixels
Cropped Either cropped or uncropped.
CroppedWidth The width of the (possibly post-crop) library image (not the exported one), in pixels
CroppedHeight The height of the (possibly post-crop) library image (not the exported one), in pixels
AspectRatio This becomes Portrait if the cropped image is more tall than wide, Square if the cropped with and height are the same, and Landscape if wider than tall. You can substitute your own phrases for each by using the form {AspectRatio=X,Y,Z}, where X, Y, and Z are used for Portrait, Square, and Landscape, respectively.
Lens / Camera / Exposure
Aperture The photo's aperture value, formatted like f/4.5
ApertureNum The photo's aperture value, as a raw number
CameraMake The photo's Make metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CameraModel The photo's Model metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CameraName The Make and Model combined in a way that is natural to a reader. For example, if Make is EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY and Model is KODAK XYZ123 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA, CameraName is Kodak XYZ123 Zoom. I have a lot of camera-specific rules about how to combine the make and model sensibly, so if you find one for which I don't do a good job, please send me a sample image so that I can inspect its metadata.
CameraSerialNumber The photo's Serial Number metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Exposure

The photo's exposure data, like 1/250 sec at f/5.0.

You can supply an argument to change how the shutter speed and aperture are combined: SS within the argument is replaced by the shutter speed text, and AP is replaced by the aperture text. A bare {Exposure} is the same as {Exposure=SS at AP}.

You might, for example, use {Exposure=SS @ AP} so as to end up with 1/250 sec @ f/5.0.

ExposureBias The photo's exposure-bias setting, like -1 EV.
ExposureBiasNum The photo's exposure-bias setting, as a raw number.
ExposureProgram The photo's exposure-program setting, like Aperture priority.
Flash One of no flash, flash fired, or unknown flash.
FocalLength Focal Length, as a number
FocalLength35 Focal Length in 35mm format, as a number
FocalLength35MM Focal Length in 35mm format (with locale-specific mm appended)
FocalLengthMM Focal Length (with locale-specific mm appended)
ISO

The photo's ISO (sensor sensitivity) number.

You can provide an argument to change how the number is displayed; within it, any # is replaced by the ISO sensitivity number. For example {ISO=ISO #} becomes something like ISO 1200 when the photo has ISO data, but becomes nothing when it doesn't. (Compare that to ISO {ISO}, which becomes ISO  when the photo has no ISO data.

Lens The photo's lens information, like 24-70mm f/2.8.
LensInfo

Like {Lens} except that for zoom lenses it also includes the focal length that the photo was shot, such as 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm.

You can provide an argument to configure how the basic lens info is presented along with the focal length: LENS is replaced by the basic lens info (the same as the {Lens} token), while FL is replaced by the focal-length info. A bare {LensInfo} is the same as {LensInfo=LENS @ FL}. You might instead use {LensInfo=LENS at FL} if you prefer at to @, as in 24-70mm f/2.8 at 50 mm.

MeteringMode The photo's metering-mode setting, like Pattern.
ShutterSpeed The shutter speed, formatted like 1/60 sec.
ShutterSpeedNum The shutter speed as a floating-point number of seconds; Use the Places filter to limit precision.
SubjectDistance The subject distance as reported by the lens, formatted like 1.2 m. Often wildly inaccurate.
SubjectDistanceNum The subject distance as reported by the lens, as a floating-point number. Often wildly inaccurate.
Attributes
CopyName The name of the copy (master or virtual) being exported, if any
Rating The number of stars assigned to the image: 0 through 5. You can also use with an argument, e.g. {Rating=*} or {Rating=great } to have, for example, a three-star photo result in *** or great great great. In either case, a photo with a zero rating results in nothing, but you can combine tokens (as described below) along these lines: {Rating=*|"unrated"}.
FlagStatus This becomes Pick if the image is flagged as a pick, nothing if the image is not flagged, and Rejected if the image is flagged as rejected. You can substitute your own phrases for each by using the form {FlagStatus=X,Y,Z}, where X, Y, and Z are used for Pick, nothing, and Rejected, respectively. For example: {FlagStatus=Super!,okay,no good} or {FlagStatus=,, (rejected)}
ColorLabel The Label metadata item
EditCount A number that goes up each time a change is made in Lightroom to the image or its data.
UUID Lightroom's internal unique identifier for the photo, an essentially-random 36-character sequence of letters, numbers, and hyphens, such as FB4D3F92-455F-47CA-8B7B-7C885F7244FD.
Location
Latitude Latitude, as a floating-point number. Use Places, e.g. {Latitude:Places=4}, to limit precision.
Longitude Longitude, as a floating-point number. Use Places, e.g. {Longitude:Places=4}, to limit precision.
GPSCoords The photo's geoencoded coordinates in decimal format, such as 40.689253,-74.046694
GPSCoordinates The photo's geoencoded coordinates in degree-minute-second format, such as 35°1'11.51" N 135°46'16.05" E
PlusCode

The Plus Code for the geoencoded location. The default precision is 12, so for the Statue of Liberty {PlusCode} becomes 87G7MXQ4+M5PM.

Use in the form {PlusCode=10} to set more or less precision.

You can get the short form of a PlusCode by providing a reference location; For example, {PlusCode=ref=40.72,-74.00} returns short codes for locations in and around New York City, but long codes otherwise.

You can combine combine precision with a reference location: {PlusCode=10,ref=40.72,-74.00}.

GeoHash The geohash for the geoencoded location.
Altitude The photo's geoencoded altitude, as a number, in meters. Use Places, e.g. {Altitude:Places=0}, to limit precision.
GPSAltitude The photo's geoencoded as a description, e.g. 27.3 m
ImageViewDirection The direction that the camera was facing when the image was taken, e.g. North, West, South-East, etc.
ImageViewBearing The compass bearing that the camera was facing when the image was taken, as a number of degrees from North.
SpeedKPH If the photo was geoencoded via tracklog with my Geoencoding Support plugin, this becomes a string like 24.7 kph
SpeedMPH Like {SpeedKPH}, but MPH (e.g. 15.3 mph)
SpeedKnots Like {SpeedKPH}, but in knots (e.g. 13.3 knots)
TempC

If the photo was geoencoded via tracklog with my Geoencoding Support plugin, and that tracklog included temperature information, this becomes a string like 24°C.

If provided the argument raw (that is, {TempC=raw}) then whatever is in the plugin's Temperature field is passed through unchanged (even if it's Fahrenheit).

If any other argument is given, that argument is used, but with each # character in it replaced by the temperature number: for example, {TempC=it was # degrees} might become it was 24 degrees.

TempF

If the photo was geoencoded via tracklog with my Geoencoding Support plugin, and that tracklog included temperature information, this becomes a string like 75°F.

If provided the argument raw (that is, {TempF=raw}) then whatever is in the plugin's Temperature field is passed through unchanged (even if it's Celsius).

If any other argument is given, that argument is used, but with each # character in it replaced by the temperature number: for example, {TempF=it was # degrees} might become it was 75 degrees.

IfGeoencoded If used in the form {IfGeoencoded=some text here}, the token is replaced by the text after the = if the photo is geoencoded, or replaced by nothing if not. If used in the form {IfGeoencoded=some text here;for non-geoencoded} with a semicolon, the text after the semicolon is used when the photo is not geoencoded.
Location The Location metadata item
City The City metadata item
State The State metadata item
Province A synonym for {State}
Country The Country metadata item
CountryCode The photo's Image > ISO Country Code metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Artwork or Object
Artworks IPTC Extended Artwork or Object records, presented as a comma-separated set of Title/Copyright/Creator/Date/Source/InventoryNum, though missing items are omitted. {Artworks=1} shows just the first recorded artwork, {Artworks=2} shows just the second, etc.
ArtworkTitle The list of Artwork or Object titles registered for the photo, separated by commas. {ArtworkTitle=1} shows just the first title, {ArtworkTitle=2} just the second, etc.
ArtworkCopyright Like {ArtworkTitle}, but for the artwork copyright.
ArtworkCreator Like {ArtworkTitle}, but for the artwork creator.
ArtworkDateCreated Like {ArtworkTitle}, but for the artwork date created.
ArtworkSource Like {ArtworkTitle}, but for the artwork source
ArtworkInventoryNum Like {ArtworkTitle}, but for the artwork inventory control number.
Other Metadata
Artist The Artist metadata item
Caption The Caption metadata string
Category The photo's IPTC > Category metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CopyrightUrl The photo's Copyright Info Url metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Creator The photo's Contact > Creator metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorAddress The photo's Contact > Address metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorCity The photo's Contact > City metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorCountry The photo's Contact > Country metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorEmail The photo's Contact > E-Mail metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorJobTitle The photo's Contact > Job Title metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorPhone The photo's Contact > Phone metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorState The photo's Contact > State / Province metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorUrl The photo's Contact > Website metadata item in Lightroom's database.
CreatorZip The photo's Contact > Postal Code metadata item in Lightroom's database.
DescriptionWriter The photo's IPTC > Description Writer metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Genre The photo's Image > Intellectual Genre metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Headline The Headline metadata item
Instructions The photo's Workflow > Instructions metadata item in Lightroom's database.
JobIdentifier The photo's Workflow > Job Identifier metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Keywords

The list of the photo's marked-for-export keywords, separated by commas. (Actually, there's a comma+space pair between each keyword, so it's plant, rose, flower and not plant,rose,flower.)

Supports special filters:

The ChildOf and DescendantOf filters, used in the form {Keywords:ChildOf=parent} to include only keywords that are direct children of the named parent keyword. (DescendantOf, obviously, allows indirect children as well.)

The H filter has each keyword expand hierarchically, with each level separated by the text argument of the filter. For example, {Keywords:H= >> } might result in a San Francisco keyword expand to USA >> California >> San Francisco.

The HR filter is the same as the H filter, except that the hierarchical order is reversed. Continuing with the previous example, {Keywords:HR= << } might result in San Francisco << California << USA.

Filters can be stacked up to two deep: {Keywords:DescendantOf=USA:H= >> }. However, some combinations of filters won't parse properly, due to my poor design very early on, sorry.

Note: in implementing these special filters, I had to use a different method to access the photo keywords than when no filters are used, and this can result in two differences: one is that without filters, Lightroom includes keywords even if they're not assigned to the photo, if that unassigned keyword has a descendant keyword that is assigned. When a filter is used, only keywords explicitly added to a photo are included.

Secondly, the order in which keywords appear may differ depending on whether filters are used.

If you don't use filters, you can use a special form where you can dress up each keyword: for example, {Keywords=[%s]}) might result in [Paris], [landmark], [tower]. In this special form, the text after the equal sign is used, with the %s marking where the keyword itself should be placed. In the example, that text is [%s], so each keyword gets wrapped in square brackets.

KeywordsAll The same as Keywords, but also includes keywords not marked for export
IfKeyword

If used in the form {IfKeyword=keyword;some text here}, the token is replaced by the text after the = if the photo has been tagged with the named keyword (even if that keyword is not marked in Lightroom as one to be exported). If no text is given after the semicolon, the keyword itself is used: {IfKeyword=public;} becomes "public“ or nothing.

If used in the form {IfKeyword=keyword;some text here;the not-keyworded text}, with an extra semicolon-separated phrase, the token becomes the not-keyworded if the photo is not tagged with the named keyword.

IfExportedKeyword Like IfKeyword, but considers only keywords that have been marked in Lightroom for export.
OtherCategories The photo's “IPTC > Other Categories" metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Provider The photo's Workflow > Provider metadata item in Lightroom's database.
RightsUsageTerms The photo's Workflow > Rights Usage Terms metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Scene The Scene metadata item
Software The photo's Software metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Source The Source metadata item
SubjectCode The photo's IPTC > IPTC Subject Code metadata item in Lightroom's database.
Title The Title metadata item
PersonShown The Person Shown metadata item
People See here.
NameOfOrgShown The Name of Organization Shown metadata item
CodeOfOrgShown The Code of Organization Shown metadata item
Event The Event metadata item
AdditionalModelInfo The Additional Model Info metadata item
ModelAge The Model Age metadata item
MinorModelAge The Minor Model Age metadata item
ModelReleaseStatus The Model Release Status metadata item
ModelReleaseID The Model Release ID metadata item
ImageSupplierImageId The Image Supplier ImageId metadata item
SourceType The Source Type metadata item
PropertyReleaseID The Property Release ID metadata item
PropertyReleaseStatus The Property Release Status metadata item
DigImageGUID The Digital-Image GUID metadata item
PlusVersion The Plus Version metadata item
Online Presence
ExposureManagerUrl The url of the image at ExposureManager (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-ExposureManager plugin)
FacebookUrl The url of the image at Facebook (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Facebook plugin)
PhotobucketUrl The url of the image at Photobucket (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Photobucket plugin)
PicasawebUrl The url of the image at PicasaWeb (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-PicasaWeb plugin)
SmugMugUrl The url of the image at SmugMug (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-SmugMug plugin)
ZenfolioUrl The url of the image at Zenfolio (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Zenfolio plugin)
FlickrUrl The url of the image at Flickr (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Flickr plugin)
IpernityUrl The url of the image at Ipernity (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Ipernity plugin)
TumblrUrl The url of the image at Tumblr (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Tumblr plugin)
GoogleDriveUrl The url of the image at Google Drive (only if previously uploaded with my Upload-to-Google-Drive plugin)
OnlineID

Flickr plugin only. The Flickr ID of the image. This allows you to create a description preset along the lines of:

<a href="http://BigHugeLabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id={OnlineID}">View on Black</a>

which creates a result at Flickr like this, which includes a link with this result.

Urls The list of URLs saved among plugin custom metadata (such as the various URLs listed above), one per line. (An example of this in use can be seen with my Bag-o-Goodies plugin.
Export Type
ExportFormat The kind of export file format being produced (JPEG, PSD, etc)
ExportQuality When the export format is JPEG, the quality setting (0 - 100)
ExportBitDepth When the export format is TIFF or PSD, the target bit depth (8 or 16)
ExportColorSpace When the export format is not DNG or ORIGINAL, the target color space (e.g. sRGB)
ExportSharpeningLevel The export-sharpening level setting (blank if sharpening is off, Low, Standard, or High)
ExportSharpeningMedia The export-sharpening media type (blank if sharpening is off, Screen, Matte Paper, Glossy Paper)
Publish
PublishCollectionName

The name of the publish collection via which an image is being processed, blank otherwise.

Note: this always appears blank in previews shown in the Publishing Manager dialog... it has a value only during an actual publish operation, so while it should work when composing captions and such for uploads, you won't be able to see it until the upload.

You can use arguments like +0 or -3, as described for FolderName, to pluck out specific parts of a publish collection-set hierarchy.

Due to how Lightroom's plugin infrastructure is built, supporting this properly is a real pain in the neck and I may have missed some situations. If you find it's not showing where you expect, please send me a note with a clear description of the situation.

PublishCollectionDepth

The depth of the publish collection via which an image is being processed. A publish collection at the root of its publish service gets 1. A publish collection within a root-level publish collection set gets 2, and so on.

Zero (0) if not within the context of a publish collection.

Note: this always appears blank in previews shown in the Publishing Manager dialog... it has a value only during an actual publish operation, so while it should work when composing captions and such for uploads, you won't be able to see it until the upload.

Due to how Lightroom's plugin infrastructure is built, supporting this properly is a real pain in the neck and I may have missed some situations. If you find it's not showing where you expect, please send me a note with a clear description of the situation.

PublishServiceTitle

The title of the overall publish service via which an image is being processed, blank otherwise.

Note: this always appears blank in previews shown in the Publishing Manager dialog... it has a value only during an actual publish operation, so while it should work when composing captions and such for uploads, you won't be able to see it until the upload.

Due to how Lightroom's plugin infrastructure is built, supporting this properly is a real pain in the neck and I may have missed some situations. If you find it's not showing where you expect, please send me a note with a clear description of the situation.

System
LrVersion The version of Lightroom running, such as 5.4
LrVersionMajor The major number of the Lightroom version, such as 5 for Lr5.4
LrVersionMinor The minor number of the Lightroom version, such as 4 for Lr5.4
LrVersionRevision The sub-minor number of the Lightroom version, usually 0.
LrVersionBuild The build number of the current Lightroom install (usually a six-digit number).
CatalogName The name of the current catalog (the filename without leading path and without the .lrcat extension).
CatalogPath The full path to the current catalog file.
OperatingSystem Either Windows or OS X
OS Either Win or Mac
Special
PluginProperty=field Allows you to access the per-image custom metadata kept by a plugin, where field is the plugin's id and the metadata field id, joined with a dot. For example,
{PluginProperty=info.regex.lightroom.export.flickr2.url}
refers to the url field of the plugin with id info.regex.lightroom.export.flickr2 (my Flickr plugin), and the result is the same as the {FlickrUrl} token mentioned above. However, with PluginProperty, you can reference any plugin data for which you know the plugin id and field name. You can get these from the plugin author, or try digging around the plugin's Info.lua for the plugin id and a reference to its LrMetadataProvider, where you can find field ids.
Empty An empty string, perhaps useful for testing. Also, when placed between joining characters, it blocks their squelching.
" text " The text as provided. It may not contain the following characters: {   |   }   "
Hyphen Inserts a hyphen that is never squelched.
Comma Inserts a comma that is never squelched.
Space Inserts a space that is never squelched.
Newline Inserts a newline character that is never squelched; not all fields/usages can properly handle a newline character, so take care.
LUA See the section below for details on this advanced, complex token.
Exiftool=fieldcode

(Currently available only in some plugins: Bag-o-Goodies, Collection Publisher, and Folder Publisher)

Inspects the master image file for the given Exiftool field code. For this token to work, the master image file must be available, of course.

You can see the field codes for a given image file with my Metadata Viewer plugin, by toggling the show field control in the upper right from name to code.

Token Basics

As mentioned above, tokens are identified within a template by wrapping them with { ... }. The value generated by the token has leading and trailing spaces removed before being inserted into the result. For example, if the Caption metadata item is the string My Vacation  , the value actually used for the Caption token (which appears as {Caption} in the template) is My Vacation.

Optional If Exists...

You can have something depend on a value existing in the first place. For example, consider want to put quotes around the caption, as with:

The caption is {Caption}

This produces pleasing results when the image has a caption, but if there is no caption, it produces the result:

The caption is

However, consider the following:

{Caption?The caption is {Caption}}

This uses a special token form:

{ token ? value to use if the named token is not empty }

This produces nothing when there is no caption, but the desired The caption is... value when there is a caption.

Another example is {ISO?ISO{ISO}} which perhaps looks confusing. It produces nothing when the image has no ISO sensor-sensitivity metadata, but text like ISO3200 when it does. The token has three ISO in it: the first is a token name, which, because it is followed by a question mark, means to ignore everything if the token has no value. The second ISO is just text to include in the value, and that's followed immediately by the third ISO as {ISO}, which is a straight-up token to reference the ISO metadata value.

Combining Tokens

You may list multiple tokens within { ... }, separated by | (a vertical bar). In such a case, the first token that results in non-empty text is used. Tokens may result in an empty value if the photo is missing the associated metadata. For example, if a photo is missing the date taken metadata, the YYYY token is empty. Thus, the previous copyright example may be better written as:

     Copyright {YYYY|yyyy} {Artist}

In this case, if the YYYY token is empty, the yyyy token (the current year, which can never be empty) is used.

Continuing with this example, because the Artist token results in an empty item if there is no artist metadata, this example might be written as:

     Copyright {YYYY|yyyy} {Artist|"by the photographer"}

to become

     Copyright 2008 by the photographer

when there is no artist metadata.

Token Filters

Filters allow you to modify the text that a token generates. For nexample, applying the S2U filter (Space to Underscore) to the Caption example given earlier results in a value of My_Vacation. To indicate that a filter should be applied to a token, append it to the token name with a colon. This example appears would appear in a template as {Caption:S2U}.

Token filters:

S2U Space to Underscore Any sequences of spaces (and/or underscores) are replaced by a single underscore
S2D Space to Dash Any sequences of spaces (and/or dashes) are replaced by a single dash
U2S Underscore to Space Any sequences of underscores (and/or spaces) are replaced by a single space
D2S Dash to Space Any sequences of dashes (and/or spaces) are replaced by a single space
DU2S Dash/Underscore to Space Any sequences of dashes, underscores, and/or spaces are replaced by a single space
NS No Spaces All spaces are removed
S2X Spaces to Nothing (synonym for the NS filter)
LO Letters Only All spaces and punctuation are removed, leaving only letters (and numbers)
F2D Forward slash to Dash Forward-slash characters (“/”) are replaced by dash characters (“-”)
F2S Forward slash to Space Forward-slash characters (“/”) are replaced by space characters
F2X Forward slash to nothing Forward-slash characters (“/”) are removed
B2D Backward slash to Dash Backward-slash characters (“\”) are replaced by dash characters (“-”)
B2S Backward slash to Space Backward-slash characters (“\”) are replaced by space characters
B2X Backward slash to nothing Backward-slash characters (“\”) are removed
A2D Any slash to Dash Both kinds of slash characters are replaced by dash characters
A2S Any slash to Space Both kinds of slash characters are replaced by space characters
A2X Any slash to nothing Both kinds of slash characters are removed
PF Plain Fractions Converts the typographic fractions found in some metadata to plain ASCII, e.g. converts “½” to “1/2”
Places=num specify numeric precision If the item is number, formats it to num decimal places. If the item is not a number, makes it empty.
Length=num specify max length If the item is longer than num characters long, it is truncated to the first num characters. Treats the text as UTF-8.
After=text Use value to the right of text

If the given text is found in the value that the token generates, strip it and all that appeared before (to the left), leaving only what appears to the right of text in the value. If the text is not found in the value, the result of the token is empty.

For example, if you tend to use captions like My trip to Paris and My trip to the Canadian Rockies, and you wanted shorter text, you might consider using {Caption:After=trip to} to result in values like Paris and the Canadian Rockies.

If you wanted to implement an idea such as "Strip the '...trip to' text from the caption if it's there, and use the unadulterated caption if not", you would append an unadorned Caption token as described in the Combining Tokens section above, resulting in {Caption:After=trip to|Caption}.

UC Upper Case Capitalizes the item
UCFirst Upper Case (first character) Capitalizes the first character of the item.
UCWords Upper Case Words Capitalizes the first character of the item, and any character after a space or hyphen.
LC Lower Case Ensures the item is all lower case.
LCFirst Lower Case (first character) Lowers the case of the first character of the item.
EMBED Embed value and reparse

When used in the additional keywords section of an uploader plugin, causes the token to not be treated as a single unit, but subject to one more level of inspection.

For example, if your title metadata field has one two three (without quotes) and in the additional keywords field you put {Title}, the result is one additional keyword: one two three. However, if you use {Title:EMBED}, the result is three keywords: one, two, and three.

evenIfPrivate Forcefully reference a location-related value, even if other privacy-related settings would have excluded it. E.g. even though a photo is geoencoded, {GPSCoords} might be blank if privacy settings elsewhere indicate that the location should not be shared; but even in that case, {GPSCoords:evenIfPrivate} would show the location.

Squelching Superfluous Joining Characters

Within a template, joining characters are special:

  • space
  • comma
  • hyphen/minus
  • colon
  • the <br> and <br/> sequences

After a photo-specific value has been computed from a template, all leading and trailing joining characters are removed, and embedded repetitions are replaced by a single item.

As an example of the first case, consider

     Copyright {YYYY|yyyy} {Artist}

when there is no artist metadata. Without these special rules, this would result in the derived value having trailing space, but the special squelching rules remove it.

As another example, consider the template:

     {Location}-{Country}-{State}-{City}-{Caption}

for a photo that has Location and Caption, but no Country, City, or State. Assuming that location and caption are Home and Having Fun respectively, it becomes:

     Home-Having Fun

which is better than it would be without these special rules:

     Home----Having Fun

Note that space, comma, and hyphen/minus are only special when they're part of the template itself. When they are part of the value derived from a token (such as the space in Having Fun above), they are never considered for squelching.

As such, you can use either {-} or {"-"} to include a hyphen/minus that will never be squelched. Similarly, you can use {,} or {","} for a comma.

The special {Empty} token

The {Empty} token produces no text, but has the side effect in that it interrupts the squelching of joining characters. Without it, the sequence <br><br> becomes <br> but with it, <br>{EMPTY}<br> becomes <br><br>.

The special {NOJOINERS} token

As mentioned above, leading and trailing joining characters are stripped, but sometimes you want them stripped whenever they appear in a certain context. For example, the template

     <span class='where'>{City}, {State}</span>

results in something like <span class='where'>Paris, </span> if City is Paris but State has no value. In this case you'd like to mark the start and end of the <span> as being places where no joining characters should accumulate, just as they shouldn't accumulate at the start and end of the whole specification.

To do this, put the special {NOJOINERS} token in these spots, e.g.

     <span class='where'>{NOJOINERS}{City}, {State}{NOJOINERS}</span>

The exact rules for how joining characters are squelched are complex, but they are designed to produce a common-sense result. If you run into one that doesn't work as you'd like, let me know.

The Special {LUA=...} Token

This advanced programming-like feature allows you to execute arbitrary Lua code, in an environment where the tokens above have been prepopulated into variables. For example,

   {LUA=CreatorPhone}

and

   {LUA=return CreatorPhone}

are exactly the same as the {CreatorPhone} token, but, for example

   {LUA=  if  CreatorPhone ~= ''  then    return sprintf("Contact: %s", CreatorPhone)  end  }

becomes the string Contact: text-from-CreatorPhone if the CreatorPhone token is not empty, nothing if it is.

The special Lua environment, in the latest version of plugins running in the latest version of Lightroom, includes:

  • Variables exist for almost all of the tokens (except DaysSince, IfGeoencoded, etc. — tokens that require an extra argument). Each one is a string; if the token has no value, its variable in the special Lua environment is the empty string ''.

  • The Boolean locationIsPrivate, which is true if the photo is geoencoded and its location is within an area marked private in the Map Module, false otherwise. (Always false prior to Lr4.1.)

  • The standard Lua functions tonumber(), tostring(), type(), unpack(), ipairs(), and pairs().

  • The standard Lua name spaces string, table, and math. The os namespace is partially included: os.date(), os.time(), and os.tmpname().

  • The Lightroom SDK namespaces LrDate, LrLocalization, LrMath, LrMD5, LrPathUtils, LrStringUtils, and LrSystemInfo. SDK docs can be downloaded here.

  • The Booleans WIN and MAC, which indicate the type of host operating system, and sprintf(), which is a synonym for string.format().

  • The function TBL(...), which returns a new table, populating it with any arguments provided. This is to help avoid curly braces in inlined Lua.

  • The function ne(item), meaning non-empty. It returns nil if the item is nil or tostring(item) evaluates to a zero-length string.

  • The function nb(item), meaning non-blank. It returns nil if the item is nil or tostring(item) evaluates to a string that has no non-whitespace characters.

  • The function uc(item), which gives the upper-case version of whatever is passed to it. There's also ucFirst(item), which uppercases only the first character, and the lowercase versions lc(item) and lcFirst(item).

  • The variable photoTime, which returns the Cocoa timestamp of the photo in question, if any. This is suitable for passing to Lightroom's LrDate.timestampToComponents() and LrDate.timeToUserFormat() functions, among others. Add 978307200 to get a Unix Time.

  • The variable currentTime, which returns the current Cocoa timestamp; identical to LrDate.currentTime().

  • The function date_diff(), which returns a string indicating the number of years/months/days separating its two arguments. Each argument can be a Cocoa timestamp like the photoTime or currentTime variables above, a string in the form YYYY-MM-DD, or a table of numbers: {year, month, date, hour, minute, second}. The hour/minute/second are optional.

    For example, the following might be used to indicate the age of a child (born on October 22, 2009) as of the photo date: {LUA= "Aged " .. date_diff("2009-10-22", photoTime)}. For a photo taken Jan 1, 2013 it returns the string Aged 3 years, 2 months, 10 days on an English system.

    This does exactly the same thing: {LUA= "Aged " .. date_diff({2009,10,22}, photoTime)}

    There's actually a third argument to date_diff() that indicates a timezone in which to interpret dates provided via string or table like the two examples above. The default is the current timezone of the computer. If you provide a timezone, it should be as a number of seconds east of UTC.

  • A table KW that has keys for every keyword applied to the photo (the values are true), and a similar table KWE with keys for exported keywords. Thus, the code snippet KW.private is true if the keyword private has been applied to the photo, nil otherwise.

  • The function KWf() — the name comes from KeyWord formatting — that does something with each keyword marked for export. Called in the form KWf(formatjoiner), the first argument is text; within that text, the sequence %s is replaced by a keyword. After all such replacements, they're all joined together by the joiner text.

    For example, KWf("[%s]", " -- ") might result in [Paris] -- [landmark] -- [tower], and KWf("%s", "|") might result in Paris|landmark|tower.

  • A table CN that has keys for every Collection Name that the photo is included in (the values are true). Smart collections and publish collections are not considered. Comparable to the {CollectionNames} token.

  • The function CNf() for Collection Name formatting. Used exactly like the KWf() function, but works with items in the CN table.

  • A table CFN that has keys for every Collection Full Name that the photo is included in (the values are true). Smart collections and publish collections are not considered. See the {CollectionFullNames} token for more info.

  • The function CFNf() for Collection Full Name formatting. Used exactly like the KWf() function, but works with items in the CFN table.

  • A table PCH, short for Publish Collection Hierarchy, that contains information about the current publish operation. (The table is empty except during publish operations.)

    If, for example, within a publish service you have a publish collection set named Travel, and within that another set named Asia, and within that, the final collection is Japan, then during publish of Japan the PCH table contains three strings: { Travel, Asia, Japan }

  • The function load(), which executes Lua code in a named file, as discussed below.

  • The special PP(id) pseudo-function that returns the value of the photo's Plugin Property named by the id. For example, PP('info.regex.lightroom.gps.Speed') is the same as the {SpeedKPH} token. Due to esoteric technical limitations in Lightroom, this is not actually implemented as a Lua function, but rather it's pre-detected in the Lua snippet and has its value substituted in place, prior to the Lua snippet being interpreted as Lua code. As such, it's not available within a file imported via load(), so if you want to use it within such a file, you have to cache the value in a variable prior to the load().

  • The table PEOPLE, which includes one entry per person tagged in the photo. Each entry is a table with fields name, nickname, bday (Coco timestamp of their birthday, or nil if not known), ts (Coco timestamp of their birthday, or the current timestamp if not known), and keyword (the LrKeyword object). Most fields will be empty if the person keywords has not been registered via my People Support plugin.

Here are some examples. Some have been broken into multiple lines for display, with pretty indenting, for easier reading one this page; when inputting into the plugin, you'll have to put it all on one big long (ugly) line....

  • {LUA=if Artist ~= "" then return sprintf("Copyright %s", Artist) end}
    Becomes Copyright .... with the name of the Artist if there is an Artist token.

  • {LUA=if Artist ~= "" and Copyright = "" then return sprintf("Copyright %s", Artist) end}
    Like the one above, but only if there is no Copyright token.

  • {LUA=if Artist ~= "" then return sprintf("Copyright %s %s", yyyy, Artist) end}
    Becomes "Copyright #### ...." with the current year and the name of the Artist, if there is an Artist token.

  • {LUA=if Artist ~= "" then
       if yyyy == YYYY or YYYY == "" then
          return sprintf("Copyright %s %s", yyyy, Artist)
       else
          return sprintf("Copyright %s-%s %s", YYYY, yyyy, Artist)
       end
    end}

    Like the one above, but the reference to the year in the copyright statement becomes a range if the photo has a date associated with it and that date is not the current year, e.g. "Copyright 2006-2010 Jeffrey Friedl" for a photo taken in 2006 and being processed in 2010.

  • {LUA=if Artist ~= "" then
       when = YYYY==yyyy or YYYY=="" and yyyy or YYYY.."-"..yyyy
       return sprintf("Copyright %s %s", when, Artist)
    end}

    Exactly like the one just above.

  • {LUA=if GPSCoordinates ~= "" then return sprintf("geo:lat=%s;geo:lon=%s", Latitude, Longitude) end}
    If the photo is geoencoded, becomes GPS machine tags.

  • {LUA=if KW.private and not KWE.private then return "private, but not reporting as such" end}
    Becomes private, but not reporting as such if marked with the keyword private, but that keyword is not marked for export.

Loading From a File

In Lightroom 3 and later, the load() function loads Lua code from a file. You can load a library of routines and then make reference to the routines later in the {LUA= ... }, or you can simply return the value of load(), which is the value returned at the end of the file:

   {LUA= return load("/full/path/to/your/lua/file.lua") }

This allows you to keep the tokens that appear in little plugin fields more manageable, yet lets you easily access arbitrarily-complex logic.

Real-World {LUA} Example

As one example, in my PicasaWeb (Google Plus, sort of) publish service for my Selected Blog Photos gallery on G+, I want the image caption to mention the url and title of the blog post that the photo was part of, and to mention the date of the blog post in English and Japanese. To do this, I created a file (PicasaWeb.lua) with this contents:


local Month = { "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" }

function comment()
   if not JobIdentifier then
      return ""
   end

   --
   -- JobIdentifier should have one or more urls like "https://regex.info/blog/2012-06-09/2015"
   --
   -- Grab the date from the final one
   --
   local url = JobIdentifier:match(".*(http://%S+)")
   if not url then
      return ""
   end

   local Yx,Mx,Dx = url:match(".*blog/(20%d%d)%-(%d%d)-(%d%d)/")
   if not Dx then
      return ""
   end
   local rows = {
      sprintf("This photo appeared in an article on my blog on %s %d, %s.", Month[tonumber(Mx)], tonumber(Dx), Yx),
      sprintf("この写真は%d月%d日ブログの記事に載りました。",                     tonumber(Mx),  tonumber(Dx))
   }
   if Headline then
      table.insert(rows, sprintf('"%s"', Headline))
   end
   table.insert(rows, url)

   return table.concat(rows, "\n")
end

return comment()

and access it from a Caption preset in the plugin with this template token:

{LUA= load("/Users/jfriedl/Dropbox/Lightroom/LuaStuff/PicasaWeb.lua")}

The 30 most-recent comments (out of 159; see all), most recent last...

Hi Jeffrey! I noticed a problem using the SST1 variable, it doesn’t work! 🙂
I get “Unknown token “SST1” but SST2 and 3 work fine.

Geez, I’m not sure what drugs I must have been on. I think SST2 was broken in that it gave the same result as SST3. In any case, during a moment of clarity I think I’ve fixed them for most of my plugins. (A few still need updates; let me know if I’ve not updated the one you need.) Thanks for the report. —Jeffrey

— comment by Chris on August 7th, 2019 at 1:23pm JST (5 years, 3 months ago) comment permalink

Hi – love this plugin – thanks so much. Is there an escape character such that i can include brackets in the command, such that I can use exiftool commands that themselves require (as far as i know) braces (e.g., “-subject<${subject;NoDups}")? If no escape character, any clever syntax I can use to get around the issue of the plugin trying to recognize the brace as signaling a token? Thanks so much!

Unfortunately, no. The way that the token language evolved over time has left it quite fragile, and so I’m reticent to make big changes. There may be a way around it (perhaps using a file holding exiftool args), but I suppose it depends on how you’re using it, and what you want to acheive. Perhaps drop an email with more info… —Jeffrey

— comment by Rob on October 9th, 2019 at 2:01pm JST (5 years ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeffrey,

I am trying to add the keywords into the filename by using the Enhanced File Renaming feature, but the {Keywords} is retured with comma, is there anyway to use the “-” instead?

Here is my template:
{YYYY}/{City}{“-“}{YYYY}{MM}/{YYYY}{MM}{DD}-{Title:NS}-{LUA=return KWf(“%s”, “-“)}

I saw you have a function call KWf() can format the keywwords like “Paris|landmark|tower”, and should be load like {LUA= return KWf(“%s”, “-“)}, but this is not work and I am unable to save the settings.

One more question, Is it possible to remove the joiner if the previous value does not exist, for example, in this {YYYY}/{City}{“-“}{YYYY}{MM}, if the {City} is empty, how can I remove “-” after?

Can you please give me some idea how to do this via Enhancement File renaming?

Thanks, George

Your first template example works for me. Perhaps send a plugin log when it fails for you so that I can check it out. For the second thing, use {City?{City}{"-"}} —Jeffrey

— comment by George on October 24th, 2019 at 3:49pm JST (5 years ago) comment permalink

Thanks for your help, no idea why but the syntax {LUA=} is works after I re-install the Adobe Lightroom and the plugins,

Regards, George

— comment by George on October 26th, 2019 at 4:16pm JST (5 years ago) comment permalink

Hello Jeffrey,
while struggling to create an exiftool command line to be used with your “Run Any Command” plugin I was stumbling over the comment from Rob on this page (from October 9th 2019). I have the same need as he has, creating an exiftool command which contains curly braces like in “-subject<${keywords}”. As this interferes with your template token language, and there seems to be no way to escape those braces, I am using this {LUA=} token to work around this limitation:

{LUA= ‘”‘ .. “-subject<${keywords}” .. ‘”‘} with “dumb quotes” of course.
Maybe this could be helpful for others too.

However, if we had some special tokens like {{} and {}}, which just yield a { and } would make things easier.

Best regards

Jacques

— comment by Jacques on November 10th, 2019 at 1:17am JST (5 years ago) comment permalink

Is there a way to make the whole path lowercase, I can get the filename lowercase, but I need the whole path lowercase

I’m not sure which path you’re referring to, nor in what context, but (for example) {FullExportedFile:LC} gives the full path of the exported copy, lowercased. —Jeffrey

— comment by Rob den Braasem on January 8th, 2020 at 7:05pm JST (4 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

Is there a way to create a preset to invoke “apply personalised auto tone”?
This would be ideal in combination with the new camera raw default settings on import.
Thanks, Edwin
(Solothurn Switzerland)

No, sorry, Lightroom doesn’t allow for it. —Jeffrey

— comment by Edwin on February 29th, 2020 at 7:17pm JST (4 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

Hi, I am very happy with your tool. But know I have to solve a big problem.
I need to change some special german charactes during export in the filename and Foldername.

E.g. \Brüssel Äpfel\Brüssel Mögen Tour.jpg

should be exported as:

\Bruessel Aepfel\Bruessel_Moegen_Tour.jpg

So, all spaces should be “_” and some characters have to be changed. “ä” “ö” “ü” “ß” “+” “&” should become “ae” “oe” “ue” “ss” “_und_” “_und_”

Is this easy possible with a function?

Thx – and Stay healthy! Stefan

This is much more difficult than one should think it should be. How to integrate with Lightroom so that it gets the new names depends on where you’re trying to use it, but in any case there’s the problem with identifying the characters that you want to target. Lua, the underlying language for Lightroom plugins, doesn’t understand Unicode, so it doesn’t understand that “ä” is one character. And even if it did, “ä” might not actually be one character… Unicode allows it to be expressed in two ways (as the single-character “ä”, and as the combination of “a” and a zero-width umlaut). It just makes everything a mess. You could probably use the LUA tag to get something that mostly seems to work, but it wouldn’t be guaranteed to work in all cases. —Jeffrey

— comment by Stefan Hamburg on April 3rd, 2020 at 1:24am JST (4 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink

Hi,
Is there a way to re-validate the exported jpgs against the plugin’s understanding of the export? I have managed to delete some of my exported jpgs, but publisher doesn’t think anything needs to be re-published, so to avoid just re-publishing everything (3000+) images for each of the LR catalogs I have (10+) is there a way to detect just those that are missing?
Just to say I’ve been using the folder plugin for ages now and it’s great.
Regards,
Paul.

I assume that you’re talking about Folder Publisher or Collection Publisher…. and unfortunately, no, there’s not a way to do that, but it’s a good idea and I’ll give it some thought I just added it; update to the latest version, and you’ll find a new button in the section of the publish-service settings dialog where you set the target root folder. —Jeffrey

— comment by Paul on April 13th, 2020 at 7:19pm JST (4 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink

Hello, and thank You for Your plug-ins. I installed Your Run Any Command but I am an absolute novice and in need of some help. How do I make LR to actually do something? I should do this: on export LR should add the exported images to a certain dumb collection. But I could not find any help concerning the actual commands how to do this? What are commands I use, what is the syntax? I do not not how to begin. As You see I have absolutely no experience in this but I realize that I could do much more with the plug-in.
Could You please help me a bit? Just give me a push:)

Yours

Väinö Louekari

Just leave the command stuff blank, and choose your target dumb collection from the dropdown near the bottom. —Jeffrey

— comment by Väinö Louekari on April 21st, 2020 at 9:14pm JST (4 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeffrey, hello from Montgomery Township, New Jersey, which is a rural town next to Princeton.

First the OS and Lightroom info:
* macOS Catalina 10.15.4
* Adobe Lightroom Classic CC 9.2.1
* “Metadata Wrangler” Export Filter 20200319.186

I’m having a problem that I can’t seem to resolve.

I export images using the “Metadata Wrangler” Lightroom Plugin to set the “Title” using the following template tags:

{Title?{Title}|}{CameraName?{CameraName}|}{LensInfo?{LensInfo}|} {ShutterSpeed?{ShutterSpeed}}

Everything looks great except for the shutter speed. The shutter speed displays as an HTML entity type fraction, for example, ¼ in the form field even before the image is exported. Is that the correct behaviour? Based on your description above, I would expect shutter speed to display as just 1/4 (that is 1 slash 4).

The reason I bring this up is that when I uploaded these images to WordPress, the images do not display correctly. When I remove the shutter speed,, the image uploads and displays successfully.

I have sent you the log via email.

Check Lightroom’s preferences, on the “Interface” tab, the “Use typographic fractions” option. If you turn that off, does it fix things? —Jeffrey

— comment by Khürt Louis Williams on May 3rd, 2020 at 12:56am JST (4 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeff,

In version 9.2.1 there is no “Use typographic fraction” on the “Interface” tab.
Image of the tab here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QkRWZvaaZ70ZtxG_pvHMlPAqmhcWH_qZ/view.
Want to add any comments?

Cheers

Wow, I didn’t realized that the option is a MacOS-only option. I can’t imagine why that would be; I’ve reached out to Adobe to ask. —Jeffrey

— comment by Thales on May 3rd, 2020 at 9:15pm JST (4 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

Hello Jeff,

I’m writing you from Maricopa County, AZ, currently the capital of the pandemic Covid-19.
Hopefully, the internet tubes won’t carry the virus to your current location, wherever you are.

I made a mess of my LightRoom photos. That is easy to understand when the person is almost 80 years old.

I need a tool in LR that will allow me to filter files using the field from IPTC “Date Created”. The current filtering option does not have this option; it only has the “Date” field.

I found that other applications I used corrupted the metadata, rewriting the Date field with the date the Metadata was saved by the application. Fortunately, most files still have the correct date in the Create Date field when the image was captured; having that tool will help me a great deal.

I don’t know if a I could write the code I need to create that tool but, if you could help me with that, I will very much appreciate your assistance.

Well, That’s all for now. Keep safe.

Looking forward to reading your reply.

R.

If you’re speaking of the date within each master image file, you can copy the IPTC Date Created into the EXIF Date field via the ExifTool command-line program. The incantation would along the lines of “exiftool -'EXIF:CreateDatefiles“. However, even if you update the dates within the master image files, Lightroom will never see the update unless you remove and re-import the files. Even doing a metadata sync won’t get the new dates into Lightroom. )-: —Jeffery

— comment by Ricardo Valdes on July 10th, 2020 at 6:57am JST (4 years, 4 months ago) comment permalink

bit confused. Is it possible to geoencode AND put what3words into caption/keywords or whatever… whats the token. Im feeling very blond hehe

There’s no Template Token for what3words, because in order to compute it the plugin has to call out to their servers, and technical limitations with how Lightroom works makes this very difficult to handle as a token. That’s why it’s a separate process in the “Etc” tab. However, if you know that you’ve put the w3w code into a specific metadata field, you can then access that metadata field via a template token…. —Jeffrey

— comment by j murray on August 11th, 2020 at 1:00am JST (4 years, 3 months ago) comment permalink

I upgraded to LR10 and to your latest Plugin. I use in LR9 the Enhanced File Renaming option to change the folder tree from LR to my export folder so only the folder underneath the pictures will be exported (e.g. LR_Pictures/2020/2020-10-10 Munich/picture1.jpg -> 2020-10-10 Munich/picture1.jpg).
I use the parameter {FolderName}/{FILENAME} but the export creates the full structure. The preview of the result is correct.

What did I wrong?

What you describe sounds like something that would work in my Collection Publisher plugin, but would have never worked in my Folder Publisher plugin. (The whole point of Folder Publisher is to retain the file structure.) But if you’ve not made a mistake about which plugin, please send a plugin log, being sure to cite a specific example of exactly what you were expecting and what actually happened. —Jeffrey

— comment by Udo Neumann on October 22nd, 2020 at 4:26am JST (4 years ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeffrey,
I’m writing from Fairfax, Virginia, located outside of Washington, DC. I’ve just started working with Metadata Wrangler and I’m really enjoying the capabilities of this plugin!

I’m using macOS Catalina version 10.15.7, Lightroom Classic release 10.0, and Metadata Wrangler version 20201017.189. I’ve got a couple of token formatting questions.

When using the {GPSCoordinates} token is there a way to limit the total number of digits? For example can the GPS location 37°56’43.9442″ N 23°38’39.9981″ E be shortened to 37°56’43.94″ N 23°38’39.99″ E?

Also, similar to the Khürt Williams question back on May 3, I’ve got the “Use typographic fractions” option turned off, but {ShutterSpeed} still exports as a typographic fraction. Any ideas?

The token {LUA=GPSCoordinates:gsub('(%.%d%d)%d+', '%1')} should give you the coordinates that you want. Lightroom doesn’t honor the “Use typographic fractions” option for plugin metadata requests, but I just added something to work around it: {ShutterSpeed:PF} should work (after upgrading your version of whatever plugin you’re using it in). —Jeffrey

— comment by Michael Liberman on November 2nd, 2020 at 8:08am JST (4 years ago) comment permalink

Thank you so much, Jeffrey! That worked perfectly!!

— comment by Michael Liberman on November 9th, 2020 at 8:31am JST (4 years ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeffrey,

(1) I’m using Template Token to rename files when exporting collections with your collection publisher – I found strange thing when using {HH} with some files :
{HH} and {T2} refer to the same hour of the day (ie 10) but with {ISO8601Date} the hour is different (ie 19).
In my case the {ISO8601Date} is correct – it shows the same time like LR. Might be correlated with timezones / time shifting

(2) how can I export {HH} and {ISO8601Date} to a txt file to check the differences? I used LUA code and “collect data for spreadsheet export” but after using “data explorer” with >1k files there seems a problem with the export buttons in the generated output window

Any ideas? THX

The way Lightroom handles dates is a royal mess. It could be a timezone issue (between the timezone where the photo was taken and what your computer is set to now), or it could be that you used Lightroom to update the time. Or just yet another Lightroom bug. You can try using my Geoencoding plugin to set the timezone for the relevant photos to see whether that fixes things. If it doesn’t perhaps export a few of the images to a stand-alone catalog and send it to me to test with? As for looking for photos that this happens to, using Data Explorer with “{LUA=ISO8601Date:sub(12,13)==HH}” should do it. —Jeffrey

— comment by Bernd on December 28th, 2020 at 8:42pm JST (3 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

Hey All, trying to figure out if there is a token I can use to get the “Preserved File Name”? I want to write that data to the Headline field, but can’t seem to figure out how to make that token. Thank you.

I’m not familiar with that field; Lightroom doesn’t support it. If it’s included in the metadata of the original master image, or in an exported copy, you can conceivably use my Run Any Command plugin to invoke ExifTool to copy the data around where you want. —Jeffrey

— comment by Daniel L Osiedacz on December 29th, 2020 at 3:03am JST (3 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

Feature Request

Hi Jeffery, I am using several plugins, to interoperate between Lightroom, WordPress and Alamy.
My goal is to link images presented in WordPress pages to Alamy selling pages.
The Fieldname produced by the LR Plugin Alamy Lightroom Bridge is called “Alamy URL”
I am using WP/LR Sync to publish from LR to WordPress. This Plugin understands the following list of custom fields: https://meowapps.com/wplr-sync-custom-fields/

Something that could fill the gap, would be, if your “write data filed” could read the Alamy URL and write it to any of the available fields

As per the PluginProperty token, I’d guess it’d be along the lines of {PluginProperty=com.jkeir.lightroom.alamyupload.url}, but you’ll have to ask the plugin author whether that last “url” part identifies the field you want, and change it if not. —Jeffrey

— comment by Georg Berg on February 7th, 2021 at 3:27am JST (3 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

Is it possible to use these tokens in Lightroom’s built-in Metadata Presets?

No, my plugin’s tokens are mine. Adobe could choose to provide similar ones, but they choose to provide only what they choose to provide. —Jeffrey

— comment by Ronen on February 18th, 2021 at 5:31pm JST (3 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

Hi Jeffrey.

I’m using your Folder publisher plugin and I’m trying to get it to include keywords to be included in the file name, up to a set maximum length, without breaking the maximum character limit in Windows. For some reason this doesn’t seem to work.

Here’s what I’ve put into the Enhanced File Renaming:
P{YYYY}{MM}{DD} {HH}.{MM}.{SS} ({Keywords:Length=100})

I know this topic has been posted before, but it still seems not to be working.
I’m using LR Classic CC version 7.2

Would be very greatful for any suggestion as to how I could do this.

I think I’ve fixed it. Either that, or made it worse. Due to poor design on my part more than a decade ago, the code in this area is just horrible, and really fragile. If I were to fix it and make it right, I might break things that people rely on, so I have to tread gingerly. —Jeffrey

— comment by Frans van Dal on February 26th, 2021 at 11:29pm JST (3 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

I really love to use your plugins, almost every week I enhance my workflow with your tools. Respect for your excellent documentation and very stable software but I got stuck on the following. I tried many times but I just can’t figure out to use two functions at once for a single parsed value.
In a Headline field I use a format like: My Text intro – and this is de text to follow
I want to strip after the space next to the hyphen and set the first character of the first word (and…) in uppercase.
How do I use both {Headline:After=- } and {Headline:UCFirst} is this example?

Looks like a simple task but I just can’t find the correct answer neither a simular documented sample. I’m very curious what the method is and it would help the online knowlegde here.
Regards, Richard

Yeah, sorry, I made some boneheaded decisions a decade ago when I first created these things, and locked myself into this horrible token sublanguage. You can’t combine “After=” with “UCFirst”. )-: However, you can get around it with a LUA token: {LUA=return utf8.ucFirst(Headline:gsub('^.-%-%s*', ''))} —Jeffrey

— comment by Richard on March 8th, 2021 at 9:51am JST (3 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

Is there a substring function? I accidentally named my files incorrectly.
Ex. PHOTO_12345 Should be PHOTO_22345. The “_1” should be “_2”. I was hoping to extract the “2345” portion and then just add a “2” when I renamed the file.

You can use the LUA token to access the power of the underlying language, e.g. “{LUA=Filename:gsub('PHOTO_1', 'PHOTO_2')}” —Jeffrey

— comment by Dan on April 5th, 2021 at 10:47am JST (3 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink

Hello Jeffrey,

Thanks again for this plugin 🙂
I have a question, I have been using the {People} template for “People Shown” IPTC Field. But the suggestion is to use “,” between name in this field. So instead “Anna Fredrick and John Fredrick”, “Anna Fredrive, John Fredrick”. Is it possible modify the the “and” into “,”?

Thank you!

That makes sense. I’ve added a “separated by” bit to the code, so it’ll get rolled out with each plugin during its next update. You’ll want to use {People=;separated by ", "} —Jeffrey

— comment by Roger on April 14th, 2021 at 2:39am JST (3 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink

Thank you Jeffrey! I appreciate your help! 🙂

— comment by Roger on April 14th, 2021 at 7:37pm JST (3 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink

I have some LR keywords containing capital word OFF, it might be JimOFF etc. meaning those photos will not end up in certain exports if I choose to add that rule in LR (not containing OFF). Now with this plugin I would like to add a special keyword to exported photos, a “noOFF” for those pics not having the OFF anywhere in the LR keywords. This way I would be able to filter photos in a synced iPhone etc. so that no “OFF” photos show up by searching for “nooff” in the iPhone.

I did not find a way to add a keyword with a rule “contains” like *OFF in the plugin. I tried {IfKeyword=*OFF;OFF;noOFF} but that did not do the trick, every photo got the “noOFF” and also the one with the original LR keyword JimOFF.

Is there a way to do this? BTW I am already very happy with the ability to add ratings to keywords for the same purpose, for a synced iPhone.

I assume you’re speaking of the “Snapshot on Export” plugin, and its abilityt o add a keyword. Unfortunately, there’s no way to make the keyword-addition dynamic based on other aspects of the photo, sorry. —Jeffrey

— comment by Benz on May 3rd, 2021 at 1:11am JST (3 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

Regarding my keyword “OFF” issue. I am using the Metadata Wrangler plugin which I just found when I was wondering how to add rating keywords for LR Published Services exports for Photos app for iPhone synchronization (as iTunes Folder Sync is very unreliable). Photos sync in iTunes seems to work better. So I am very happy I can add “5star” and “4star” etc. keywords at the export automatically from my ratings.

But I also have keywords in LR ending with the word OFF. Let’s say I have a coworker who mostly is in pictures regarding work and I mostly present photos at work. Some photos are from vacations and I have given those an extra keyword “JimOFF” so that I can have exports with only work related photos (in LR Smart Folder “does not contain OFF”). Now for Photos and iPhone I would like all my pics to have either yesOFF on noOFF keyword. Then I can search on my iPhone for photos “noOFF” and only work photos would show. Or vice versa, searching for lets say “yesOFF” would let me share fun moments out of work.

So, can the IfKeyword have a “contains” or “does not contain” option so that I could make it search for etc. “JimOFF” and then an extra keyword like “yesOFF” would be written in the exported photo and if no “OFF” word is found then “noOFF” would be the written keyword.

— comment by Benz on May 4th, 2021 at 7:19am JST (3 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

One more thing, sure, I can search on my iPhone for “OFF” keywords already. But as the other photos don’t have “noOFF” keyword I cannot search for those. Either I find the “OFF” photos or all including also the OFF photos. I want to find the the ones without the OFF. That is where I need to be able to add the “noOFF” keyword.

You can use the special LUA token for this:

{LUA= for kw in pairs(KW) do if kw:match('OFF') then return 'YesOFF' end end return 'NoOFF'}

If the photo has any keyword with the three-letter sequence “OFF” in it, this becomes “YesOFF”. Otherwise, it becomes “NoOFF”. —Jeffrey

— comment by Benz on May 4th, 2021 at 7:24am JST (3 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

I am trying to set up your export to tweet plugin.

I am entering the following into the token space ‘{Title|Filename}, Shot at {Keywords:DescendantOf=.places}, {YYYY}.{Keywords:NS=#%s}’

intending the keywords to come out as hashtags. However I have only been able to get either spaces removed from the keywords, or a # added before the keyword. I can’t work out how to get both working together. Also I can’t work out how to remove the commas between each keyword (if that is indeed possible).

Could you tell me what I am doing wrong please? This sort of thing is not my forte lol.

Thanks

Lisa

Officially the “=#%s” thing doesn’t work with filters such as “:NS” (because the code was designed poorly early on, and grew into a horrendous patchwork of kuldge), but I just added another patch that should get it working in this case. Currently it’s not possible to change the commas inserted between each keyword. —Jeffrey

— comment by Lisa Myring on June 7th, 2021 at 9:00pm JST (3 years, 5 months ago) comment permalink
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