In the Photos app on your Mac, select the photos you want to export. Choose File Export Export Unmodified Original. If you want to export IPTC information (assigned IPTC metadata and keywords) as a sidecar XMP file, select the Export IPTC as XMP checkbox. Write tags into metadata: select if you want any keyword tags added to be embedded into the metadata of each photo. Write copyright info into metadata: select if you want any copyright information added to be embedded into the metadata of each photo. CyberLink PhotoDirector will export all the photos as specified.
Learn how to export metadata records from your assets to a file or database or import from these sources.
Navigate to Google Takeout. Deselect all, and select the Photos archive. Download and unzip your archive. Each picture and video from Takeout will be accompanied by a metadata.json file containing all the EXIF data. Some pictures will even be stripped of their own EXIF data, usually Location and Date values, making the import process to another.
What can this be used for?
FotoStation lets you export metadata from files in your archive to a comma or tab separated text file. The exported metadata can be stored in the FotoWare import format or in the format used by Cumulus. You can also create your own custom tab or comma separated format for compliance with other systems. When importing metadata records, FotoStation can create dummy images containing the metadata so that the archive is fully searchable, even though the original file isn’t available.
Note: This topic deals with metadata import and export to text files. The next topic, available by clicking Next at the bottom of the page, deals with metadata export and import using an ODBC connection to a database.
Limitations
FotoStation is limited to importing/exporting max 100.000 rows of data. This applies to both export to text files and to databases via ODBC.
Our server application Color Factory can be used for larger exports. (Separate license required, and different system requirements apply.)
Exporting metadata
Select the files from which you wish to export the metadata. Then open the File menu and choose Export, then Text.
You can now choose between the FotoWare format and the Cumulus standard format, or you can create and save your own custom format to accommodate other systems. Under the Metadata field column, click the arrow to choose a metadata field to map the content to. If you choose to export metadata using one of the preset formats, simply leave the settings as they are and click OK. You can also choose a codepage for saving the metadata to avoid character mapping problems later. Simply pick a codepage from the dropdown list.
Note that if you want to export metadata from all files in the archive, not only the files that were selected when you chose to export metadata, select the Export from all files instead of selected only. After clicking OK, choose a location to store the exported text file.
Importing metadata
To import metadata, open the File menu, choose Import, then Text. The Text Import Wizard opens, and you can continue to the first wizard page by clicking Next.
Note: If you have received a collection of files and an associated spreadsheet with metadata, you should make sure to export it to a text format before proceeding. FotoStation can only import plain text files.
Another option is to configure a database connection using ODBC and use this to import metadata.
To import metadata from a text file, choose that option, then click on the Browse button to locate the file containing the metadata records. Click Next again. FotoStation will automatically detect if the text file was created by a FotoWare or a Cumulus system, or if it is a proprietary format. If the text file uses the FotoWare import format, importing of metadata should be pretty straightforward. You can, however, change the metadata field to which the content should be mapped by clicking on the little arrow pointing down in the field in question and then choosing another field.
You can also choose Ignore (at the top of the list) to ignore mapping of the corresponding content to a field. If the records you are importing are in the FotoWare import format, there is a special column that contains the Target folder (path) to the original files. This information is used as a fallback if FotoStation cannot correctly locate the files in the target folder, which is specified on the next page in the text import wizard (see below). You may find this useful if the files that you are applying the metadata to have moved from their original location. In that case, simply expand the Target folder field (see above) by clicking the little arrow in that field and choose Ignore from the top of the list. That way, the fallback feature is disabled and FotoStation will only search for the matching files in the target folder that you specify in the next step of the text import wizard. Before continuing you may also want to set the start row by adjusting the value in the field labeled Start from row #. Note that you cannot set a start row higher than 100.
Then click Next to continue.
On this wizard screen, first choose a target folder by clicking on the Browse button. Note that if the metadata records you are importing contain a path to the target folder and you have not specifically selected to ignore that target folder column, FotoStation will fall back to that path if it cannot locate the correct file in the target folder specified above.
Having specified a target folder you can also specify to Search for files in sub-folders inside the main folder by selecting the corresponding checkbox. Just remember that if files with identical filenames exist on different levels in the hierarchy, the text import function may produce undesired results.
Now select the file extension of the files in the destination folder. This is useful for example if you are importing metadata to image files that have since been converted to another format. Choosing Auto is usually sufficient to make FotoStation recognize the correct file in the destination folder.
Finally, choose whether you want FotoStation to create dummy pictures in the destination folder if it cannot locate a file to match a metadata record. A dummy picture can later be merged manually with the corresponding file. To learn how, refer to the Dummy Pictures chapter.
Click Next to continue, then click Finish to start importing metadata. After the metadata import process is complete, FotoStation will display a summary:
Importing metadata from a database or exporting to a database
Photos Metadata Export Link
Text records can also be imported from a database or exported to a database.