Plugin Metadata in LR

Question

I use J Friedl's plugin for uploading pictures to Zenfolio. This plugin adds two fields to the metadata - logical yes/no for uploaded and a field for the url. These are not editable inside LR. That means that I cannot move my file once it is uploaded and still keep track of it using LR.

1. • does anyone know where this metadata is stored?
2. is there a tool that can edit the data directly external to LR?
3. Will LR go berserk if metadata are changed externally?

(I have asked this question of JFriedl directly and he has not replied.)

TIA

Answer 1

1) Adobe has support for plug-ins to add their own metadata this data is stored in the lightroom catalog. From the SDK doc "Values stored in custom metadata fields are stored only in Lightroom's database. In the current release, a plug-in cannot link custom metadata fields to XMP values or save them with the image file. "

2) No. However you might be able to edit it in LR. They have a concept of custom meta data that is private and public. One possible tool to use to examine if you can see the data you want is another one of Jeffery's plug-ins: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/metadata-viewer

3) Not berserk but possibly confused - and even stomp on your externally changed values. If you do make changes from an external tool there is a command to update the LR catalog from the images. Check out this post: http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2013/09/how-lightroom-works-with-metadata-from-other-applications.html