How do I display all images missing a given piece of metadata in Apple Aperture?

Question

I'm slowly working on cleaning up the metadata in all my old images that I imported into Aperture from iPhoto. I'd like to get a list of the images that I haven't added a certain metadata field to but I can't figure out how to search for a missing value.

For example I'd like to get a list of all images that don't have a GPS location, or all images that don't have copyright info, etc.

Answer 1

Open up any metadata search criteria, add in either EXIF or IPTC fields you want to search by (using the "Add Rule" dropdown), and indicate you want images where the EXIF/IPTC "is empty".

An example for copyright:

Answer 2

In the search tool, you can choose, for example:

• Add rule: Place
• Place: Is empty

Or:

• Add rule: IPTC
• IPTC: Creator: Is empty

You can do this using the search tool in the browser view (inside a project, or in the view that shows all photos). Alternatively, you can create a "Smart album" if you need these queries frequently.