iPhoto 09’s Batch Change to add data to your images
Many iPhoto users don’t take advantage of the program’s great search featuers, because they don’t add enough data to their images to make search useful. To some degree this has to do with iPhoto’s heritage—it hasn’t always been super-easy to add descriptive data to an image. iPhoto 09 changes that, though one of the most powerful tools (inherited from Aperture) is a bit hidden in the menus.
Metadata, which is the term given to any information added to an image after it is shot (think captions, keywords, ratings, etc.,) is hugely important—the more information your photos have, the easier it is to find them later. iPhoto’s Batch Change tool makes it easier to add metadata to your images.
Even better, this information goes along with your images when you post your photos to places like Flickr or Facebook.
Select an image
You can select a single image to use the Batch Change tool, but it’s best used when adding metadata to several images at once. To begin, select several images. You can select images in a row (called contiguious images by clicking the first one, then holding Shift and clicking the last one in the series. You can select images one-at-a-time by Command-clicking them as well.
Select Batch Change
From the Photos menu, select Batch Change… or press Command-Shift-B.
Set a Field
Set a data field to modify for all your selected images from the first drop down. You can enter Title, Date or Description information. (Description is your caption.)
The second drop down changes depending on the selection in the first. For example, if you set the Title to be the Date/Time then the drop down asks you to select how you want to format that information.
Generally, text is the most useful, as you should give your photos a descriptive title that lets the viewer know what the photo is about.
Click OK when you’re done, and your images are now all changed as a batch. if you’d like to give your images a title and then give them a description, just repeat these steps, selecting Description from the dropdown instead of Title.
Enjoy this Post? Share it on your favorite social bookmarking site...
