[Digikam-users] migrating from Lightroom - how to get my metadata from .xmp?

[Peter Shute]

David Edmondson wrote on Saturday, 10 July 2010 3:30 AM:

> I have several thousand Canon raw files (.cr2), each with an
> XMP sidecar (.xmp). The sidecar contains metadata (mostly
> tags) that I'd like to appear in Digikam. Is this possible?

It would appear not, but if you're desperate, this idea might help.

I don't have digiKam or any raw files to test this on, but perhaps it might be possible to create jpg versions of every raw file (in the same paths as the raw files) and import those into digiKam. I assume this is possible as a batch in Lightroom, and that it can be configured to copy all the metadata, but perhaps not.

Metadata like flags, etc, is likely not going to be exported. You could apply these as tags instead if you want to have them available in digiKam.

Import the jpg files into digiKam. Then copy the raw files to where the jpgs were imported to, if necessary, and, and directly open the database and do a query to replace every instance of "jpg" with "cr2". I have no experience with the latter, but have read postings mentioning working directly with the database.

This may be sufficient to trick digiKam into applying the jpg files' metadata to the raw files. I'd try it on just a few at first, and on an empty digiKam database, as it's probably a bit risky. More experienced digiKam users might be able to comment on the likelihood of success with this method.

Peter Shute