Today’s Question: Actually, in Lightroom Classic, if you change the name in the Creator field, it changes the Artist name accordingly.
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, indeed! I was not aware of this, but while the Artist metadata field appears read-only in Lightroom Classic, changing the value in the Creator field will also update the Artist field to the same value.
More Detail: This was a follow-up to a previous question about the Artist field in metadata, which is read-only in Lightroom Classic. In my original answer, I explained that the value for the Artist field is generally set by the camera, using software from the camera’s manufacturer.
There are also third-party software tools that enable you to modify metadata values, even if they are generally not editable in other software applications such as Lightroom Classic.
I’m grateful to the reader who pointed out this detail, which I had not been aware of (obviously) when I answered the original questions. As I’ve said before on more than one occasion, one of the things I love about publishing the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter is that if I make an error in one of my answers, many readers are happy to let me know about it. And of course I’m more than happy to acknowledge when my answers aren’t entirely accurate, and make sure I’m sharing the best information for my readers.
So, if you need to update the Artist field in metadata for your photos, just update the Creator field and the Artist field will be updated as well.
And once again, thank you to reader Randy Finch, who let me know about this issue. You can check out Randy’s photography on Flickr here: