Today’s Question: The original files and folders I imported into Lightroom Classic are all still visible in Bridge, but many lack metadata entered in Lightroom Classic? Can you help with this?
Tim’s Quick Answer: To be able to see metadata updates outside of Lightroom Classic you need to enable the option to automatically write metadata updates to the source images within Lightroom Classic.
More Detail: By default, Lightroom Classic only saves metadata updates within the catalog, not to the source image files on your hard drive. Therefore, other applications such as Adobe Bridge will not display the updated metadata by default.
However, you can enable an option to automatically save metadata updates to the source images, which will both provide a backup of the key metadata you update in Lightroom Classic and enable you to view the updated metadata in other applications.
To enable the option to automatically save metadata updates to the source images, first bring up the Catalog Settings dialog by choosing Edit > Catalog Settings on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings on Macintosh. In the Catalog Settings dialog go to the Metadata tab and turn on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox.
It is important to understand that enabling this option will not save all metadata from Lightroom Classic to the source images. Metadata fields that are part of established standards, such as keywords and star ratings, will be written to the source files when this option is turned on. Features that are specific to Lightroom Classic such as pick and reject flags, virtual copies, collections, and the history in the Develop module, will not be included in these updates.
