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Specific Searches

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SeaSurfSun

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Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic version: 12.2.1 [ 202303011008-5bfbce17 ]
Operating System
  1. macOS 13 Ventura
Hello-I recently had to upgrade from my old Lightroom purchased in 2016 to the new subscription based LrC. Before signed up for the monthly subscription, I thought I would give Mac Photos a try again. I soon remembered why I don't like that program, but I DO like very much the option to search for things in my library based on what the subject of the image is. Searching for "cats" or "cars" comes up with images of such things, in addition to photos with those terms as keywords or tags.

Is there such a way I can do a similar search in Lightroom? Is there something I can download and install? I really don't use Lightroom other than for simple editing and for major organizing. With over 375,000 photos in my library over 20 years, I'd love to be able to search based on the actual subject of the image!

Thank you!
 
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Lightroom Classic doesn't have AI search, but the Lightroom cloud-centric app does. You could switch to the Lightroom-only subscription plan which doesn't include LrC or Photoshop, but does include 1TB of cloud space (though with 375K images, your library will exceed that 1TB limit, so would require additional cloud storage to be purchased, pushing up the monthly subscription somewhat). Alternatively, stay with the LrC-based Photography Plan subscription, which also includes the Lightroom desktop app. You could then sync your entire library to the cloud from LrC....which only uploads smart previews of your originals to the cloud, these are 2560 pixels on the long edge but are generally perfectly adequate for viewing and light editing, and best of all they are free to store in the cloud, i.e. they do not count against the included 20GB cloud space.

So you could use LrC for your main work, but also use the Lightroom desktop app for running AI searches (adding the results to an album in Lightroom which would appear in LrC as a collection).
 
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Jim Wilde said:
So you could use LrC for your main work, but also use the Lightroom desktop app for running AI searches (adding the results to an album in Lightroom which would appear in LrC as a collection).
Click to expand...

This has been the approach that I have taken. I also use the Cloud as a preprocessor for new images when in the field or traveling with my iPadPro. Images imported via Lightroom sync full size back to a master catalog in LrC. For this reason I upped my Cloud Storage on the Photography plan to 1TB.

In addition to “Sensei”. (Adobe’s AI), there are other advantages to Lightroom that LrC does not have. Like the ability to run on mobile platforms like Phones and tablets.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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That latter option sounds good. I don't do any sort of editing on any device and do most of my work (just organizing and the light editing on my iMac), so I like this option. I'll give it a try! (My only concern is what sort of privacy guarantees do we have with having Adobe hold our photos on their servers. The documentation they offer is mind-numbing to try to understand!


Thanks!
 
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SeaSurfSun said:
Is there something I can download and install?
Click to expand...
You could try the Any Vision plugin, which uses Google AI to label photos, or the Excire Search plugin, which uses its own AI. They're both intended for searching large catalogs of photos but have much different pricing and detailed functionality. There are other plugins that use AI for labeling photos, but they're mostly intended for careful keywording (e.g. for stock agencies).
 
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SeaSurfSun said:
My only concern is what sort of privacy guarantees do we have with having Adobe hold our photos on their servers.
Click to expand...
Probably better than what you might find with companies that you use for Facebook, Instagram, SmugMug Flickr etc..
 
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johnrellis said:
You could try the Any Vision plugin, which uses Google AI to label photos, or the Excire Search plugin, which uses its own AI. They're both intended for searching large catalogs of photos but have much different pricing and detailed functionality. There are other plugins that use AI for labeling photos, but they're mostly intended for careful keywording (e.g. for stock agencies).
Click to expand...
I just checked out Excire and I see that my photos are not sent to them for processing. I'm trying the 14-day trail now (well, as soon as it's done with the +300K photos). Thanks!
 
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Google Cloud Vision, used by Any Vision, has a very strict privacy policy about customer data. Google promises not to process your photos for any other purpose:
https://cloud.google.com/terms/data-processing-addendum

It used to be easy to read before the lawyers had to handle GDPR.
 
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