Complex Smart Collection: No KW other than A, B, C.

[Kirby Krieger]

Lightroom Version

Lightroom Classic version: 9.1

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Is there any way to set up a Smart Collection that will show Photos which have no keywords other than A or B or C?

I tried using Any Filter, but I haven't understood the syntax.

 

[johnrellis]

In general, there's no way to do this with smart collections. As a special case, you could put the keywords A, B, and C under the root keyword A_B_C, and you could move all other keywords under the root keyword NOT_A_B_C, and then use this smart collection:

But if this is more than a one-off task, you probably don't want to rearrange your keyword hierarchy. In that case, you'll have to use some (very) obscure Any Filter rules:

These rules match a photo if these two conditions are met:

- Every explicitly assigned keyword is either A, B, or C
- The photo has at least one assigned keyword

 

[Califdan]

That's a complicated query. I haven't been able to come up with a smart collection or Any Filter way to do it but maybe someone else can. In the mean time, are you able to do in a step by step manual way to achieve this as I think that may be possible. If so I'd be curious as to your steps. Also, is this a one time thing or something you are going to need to repeat again and again?

I'm also curious about the real world situation (I'm sure you keywords are not A, B, and C) that you are trying to address.

 

[Califdan]

John, I don't follow your logic in relation to Kirby's request. I see where your Any Filter rules will find all images that have A or B or C or any combination of those 3, but I don't see how the "Explicit keywords number of >= 1 really does anything as any image that has A or B or C will by definition have >= 1 keyword. Or am I reading that wrong?

Kirby didn't indicate if an image could have a combination of A, B and/or C but assuming that is possible, I think what you'd need is

Explicit keyword is any of A or B or C and number of keywords = 1
Or
Explicit keyword is (A and B), or (A and C), or (B and C) and and number of explicit keywords is = 2
Or
Explicit keywords is all of A and B and C and number of explicit keywords = 2

 

[johnrellis]

"I don't see how the "Explicit keywords number of >= 1 really does anything as any image that has A or B or C will by definition have >= 1 "

The first rule, "Explicit keywords all items / Some of ...", is true if all the explicit keywords of the photo satisfy the "Some of" subrule (having keywords A, B, or C). If the photo has 0 keywords, then that rule is also true: all of the explicit keywords (all zero of them) match the subrule. (This is how the boolean operator "for all" is defined mathematically.)

So if you want the overall filter to match photos that have at least one of A, B, or C, and to not match photos with zero keywords, then you need to have the second rule that requires the photo to have at least 1 keyword.

This example is a perfect illustration of why boolean logic, while very powerful, isn't necessarily a good user interface for non-technical users :->

 

[johnrellis]

"are you able to do in a step by step manual way"

I noodled that puzzle on my drive home. You can indeed do this using multiple steps with the Library Filter bar:

1. In the Catalog panel, click All Photographs.

2. In the Library Filter bar, click Metadata and configure the metadata browser to have just the Keyword column.

3. In the Keyword column, select the keywords A, B, C:

At this point, only photos containing at least A, B, or C are shown. Those photos may contain other keywords.

4. Select all the displayed photos and add them to the Quick Collection.

5. In the Catalog panel, click Quick Collection.

6. In the metadata browser's Keyword column, select all the keywords except A, B, and C. You can do this quickly for large keyword lists by clicking the first keyword in the column, shift-clicking the last keyword, and then Cmd/Ctrl-clicking A, B, C:

At this point, the photos displayed are those with at least one of A, B, or C and some keyword other than A, B, C.

7. Select all the displayed photos and do Photo > Remove From Quick Collection.

Now the photos left in Quick Collection are exactly those that have one of A, B, or C but no other keyword.

This method is pretty klutzy for very large keyword lists, since it can be painful to scroll the Keyword column to find the desired keywords.

 

[Kirby Krieger]

Many thanks for the superbly helpful replies! My experience yesterday wrestling with this tracks well with the comments (and I now see, though I've yet to understand, where I went wrong). I am traveling today and won't be able to reply in full until tonight or tomorrow.