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importing files from other photographers adds to my keyword list

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mgolin

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Premium Classic Member
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Feb 2, 2009
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79
Location
Bucks County, SE PA, USA
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Lightroom Version
1.x
Lightroom Version Number
6.14 perpetual
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  1. Windows 10
I just imported photos taken & processed by other photographers for later selection for a camera club contest. Most if not all I'm sure were PP'd via LR. Later when I went in to do my own "stuff," I noticed that several new keywords were added. Is there any way to block this from happening next time? Reviewing the import screen, nothing jumped out at me that seemed relevant.

I acknowledge it's not difficult to delete them, just annoying, especially since some are very close. Fortunately none are exactly the same, which if that were the case, it becomes more than annoying. Any suggestions will be most appreciated.
 
I would have a separate catalogue for the camera club images. Why pollute a catalogue of your work with that of other people?
 
I regularly import images into my catalog for the purposes of reviewing, selecting, images for internal club competions and entries to national competitions. I am a strong believer that my catalog should be the single repository for all my images or any images I need to manage or review. I do not use keywords for catalog wide classification, but within a folder for a competition I might use keywords to identify / separate images which may be colour or mono or may be advanced, intermediate or beginner.

I have sympathy for mgolin and hoping someone has a good suggestion.

The only option I can think of …. maybe when the competition is over you can remove all of the images from your catalog. Not sure if that will also remove the surplus keywords..
 
I have sympathy for mgolin and hoping someone has a good suggestion.
I think Hal had a prefect suggestion. Why on earth would you use your own working catalog for this? Create a separate ‘Club Review’ catalog, or create a temporary catalog each time you need to review images from other people. This is one of those rare situations where using more than one catalog makes all the sense in the world.
 
The only option I can think of …. maybe when the competition is over you can remove all of the images from your catalog. Not sure if that will also remove the surplus keywords..
No, it won’t. Removing all images that contain a certain keyword does not remove that keyword from the keyword list. Lightroom does have a possibility to purge unused keywords, but that means it will purge all unused keywords, also the ones you added but are not using right now.
 
I would have a separate catalogue for the camera club images. Why pollute a catalogue of your work with that of other people?
This is exactly what I do.
My camera Club photos are kept in a separate "main photo folder" and I have a club LR Catalog that "points" right there.
It is currently over 5000 photos in size, and mostly jpegs that people send me. When I enter my own photos into contests, club trips, etc, I simply export from my personal photo right into the club folder. A simple sync keeps the club folders up to date.
I also post them onto a club Flickr site directly from LR.

My long term intent, maybe in a couple of years, is to off load the club work. This will be easy, as I just give someone a folder of images in a set of subfolders and a LR catalog for those images.
 
Why on earth would you use your own working catalog for this?
Because it is so easy for me to do, especially as Lr has so many good tools to present to me the images I wish to work on, afterall, Lr is based on a structured database. The image metadata tells me what images are mine or what images are 3rd party. I have been doing this for years without issue.

Ultimately, the original poster will decide what suits best for their scenario, which may relate to the frequency of activity or volume of images involved.

For club related images, I do reset all the image ratings to zero as I may wish to use the ratings tools to assist me in the selection process and do not want to be compromised by the individual photographer ratings. I can see the case for doing the same with keywords related to third party images.
 
Because it is so easy for me to do, especially as Lr has so many good tools to present to me the images I wish to work on, afterall, Lr is based on a structured database. The image metadata tells me what images are mine or what images are 3rd party. I have been doing this for years without issue.
That‘s because you do not use all the features in Lightroom, like keywords. If you used keywords extensively, you would not have been able to do this without any issues, but have the same issues as the OP. If he uses a separate catalog, then he will still have all the many good tools in Lightroom, but without the ‘keyword pollution’.

I teach Lightroom classes, and for exactly the same reason I use a separate catalog for that. It means I can import images, add keywords, demonstrate possible mistakes and anything else, without this having any effect on my own work.
 
That‘s because you do not use all the features in Lightroom, like keywords. If you used keywords extensively, you would not have been able to do this without any issues, but have the same issues as the OP. If he uses a separate catalog, then he will still have all the many good tools in Lightroom, but without the ‘keyword pollution’.

I teach Lightroom classes, and for exactly the same reason I use a separate catalog for that. It means I can import images, add keywords, demonstrate possible mistakes and anything else, without this having any effect on my own work.
How about this approach?

Import other people's photos into a separate catalog.
Clean up the keywords. Easily done in LIBRARY.
Add any keywords necessary to identify the sources or the photographers, etc.
Import the separate catalog into your main catalog.
 
I would have a separate catalogue for the camera club images. Why pollute a catalogue of your work with that of other people?

How about this approach?

Import other people's photos into a separate catalog.
Clean up the keywords. Easily done in LIBRARY.
Add any keywords necessary to identify the sources or the photographers, etc.
Import the separate catalog into your main catalog.
Except that many of do not want club photos in our personal catalog. I know I easily could keyword them with my club name, and set up a smart collection for them. But I choose not too. I don't even bother keywording the photos - no real need to.
And like Johan, I teach some LR classes at club meetings, and I use a 3rd catalog for the classes. Then I can mess around all I want.
LR is very versatile - you should use it in a way that fits your needs and desires.
 
Except that many of do not want club photos in our personal catalog. I know I easily could keyword them with my club name, and set up a smart collection for them. But I choose not too. I don't even bother keywording the photos - no real need to.
And like Johan, I teach some LR classes at club meetings, and I use a 3rd catalog for the classes. Then I can mess around all I want.
LR is very versatile - you should use it in a way that fits your needs and desires.
@Jimmsp

I agree 100% that there is nothing to compel you to include club photos in your personal catalog. But IF you do prefer that approach, I've suggested what I think is an approach that MIGHT eliminate keyword pollution. Since I don't belong to any clubs, etc., I had no way to actually test out this idea.
 
1. I think it is perfectly valid for Lr users to wish to exclude all (or some categories of) 3rd party images from their personal catalog.
2. If someone has invested years of time and effort maintaining a keyword schema, then it makes sense to take the effort to protect this schema from keyword pollution.
3. It makes absolute sense to have a separate catalog to be used for training purposes for so many valid reasons. I do this myself.
4. There are options in the export module re handling of metadata. Maybe the import module needs refinement in this regard.
5. I have been involved in club competitions/activities for years. It suits my workflow to have all images I work on in a single catalog. I regard such images as transient and when the relevant competition or club activity (eg Exhibitions) is over then in most cases I will remove the images from my catalog and delete them from my drive. I am lucky I do not maintain catalog wide keyword schema, so I can ignore keyword issues.
6. There is one other category of image to be considered… ie processing images on behalf of a third party. Sometimes I will assist people by processing a batch of their images in Lr or applying advanced Photoshop treatment to individual images. Again, these have the potential to pollute keyword schemas.
7. PhilBurton’s suggestion has merit and may suit some scenarios.

So, this is a topic that has been worth exploring. Hopefully the OP has got some value from it and can make a call on how they wish to move forward.
 
Sounds to me that you should perhaps consider C1 where "Sessions" would provide the ring fenced environments you want. Lr is just not intended to work that way. I have oft thought Sessions might be a worthwhile function for Adobe to add but there-again I have never has issues with a single catalogue so probably would not change now anyway. If I really deed need a Session equivalent in Lr I would just start another catalogue.
 
My late father sometimes jokingly said: "Why would you do things the easy way if you can also do them in a complicated way?". This thread and some of the suggestions (like spending 349 euro on CaptureOne, just for this) remind me of him.
 
I never expected all this. I thank you for the various aspects that I never even considered. I must admit that at the time I imported club photos (& this was the first time), creating a separate catalog didn't even cross my mind. It is probably what I'll do in the future. Again, thanks.
 
My late father sometimes jokingly said: "Why would you do things the easy way if you can also do them in a complicated way?". This thread and some of the suggestions (like spending 349 euro on CaptureOne, just for this) remind me of him.
My point being that if Lr is really so difficult to manage in these circumstances (or is behaving in an unacceptable manner) then C1 is a viable lternative. Agreed, it is not the way I would go or recommend but then I am happy with the way Lr does things and having more than one catalogue would not be an issue for me. It may be different for others.
 
I think this entire issue has a root cause: Lightroom was not designed for teams or workgroups. The database must be stored on a local drive, not a networked drive. There are no features in Lightroom for separate "users" along with sharing/not sharing configuration.

I think maintaining separate catalogs in specific situations is probably the best way to work around these limitations. Perhaps Victoria can even include some material in a forthcoming edition of the excellent FAQ book. (It's the Lightroom go-to reference for me, and probably lots of other people.)
 
My point being that if Lr is really so difficult to manage in these circumstances (or is behaving in an unacceptable manner)
Difficult? How difficult is creating a new catalog?
 
I think this entire issue has a root cause: Lightroom was not designed for teams or workgroups. The database must be stored on a local drive, not a networked drive. There are no features in Lightroom for separate "users" along with sharing/not sharing configuration…

At first I did not consider this topic worthy of further comment. As I considered it sufficiently answered with the first reply. (Create a separate Catalog, duh!)

It appears to me that a lot of narrow minded thinking OR no thinking has gone into the other answers beyond the obvious to maintain a separate catalog.

Some years ago, I was responsible for my camera club competition. People emailed me JPEGs in a specified size format and named specifically for the category they were to be shown in. I created a folder for the month/year and sub folders for the categories. I then assembled them in category order and threw in a category title slide image for each category. I then assembled them for a slide show using the Mac Previews app. Lightroom never entered in to the problem or the solution.


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Perhaps not everybody understands why it is so easy, hence the other, more complicated suggestions. Keywords are not like presets and profiles. Presets and profiles are global; they show in every catalog you’ve got. Keywords are stored in the catalog however, so every catalog has its own keyword list and these lists do not interact in any way. That means that using a separate catalog solves the problem of the OP. When he imports the club photos he will still see the keywords used by his club members, but he can completely ignore this because they will only be in the keyword list of the catalog he dedicated to the club photos.
 
Perhaps not everybody understands why it is so easy, hence the other, more complicated suggestions. Keywords are not like presets and profiles…
. I think the issue is that the problem is not really about keywords although that is where the OP discovered that he had a problem. The issue is “How to best handle foreign images that won’t interfere with the users asset management. The answer becomes, handle them outside of the users own asset management


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