Library module Keyword Hierarchy

[trustinhc]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version 10.3

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Il am new to Lightroom and need a bit of help. Tutorials and videos on the Internet are a life saver as an assistant in learning Lightroom Classic. I have just begun to learn about Keywords and Keyword Hierarchy and have learned how to create external to Lightroom a text file using words, tabs, [, ], {. } to create a hierarchy that I can import into Lightroom. Works great but I must be missing something. When I select a group of photos in Library Mode and go to the Keyword list, I can add "child" keyword to all the images and then through the use of "Keywords & Containing Keywords" or "Will Export" I then can see all the parent keywords and synonyms that are attached to each of the photos. Very NEAT. However in the Keyword List only the count in the actual "child" keyword entry is update with the x number of photos I had selected. For example I have selected 20 photos of my Father. The Keyword Father is under Immediate Family which is under Family which is under Known People which is under People (as example). After adding the Father keyword to my 20 selected images the Father count is increased by 20 but the People, Known People, Family, Immediate Family keywords all remain without their counts being increased even though I can see these keywords using the functions available in the Keywording tab. What am I doing wrong or what do I not understand?

And one further question ... I see if I create a Keyword while in Lightroom under the + in Keyword List that I am given the option to "Include on Export", "Export Containing Keywords" and/or "Export Synonyms". When I am importing a Keyword list via a text file, I do not see that I have this option. Now for me ... remember I am NOT a photographer ... I simply am a Picture Taker ... I would want all these options always chosen. Is this what happens by default? I guess I could find out by exporting my "Father" photos and looking at the exported images but until I started to learn to use Lightroom, I was not even aware there was such a thing as MetaData attached to images. Pretty uninformed I would say.

Thanks for considering ... this is my very first attempt to use a forum to learn more.

 

[Califdan]

The piece you may not be comprehending is the difference between an Explicit KW and an Implicit KW. An Explicit KW is one which is assinged to the image. If you select the image, Explicit KW's associated with that image will have a check mark in the Keyword List. The parents of Explicit KW's are all Implicit KW's. They are not directly associated with the image but rather there is an implied association with the image due to the fact they they are the parent of a keyword that is directly attached to the image. However, in most cases within LrC implicit KW's can be used in the same way as explicit KW's (e.g. in text filter, in Metadata filter, in Smart Collections). How they behave in relation to exported images depends on those check boxes (Export Containing and Export Synonyms), Since the Explicit KW's are not directly attached to the image, if you move the explicit KW out from under a parent, the parent loses its association with the image. The count of images shown in the KW list is only the count of the images (and VC's) which have that KW explicitly assigned. If you want the parents to also show the count you will need to also explicitly assign those parent KW's to the same images which pretty much defeats much of the advantage of having a hierarchical KW structure.

 

[Califdan]

As noted, one of the problems withthe import/export keyword lists is that the resulting file does not contain a way to specify all the desired settings of the keyword checkboxes. The only ones that you can specify are "will export" (a KW in square brackets denotes "will not export"). Keywords in curly braces are synonyms. There is no indication for "Export Containing" or "Export Synonyms" check boxes.

 

[trustinhc]

The piece you may not be comprehending is the difference between an Explicit KW and an Implicit KW. An Explicit KW is one which is assinged to the image. If you select the image, Explicit KW's associated with that image will have a check mark in the Keyword List. The parents of Explicit KW's are all Implicit KW's. They are not directly associated with the image but rather there is an implied association with the image due to the fact they they are the parent of a keyword that is directly attached to the image. However, in most cases within LrC implicit KW's can be used in the same way as explicit KW's (e.g. in text filter, in Metadata filter, in Smart Collections). How they behave in relation to exported images depends on those check boxes (Export Containing and Export Synonyms), Since the Explicit KW's are not directly attached to the image, if you move the explicit KW out from under a parent, the parent loses its association with the image. The count of images shown in the KW list is only the count of the images (and VC's) which have that KW explicitly assigned. If you want the parents to also show the count you will need to also explicitly assign those parent KW's to the same images which pretty much defeats much of the advantage of having a hierarchical KW structure.

 

[trustinhc]

I thank you for your response regarding my request. I was not aware that there was a distinction within the keyword concept of explicit and implicit and within a specific hierarchy chain, implicit and explicit makes no sense to me. As regards a hierarchy it makes no sense to me that if you assign a member of the hierarchy that the parent members don't automatically get counted in the count structure within the keyword list and also be added as actual keywords. Lightroom does highlight the parents on the keyword list which makes it easy to manually enter them as keywords by simply tapping on them but that seems to me to be wasted effort but I shall do it. The input of a keyword hierarchy via a text file is certainly a far far easier way to construct a complicated hierarchy which can be very very useful in Lightroom. I believe that this hierarchy keyword structure adds great power to Lightroom, but I say that only as a totally new user. To not allow a method to indicate the export of keywords automatically in a text file input also makes no sense to me. But again I thank you for your clarifying comments because it helps me understand what I have to deal with in Lightroom. I am very impressed with Lightroom particularly in its ability to help me organize my many many pictures, not photographs, pictures. Also for me it allows me more than sufficient ability to make adjustments if necessary but I have so many pictures from so many sources that at almost 80 years old I'll be dead before I could begin to make these pictures all look better. For me they serve a historical interesting function and the beauty of each individual picture is not nearly as important as the content of the picture. Nevertheless, I am very impressed with Lightroom. And I thank you again for taking the time to explain to me what I did not understand.

 

[Califdan]

I'm not going defend the incomplete implementation of keywording LrC. What is there is quite powerful, but there is much to be desired. Among other things a true import/export tool that considers all the options available in the Edit Keword dialog box has been asked for pretty much since version 1 (so don't hold your breath). Other gaps include not being able to override space delimiters by enclosing multiple words inside of quotes in filters. Another sort of realted biggie is not syncing KW's to the Cloud ecosystem. And there are many other features that should be there but aren't.

However, I don't see your complaint of image counts on parent KW's not including images tagged with subordinate KW's. In fact, I'd consider it more of a problem if it did as I'm much more interested in the count of images that have a KW explicitly assigned rather than having the count also include images which have children KW's assigned. Actually, this is the same way that Windows File Manager works (perhaps Apple Finder as well, I don't know). If I select a folder in File Manager, the info box at the bottom tells me how many objects (folder and files) are in the selected folder not including the count of objects in folders farther down the chain. For example in this screen shot,

So, I'm quite happy withthe way they show the counts.

 

[trustinhc]

Under the web page for Lightroom Queen I found the following in an area explaining keywords:

• Automatic Entry – One of the major advantages to a hierarchy of keywords is that parent keywords are automatically added to the photos. For example, if I tagged a photo with “my house”, the parent keywords “Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK, Europe” would automatically be added to the photo too. This can save a lot of time.

As regards this explanation I see no reference to implicit or explicit. I certainly can accept Lightroom's use of implicit vs explicit as clearly I must as still Lightroom to me is a wonderful way to help me handle large amounts of images. Yet your first responds to my issue was the first time I had seen such a distinction being used in Lightroom. I purchased a book awhile ago by I think a Scott Kirby on Lightroom and in his section on Lightroom keywords and the use of hierarchical keywords there is not a single reference to the two important subdivisions of keywords... implicit vs explicit. Again I'm not intending to complain as for me Lightroom will be a fantastic organizational tool along with more than sufficient image adjustment tools. I am pleased with Lightroom!

 

[Califdan]

"Implicit" and "explicit" are words I use to help differentiate keywords that are directly attached to an image (and stay with the image even if the keyword changes it's position in the KW hierarchy) vs. keywords that are associated with the image through a parent-child relationship of keywords in the KW Hierarchy. Others have come up with different ways to talk about them such as "direct" and "indirect". But the key is that parent Keywords are not directly attached to the images. You can see this through a simple example. If you have an image with keyword "Red" and that keyword is under parent "Flower" then both keywords are in some way associated with that image. But now if you move keyword red from under "Flower" and place it under "Car", even tough you did not change anything else, that image is no longer associated with "Flower", along with "Red", but is now associated with "Car" along with "Red". In other words the original association with "Flower" was implied due to Red being under Flower and as soon as the relationship between Flower and Red is removed, the Flower Keyword dissapears from the image.

This may not be how you would have designed it, but it sure makes more sense to me than any alternative I can think of. However, going back to your original point, showing the count on the parent keyword that includes all the implied (children) keywords is no more or less valid than not including the impllied children keywords. It's just the way they choose to do it. I guess one could argue that since they give you a toggle to either include or exclude images in subfolders on image counts of parent folders they could have done the same for Keywords and that is a legitimate observation. And you could make that enhancement suggestion on the Adobe forum (fruitless as that effort might be). But as long as you know how it works, that's what's important.