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Keywording People

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Duncanh

DuncanH
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After using Lightroom for a couple of years I'm about to start keying wording all my images. After reading lots of threads on here I'm happy with my planned keyword hierarchy but wanted to check if how I'm planning to keyword people is right. I'm planning to use Face Recognition only.
Planned hierarchy:
People (top level)
>Family
>Friends
>Other
>Relatives
>>and within Relatives to have a sub level of Family Surnames

I've marked People as the keyword to "Put New Person Keywords inside this Keyword". After I have named Faces I plan to then drag the keyword Name from People into the correct hierarchy e.g. Family, Friends or if they are a Relative into the Family Surname. I was worried that if I moved the keyword name that Face Recognition would lose track of it but from testing it appears it doesn't and works well including offering suggestions when people I have already named and moved appear in new images imported.

Reading various forum discussions about whether underscores should be used between first and surname considering subsequent searching problems but how when exporting images it's best not to have underscores I came across a suggestion of using Synonyms which sounded a good idea (thank you who ever posted that). So I'm planning to use format of John Smith and then add the synonym of JohnSmith.

Does the above sound a good plan, any problems I might find ?
Also if I use the above is there anything I'm missing out on not using "normal" keywords ?

Many thanks, Duncan
 
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Duncan, this sounds fair but why not create a new catalog (TEST) and import just a few images and create the keyword hierarchy and see how it pans out.
Then post your summary experience as to its strengths and weaknesses.

Tony Jay
 
We had a similar discussion recently, but I am not a fan of using relationships as hierarchies.

If you've got a name then that ID's them pretty well; Johnny could be a nephew to you, son of your brother, grandchild of your parent, and so on. Do you really need a geneological table?

OTOH for just easily finding the names I use _Family and _Friends as non-exporting keywords in a hieararchy, and leave it at that. Family and relatives are the same, no? and "other" is sorta covered by "People."

The synonyms should help.

You can also add "normal" keywords too. Like "nephew." Or "co worker" or whatever. The People keywords are sorta unique in that they are also assigned to a space in the photo; I've used them also for pets and I'm even thinking of using them for some car photos I took. Of course Lr won't automatically find those, but sometimes it finds some odd stuff, which gave me the idea. Bottom line, it's very flexible.
 
There is nothing wrong with using hierarchical keywords like 'family'. You won't often search for them, and if you do, it will show the correct images. Just don't use names as hierarchical keywords, so don't make 'John' a sub-keyword of 'Peter' if Peter is his father. If you do, you will also get all images of John if you search for Peter.
 
Thanks Tony, Rob and Johan.
Just to point out People is the top level and the others are below that. I did indent them in the post but that doesn't seem to show so I've edited the post to hopefully make it clearer

I've done some testing and it seems to work ok.

I can understand the problem with using relationships so will keep it simple being Family will have my immediate lot (wife and my sons (not to sure what I'll do when/if they get married other than spend money on the weddings !!) and relatives have all the rest e.g. my sister and her kids etc with each of the families in sub level. Em now thinking about it my sister has 3 boys and 2 daughters so will need more than just surname say LukeHarrisFamily, TobyHarrisFamily, GemmaThompsonFamily. It does get complicated as I have four boys and my sister has five children and they have children, I'll work it out as I go !! I suppose I'm putting them in sub levels so can easily find them in the keyword structure but now thinking about it using Face Recognition I won't be looking in that to find them when keywording so maybe that's all a waste of time, think it's a try and see.

Thanks for advice, now keyword 20,000 images and thats before I start scanning all the old photos pre digital !!!
 
Hi Duncan,

You may be interested to give a look at what I do: For me, all people, be it family, football players, coworkers or pets go Under the People group in a flat hierarchy. What I do to sort out is that I use Smart Collections for my family or my wife's family or pets I had or have... This way it is easy to have peoples in more than one collection as for my wife's brother who is also a coworker.
 
So if you have a flat collection, what do you do with two cousins who have the same name? :)
(No, I am not from West Virginia and no I do not have two cousins with the same name, just asking)
 
So if you have a flat collection, what do you do with two cousins who have the same name? :)
(No, I am not from West Virginia and no I do not have two cousins with the same name, just asking)
As with any names that repeat, just use other non-people identifying keywords.

If you have three "John Smith" People keywords you add your sister's name as a regular keyword to one, your brother's name as a keyword to the other, and "employee" to the other eg. I have names that aren't People keywords since sometimes a photo contains a subject related to that person (like their son or daughter or house or birthday) but doesn't portray that person; since People keywords associate with a space in the photo I reserve them for that. Maybe not necessary, but it makes it easier for me. Same with client names vs portrayal of the client.
 
As with any names that repeat, just use other non-people identifying keywords.

If you have three "John Smith" People keywords you add your sister's name as a regular keyword to one, your brother's name as a keyword to the other, and "employee" to the other eg. I have names that aren't People keywords since sometimes a photo contains a subject related to that person (like their son or daughter or house or birthday) but doesn't portray that person; since People keywords associate with a space in the photo I reserve them for that. Maybe not necessary, but it makes it easier for me. Same with client names vs portrayal of the client.

That would mean that photos of John Smith turn up if you search for photos of your sister... It's better to use a unique (non-exporting) keyword -or better still a synonym- such as 'JohnSmithSister'. See also this thread...
 
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Denis - I haven't thought about smart collections to help me, I've never used them maybe this is the time to learn about them. Thanks for suggesting them to me.
Johan - Seeing that link reminded me were I originally read about using synonyms, I thought that was a great idea, thanks.
 
That would mean that photos of John Smith turn up if you search for photos of your sister... It's better to use a unique (non-exporting) keyword -or better still a synonym- such as 'JohnSmithSister'. See also this thread...
Sort of...I should have been more precise. My sister as a People keyword is her name, it's a bit different, as you note, as a subject. Eg People>Jane Doe vs About Person>Jane Doe. For keywording hierarchy purposes Lr sees those as different, and would list them that way if you just enter the keyword "Jane Doe." That does bring up the whole mess of searching keywords, esp names, as text, but that's a whole different discussion as you noted. (And I have found that so inefficient I just ignore it and use other means virtually all the time). Sort of a personal preference, but it does allow searching for images re my sister vs of my sister.
 
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Heres how I am trying to keyword people. I have the a 2 level hierarchy. The Surname as the top level, and then first name - surname at the second level. EG

Adams
John Adams
Duncan Adams
Jay
Tony Jay
Spears
Tim Spears
Mark Spears

Etc.

Where a surname is common and I have multiple, I add the key person in that family as the top level. EG: -

Smith~Mark
Mark Smith
Margaret Smith
Smith~John
John Smith
Rob Smith


I would be keen to hear a critique that could identify any problems of the above.
 
Other than appearance in the keyword list I don't see that the parent surname keyword adds anything. But lumping together there for organizational purposes can be nice. But the problem will be that Alice Zumalt with show up in the list between Adams and Jay and Spear, not after them, since it would sort on "Alice" not "Zumalt."
 
Other than appearance in the keyword list I don't see that the parent surname keyword adds anything. But lumping together there for organizational purposes can be nice. But the problem will be that Alice Zumalt with show up in the list between Adams and Jay and Spear, not after them, since it would sort on "Alice" not "Zumalt."

The way I understand it, 'Adams' is a top-level keyword and 'John Adams' is a sub-keyword, just like 'Tony Jay' and 'Spear'. 'Alice Zumalt' would be a member of a different family, so the sort problem you mention does not exist. Her name would be a sub-keyword 'Alice' under a top-level keyword 'Zumalt', so it would sort just fine.
 
John - correct, they are hierarchical. I did indent in the original post to show hierarchy but that got lost. Bullets would have been better.
  • Adams
    • John Adams
    • Duncan Adams
  • Jay
    • Tony Jay
  • Smith~Mark
    • Mark Smith
    • Margaret Smith
  • Smith~John
    • John Smith
    • Rob Smith
  • Spears
    • Tim Spears
    • Mark Spears
This groups families together, which I find useful, and also clearly distinguishes separate families.

I am not absolutely certain this is the best way to go, so am happy to have it critiqued and refined.
 
Oh I see. I thought there would be an "Alice Waters" instead of an "Waters>Alice Waters." Carry on....

I assume the Smith-Mark makes sense to you, but it's not intuitive to me why the other Smiths wind up under one or the other hyphened names. But that's the point: they don't have to make sense to me, even if you're publishing, since those would be, presumably, non-publishing keywords used just for organizational purposes. Where a clan has say a bunch of mixed surnames (like the daughters of a Smith friend married and changed their names, or even worse for our purposes, hypenated them) then it could be like Smith-Jones. I've done kinda the same thing with a client name, with then other People names under that. It may on occasion make it tough to search by text, but that doesn't matter cuz it's easier to find in the keyword list.

Just keep in mind that unlike other keywords in Lr the "People" keywords have a special role in that they are attached to faces. And Lr will list as the person only that one name, although the other show up in the keywords themselves.
 
Happygun, that's pretty much how I have started doing it, only difference is having extra level to split Family (me, wife, kids), Relatives (rest of the motley relations), Friends, Work etc.
Think it will work, can soon drag the levels around if not quite right.
 
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Ive thought about doing that, but the choices can sometimes be arbitrary and relationships fluid. And everyone I have pictures of and keyworded fall into the category of friends or family.
PS while I have spent time setting up the keywords, my catalogue needs some serious work to get it all ship-shape. I am currently organising last years photos, but sometimes life gets in the way of spending hours organising lightroom!
 
We had a similar discussion recently, but I am not a fan of using relationships as hierarchies.

If you've got a name then that ID's them pretty well; Johnny could be a nephew to you, son of your brother, grandchild of your parent, and so on. Do you really need a geneological table?

OTOH for just easily finding the names I use _Family and _Friends as non-exporting keywords in a hieararchy, and leave it at that. Family and relatives are the same, no? and "other" is sorta covered by "People."

The synonyms should help.

You can also add "normal" keywords too. Like "nephew." Or "co worker" or whatever. The People keywords are sorta unique in that they are also assigned to a space in the photo; I've used them also for pets and I'm even thinking of using them for some car photos I took. Of course Lr won't automatically find those, but sometimes it finds some odd stuff, which gave me the idea. Bottom line, it's very flexible.
Rob,I have been reading about keywords for 2-3 hours,and been confused by them longer. Did you say in one of these posts that the only time to use the |(pipe) is adding KW outside of LR?
 
I believe that | is read by Lr if it finds it in a string of keywords during an import. So if you enter "text|textx|textxx" in a flat keyword list in some other application and save it to an image file, then when Lr imports it will generate a hierarchy like thus: text>textx>textxx. And per usual it will display only the grandchild in the Keyword entry box, "textxx." Just test it to be sure. I haven't tried adding that string with the pipes in the Keyword entry box itself. It might work, but I think not.
 
Rob,
Thanks for replying. Q- You take a shot of the capitol building in Sacramento with your significant other standing in front. So you have a WHAT ( building) ,a WHERE ( Sacramento,CA.) and a WHO ( significant other ). Does it matter what order you enter put them . Also when entering , Sacrament, Capitol, Significant other, OR do you use > or < ? Hope this makes sense.
 
That order wouldn't matter, as they'd be separate keywords coachejp. The < or > are only used when creating a new keyword in a hierarchy (for example, if Sacrament doesn't already exist inside the CA keyword).
 
And in general, if you see ">" in the keyword entry space it usually means that Lr has found different instances of the keyword, like when you have California>San Jose and Costa Rica>San Jose. That way you can tell which Jose you've got. If you just see "San Jose" it means there's no ambiguity. And entry order of separate keywords doesn't matter, as Victoria explained. Lr will sort them afterwards.
 
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