I began keywording our images when there were no hierarchical keywording systems available, and you were expected to type in keywords from the top of your head.
I developed my own system, which I refer to as relational, based on a Word document with lots of internal hyperlinks. I wrote some macros to increase my productivity.
The main document consists of lines of keywords which are related, organised in a way which makes sense for our library. I very much doubt if it would work for anyone else, but it grew organically and is good for us.
The first page is only hyperlinks which lead into sections, like geographical locations, people, environment, education, culture, economic activity etc.
When I get to some keywords I want to use, I click in the left margin to select the line, or double click individual words. I've set up a right-click menu item 'Copy Keyword', which copies the selected words to a second document.
I navigate the main document using an enhanced version of the web toolbar to go to the beginning of the document or back to the previous location, and I also use embedded hyperlinks to move to related areas of the document. For example, on the 'People' page there are links to 'Emotions', 'Lifestyle', 'Sexuality' and 'Indigenous' (amongst others).
The toolbar also has an icon 'Finish Image', which saves the main document (thereby saving any changes I have made, enabling it to grow organically and retain any flashes of inspiration I have while working on a specific image), prepares the keywords in the secondary document into a format suitable for Lightroom to use, copies the keywords to the clipboard, then clears the second document ready to keyword the next document.
I then just paste the prepared keywords into the Keyword Tags box in the Keywording pane (RHS) in Lightroom.
While my system was growing, commercial hierarchical systems were increasing in popularity and becoming more widely available. But I stuck to my system because a) it was adapted to our specific needs, and b) I have a strong suspicion that hierarchical systems lead to inappropriate keywording.
Why? A hierarchical system assigns 'implied' keywords, which are 'parents' of the actual word you select. So, for example, selecting 'cat' might add 'feline', 'felis', 'felis sylvestrus catus', 'mammal', 'animal'. But imagine the confusion if the 'cat' referred to is a catfish? There is even, believe it or not, a fish known as the bumble bee catfish, which is in a group known as the wasp catfish!
Some systems allow you to deselect parents, but if you are in the process of keywording thousands of images, it is all too easy to forget that you are assigning these implied keywords, because you don't see them on the screen as you work.
In my system I always have to select the words, and even so if I'm tired or under pressure I occasionally select a whole line which includes some strays.
My system results in a flat file of keywords, which is fine if the software just keeps the actual words in a database which relates to the image file, or, as in the case of embedded or sidecar xml, in a file in a 1-to-1 relationship with the image file. But it breaks down, as I have discovered to my cost with Lightroom, if the database relationship is different.
I don't understand exactly how keywords are linked to images in Lightroom, but I'm aware it isn't in the kind of relationship in the paragraph above. Instead of assigning a keyword to an image, I believe you are doing the reverse; assigning an image to a keyword. This, if I'm not wrong, enables searching for images to be faster.
It seems that I'm being driven into the hierarchical system, just to make my catalog useable. But, because I've never used one, I don't feel confident that I understand the structure well enough to design a hierarchy I won't later regret.
How many levels are optimum? Is it OK to have the same word in several places (eg cat in mammals, cat in fish)? If yes, how does Lightroom distinguish between instances of the same word? If yes, what happens when I import already flat-keyworded images into a catalog with a hierarchical system? How do I prevent Lightroom from assigning the wrong instance? How best to avoid assigning inappropriate parents? (My kids might be interested in that one
).
I'm sorry for the length of this post, but I think this is a discussion worth having.
Patrick Cunningham
I developed my own system, which I refer to as relational, based on a Word document with lots of internal hyperlinks. I wrote some macros to increase my productivity.
The main document consists of lines of keywords which are related, organised in a way which makes sense for our library. I very much doubt if it would work for anyone else, but it grew organically and is good for us.
The first page is only hyperlinks which lead into sections, like geographical locations, people, environment, education, culture, economic activity etc.
When I get to some keywords I want to use, I click in the left margin to select the line, or double click individual words. I've set up a right-click menu item 'Copy Keyword', which copies the selected words to a second document.
I navigate the main document using an enhanced version of the web toolbar to go to the beginning of the document or back to the previous location, and I also use embedded hyperlinks to move to related areas of the document. For example, on the 'People' page there are links to 'Emotions', 'Lifestyle', 'Sexuality' and 'Indigenous' (amongst others).
The toolbar also has an icon 'Finish Image', which saves the main document (thereby saving any changes I have made, enabling it to grow organically and retain any flashes of inspiration I have while working on a specific image), prepares the keywords in the secondary document into a format suitable for Lightroom to use, copies the keywords to the clipboard, then clears the second document ready to keyword the next document.
I then just paste the prepared keywords into the Keyword Tags box in the Keywording pane (RHS) in Lightroom.
While my system was growing, commercial hierarchical systems were increasing in popularity and becoming more widely available. But I stuck to my system because a) it was adapted to our specific needs, and b) I have a strong suspicion that hierarchical systems lead to inappropriate keywording.
Why? A hierarchical system assigns 'implied' keywords, which are 'parents' of the actual word you select. So, for example, selecting 'cat' might add 'feline', 'felis', 'felis sylvestrus catus', 'mammal', 'animal'. But imagine the confusion if the 'cat' referred to is a catfish? There is even, believe it or not, a fish known as the bumble bee catfish, which is in a group known as the wasp catfish!
Some systems allow you to deselect parents, but if you are in the process of keywording thousands of images, it is all too easy to forget that you are assigning these implied keywords, because you don't see them on the screen as you work.
In my system I always have to select the words, and even so if I'm tired or under pressure I occasionally select a whole line which includes some strays.
My system results in a flat file of keywords, which is fine if the software just keeps the actual words in a database which relates to the image file, or, as in the case of embedded or sidecar xml, in a file in a 1-to-1 relationship with the image file. But it breaks down, as I have discovered to my cost with Lightroom, if the database relationship is different.
I don't understand exactly how keywords are linked to images in Lightroom, but I'm aware it isn't in the kind of relationship in the paragraph above. Instead of assigning a keyword to an image, I believe you are doing the reverse; assigning an image to a keyword. This, if I'm not wrong, enables searching for images to be faster.
It seems that I'm being driven into the hierarchical system, just to make my catalog useable. But, because I've never used one, I don't feel confident that I understand the structure well enough to design a hierarchy I won't later regret.
How many levels are optimum? Is it OK to have the same word in several places (eg cat in mammals, cat in fish)? If yes, how does Lightroom distinguish between instances of the same word? If yes, what happens when I import already flat-keyworded images into a catalog with a hierarchical system? How do I prevent Lightroom from assigning the wrong instance? How best to avoid assigning inappropriate parents? (My kids might be interested in that one
).I'm sorry for the length of this post, but I think this is a discussion worth having.
Patrick Cunningham
