I'm a bit out on a limb here, but I find hierarchical keywords to be an utter pain, and keep getting into a mess with them. No matter how much I try, I always end up with the child keywords also appearing again at root level, eg when I re-import an exported file. Or the same child keyword will find itself in more than one hierarchy, usually because I've changed the hierarchy at some point, or on another machine.
I certainly agree with you here. I'm finding the same kinds of problems, not to mention that I often just type the keywords in the keyword entry place, not realizing I already have it in the list somewhere. But the idea of controlled vocabulary or standardized taxonomy of photo keywords strongly appeals to me.
Three feature requests:
1. On the "Click here to add keywords" box, make it less sensitive and allow use of the mouse to select, or require selection by pressing enter (esc to abandon). I find the behavior a bit too quick for me. I type a letter or two and a list appears with what I'm looking for somewhere in it. In order to select it, I have to very carefully move to the arrow keys and go down the list using the arrow keys, not something done elsewhere in the interface. I often end up with the wrong one.
2. On the search for keywords box, "filter keywords": After you type your basic search term, e.g. "bird" and in my current state of keyword list, what shows up is Animal>wild>bird and the singleton bird. But what I really want to do is see if ostrich is already there or not; or maybe I'm hoping the list of species I have under bird in the hierarchy will jog my memory as to what kind of bird is in the photo. But at this point I'm locked into the choices displayed. There's a triangle next to bird, but I can't click it to see what's under it, if anything. The new feature I'd like is to set up the results from a keyword filter so that I can drill down from the results shown after a search. Perhaps some visual indicator that more exists under a keyword.
3. Ability to select a proposed set of keywords prior to applying them. When in the keyword list, allow me to pick which which keywords or which parts of an hierarchy I'm going to apply. I have a photo of an eagle, I want to apply wild>bird>eagle, but I don't want to apply animal in this case because it's a sculpture. So, when I click on eagle, checkboxes show up for animal>bird>wild>eagle, but I can uncheck the animal one, and then scroll down and find (or filter and find) "sculpture" and click it, too. Now I can right click and apply selected keywords. Probably need a new box somewhere, perhaps just above the keyword list, that shows my proposed keyword additions. Definately need a way to cancel.
The trouble is that I think we’re trying to make HKs do two things, boost keyword data entry, and speed up finding. Deep down I’m not convinced data entry and what is a reporting function belong together.
I very much agree that there is confusion in this part of the user interface. The keyword tags, suggestions and sets are pretty clearly data entry, but the keyword list is a mixture, with reporting on both edges (check marks, minus signs on the left, triangles on the right) and a variety of input functions in the right click drop down box. I guess export is a report function.
I tried to suggest a way to make the keyword list a more powerful data entry tool in
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=3311
Basically, what I'm looking for is a technique I've often used in my own programming and is found in many computer programs where a many-to-many relationship needs to defined as the data input. Mostly you see this when you have a fixed list of things or attributes and you want the user to select one or more of them. One method is put checkboxes, and the user selects the ones wanted, just like you can go through and select photos by control-clicking on photos you want to select in the library grid. Another method is to display two list boxes and you select items from the left box and click an arrow to copy them to the right box or a different arrow to move them back. When you have everything you want in the right side box (for most western languages, the from box will be the left side, the to box will be the right), you click the done button.
In lightroom, since we're dealing with images as well as words, I want to see some kind of dual grid where I can pick and choose from the left hand grid of photos and verify that is what I want in the right hand grid before I say do it. Since words are also involved, I want a list of only the keywords associated with the images in the left hand grid displayed along side it and the keywords associated or to be associated with the selected images (with visual clues as to which is which) displayed alongside the right hand grid. When I click the do it button, I would still have to choose whether I want to add the new keywords to the selected images or if I wanted to change from the keywording set up on the left to the new keywording set up on the right.
The keyword list associated with the grid on the left would be unalterable -- just a display of the keywords that exist for one or more of the images, using the check mark and minus sign convention. The keyword list on the right hand side could in fact be the current keyword list, but needs to be set up with an additional visual marker that indicates which ones I'm about to apply once I click done.
So I've gone back to a flat structure, and make keyword entry as efficient as I can by having many more keywords sets and metadata presets - in 2 the latter also include keywords so I can target all sorts of IPTC fields in one hit.
As far as finding is concerned, I don’t see a hierarchy as helpful enough to overcome the inconsistencies I described earlier, so I do focus on smart collections.
For example, I might have a Collection Set for weddings, which contains a two line SC for “keywords contains weddings” and “keywords contains candid”, and similar ones for other aspects of the wedding. My flat “candid” keyword therefore exists once in my catalogue and independently of the HK parent (in this case “weddings”) which first caused me to add it to the catalogue - if I subsequently add “candid” to a bit of street photography, that picture won’t find itself grouped with weddings and I won’t need “candid” under two HK parents.
It’s worth saying I only build these SCs this for groupings when I actually need them, but I find this a better use of time than building a hierarchical structure in anticipation of needing the grouping. I also build SCs rather than using the Filter Panel because I feel that if something has caused me to look up a particular combination of keywords and other metadata, there’s a fair chance I’ll want to look them up again. So I may as well save the query as an SC and save myself time in future, and I can group SCs with dumb collections)
I like how you are using collections and smart collections and it appears to be a workable way to deal with the current lightroom keywording system. Thanks a bunch for explaining how you do it.
Another aspect is that your catalogue is rarely keyworded perfectly. In my own catalogue for example, older pictures of the Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District might just have a single keyword “Lake District” and other info in the caption or title, while more recent pictures of the same subject would have many more keywords. Let’s say I then have a need to find these pictures. Searching in keywords for “Castlerigg stone circle” doesn’t give me all the pictures, while “Lake District” gives me too many. Using a SC means I can look for “keywords contains Castlerigg stone circle” or “caption contains Castlerigg” or “title contains Castlerigg”. So a SC returns more accurate results in many real world situations.
John
PS. As an aside, once I’ve made such a SC, I’ll then tidy up the keywords and make them more consistent.
PPS. I won’t say this is a black and white issue – eg I’d probably take a slightly different view if I shot species and could import a listing of Latin and common keywords
If all I shot were one kind of photo, say landscapes, then I certainly don't need very many keywords, and a flat list will work fine. But as I look toward making photos available to stock or art buyers, I want to be able to drop 2' or 3' "relevant" keywords on each image, and this is where I like the notion of an hierarchy that inlcudes the higher level things I might not think of at first glance. However, the way the hierarchy functions in lightroom at present is cumbersome at best, so for now I think I'll stick mainly to a flat list myself.
