Keywords

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Conny

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Hi,
after I find out that you can manage you photos in the cataloge section, I was looking for keywords or tags. I made some lists on my own, but can anybody tell me if there is an Excel-Sheet with macros (import- and exporting the word from lightroom, look for double a.s.o.) or something like that to have a better control of these words.

Regards Conny
 
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why are there many posts on KEYWORD LISTS? i must be missing something.

when i enter in keywords, i generally highlight all the photos and enter a few general keywords to describe the photos. then i go through them, entering specific items into each photo such as names of friends, animals, flowers, landscape and so on.

is that wrong?

ps, if u do a search on keywords, there are a few threads which point to keyword lists.
 
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Hi Conny, welcome to the forum!

So how far have you got? You can export keywords to a text file to look for duplicates, or write it in a text editor and then import the list, but you need to be aware that it's not a 2-way sync - if you were to, say, export a keyword list, rearrange it in a text editor, and reimport it, it wouldn't tidy up your keyword list for you. It's one of those jobs that's worth setting up the way you want in the first place, and then only using LR to rearrange them once you've started applying them to photos.

LiquidMonkey (is it Ken...? I can never remember your name, sorry!), no you're not particularly doing it wrong. That's the way I work too. Some people like to really go to town with lots of keywords on each image, hence arranging long lists, but I've never found a need for that in my own workflow. If your way is working for you, stick with it.
 
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I created some excelsheets with keywords without any macro. Most of the photo are made underwater so its a very big list with a lot of fishes, coral, nudibraches a.s.o. I try to prepare a second list for landscapes and on land living animals. So its a lot of work and I want do nothing wrong. Thats why I decided to write them in Excel. But some extra tool will help.
 
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thanks victoria!
 
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Are there any good fields besides title/description where I can put additional "tags" or "keywords"?

I might take some shots of something but might want to use a name of a person/place/object/building just ONCE - so it seems like a waste to have a keyword used once out of thousands of photos...
 
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When a name,word,place etc only occurs once or so I would use Caption for names and objects and location/city/country etc for places. These fields are as searcable as keywords.

As you said it is very easy to get a very, very long keywordlist and even though one can make that list hierarchical I prefer to have it as short as possible.

I guess it also depends on where your photos go. If they stay at your place you can do what you like, if they go to pictureagencys or magazines for printing or such maybe they have special demands.

This is a good place to visit when it comes to keywording and such http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/

// Bosse
 
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[quote author=kaitlyn2''4 link=topic=8934.msg6'224#msg6'224 date=1263761941]
Are there any good fields besides title/description where I can put additional "tags" or "keywords"?

I might take some shots of something but might want to use a name of a person/place/object/building just ONCE - so it seems like a waste to have a keyword used once out of thousands of photos...
[/quote]

I'd say that the natural plcae to have keywords is in the field "keywords"... regardless wether it's a common keyword that is attached to hundreds of photos, or a rare one that is (so far) only used once. It doesn't really matter how many times it is used... it's still one keyword.
 
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[quote author=erro link=topic=8934.msg6'289#msg6'289 date=1263837461]
[quote author=kaitlyn2''4 link=topic=8934.msg6'224#msg6'224 date=1263761941]
Are there any good fields besides title/description where I can put additional "tags" or "keywords"?

I might take some shots of something but might want to use a name of a person/place/object/building just ONCE - so it seems like a waste to have a keyword used once out of thousands of photos...
[/quote]

I'd say that the natural plcae to have keywords is in the field "keywords"... regardless wether it's a common keyword that is attached to hundreds of photos, or a rare one that is (so far) only used once. It doesn't really matter how many times it is used... it's still one keyword.
[/quote]
One could argue over what is and what is not a keyword for a very long time. And never agree ;-)
But for me it is simple; places go into the fields; Location, City, State, Country and/or Country Code. I would never put Stockholm or Sweden in the Keywords. I even have Metadata Presets for the most common locations I photograph.
A person that I photograph once or maybe twice in a 1'-2'-3' year span but still want searchable I put in the Caption field. Words or names that I use more often (like family) I put in th Keywordfield.

So for me the natural place to put a keyword is not always in the keywords field. It might be. Or it might not. I put the searchable word where it fits my way of working best.

// Bosse
 
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[quote author=Bosse link=topic=8934.msg6'295#msg6'295 date=126384'959]
But for me it is simple; places go into the fields; Location, City, State, Country and/or Country Code. I would never put Stockholm or Sweden in the Keywords. I even have Metadata Presets for the most common locations I photograph.
A person that I photograph once or maybe twice in a 1'-2'-3' year span but still want searchable I put in the Caption field. Words or names that I use more often (like family) I put in th Keywordfield.

So for me the natural place to put a keyword is not always in the keywords field. It might be. Or it might not. I put the searchable word where it fits my way of working best.

// Bosse
[/quote]

And I do put locations into keywords. Why? If I want to find all my Chicago pictures, I can click on the arrow to the right of the Chicago keyword. If I don't do that, I need to use the filter bar or smart collection, which is a few more mouse clicks.
 
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Just answered in a similar thread:

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=8956.';topicseen

And yes, I also use Country, City and Location for those "keywords". But I also see paiges point. ANd another point is that using hierarchical keywords for locations is that adding just one keyword also adds the parents: adding "The Nobel museum" would also add "Stockholm" and "Sweden" (if I had the keyword hierarchy set up that way). With the Location-fields I have to add three separate fields, and remember to get them correct each time. I haven't started adding location info as keywords yet (they're still in the location-fields) but I'm concidering going that way instead...
 
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[quote author=dj_paige link=topic=8934.msg6'297#msg6'297 date=12638431'5]
[quote author=Bosse link=topic=8934.msg6'295#msg6'295 date=126384'959]
But for me it is simple; places go into the fields; Location, City, State, Country and/or Country Code. I would never put Stockholm or Sweden in the Keywords. I even have Metadata Presets for the most common locations I photograph....[/quote]

And I do put locations into keywords. Why? If I want to find all my Chicago pictures, I can click on the arrow to the right of the Chicago keyword. If I don't do that, I need to use the filter bar or smart collection, which is a few more mouse clicks.
[/quote]It would be nice to be able to use the IPTC Location fields. I have yet to figure out how to locate everything with a fair degree of accuracy. Like Chicago, Houston is a big place. Even my city Bellaire is a big place and I find the IPTC Location fields insufficient to locate a dragonfly that could have been in my backyard, the Nature park down the street, or the drainage ditch by the RR tracks. And then there are those tha aren't able to be quantified to a Named place like Houston, TX. For me is it better to create a keyword hierarchy USA>Texas>Jackson Co.>River House or USA>Texas>Jackson Co.>Menefee Flats. Most of my photos are not taken in a "City" and the next higher grouping is State (and you know how big Texas is). So I get better location information in a Keyword hierarchy than using the IPTC fields that are not descriptive enough
I don't have a GPS capability with my camera although this would be a solution. So for now, "USA>Texas>Jackson Co.>CR312" has to be 'good enough'
 
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