More keyword features

[someothername]

Some ideas that have occurred to me as I work at this.

Allow direct input of [keyword] syntax in the Enter Keywords text box, meaning "this keyword will never be exported." That would make it easy for me to tag photos for all kinds of miscellaneous purposes, kind of like attaching a note to it. Or also, introduce a few special syntax tricks for entering other metadata by typing in the enter keywords box, such as {} for the title perhaps, or some kind of escape mechanism, say //NameOfMetadataField[the metadata]. This would be very convenient for those of us who can touch type and do most of our work on the keyboard and would prefer not to be mousing around all the time.

Related to this, in the keyword list, when context clicking on a keyword, the drop down box should show check offs for the three binary choices in the edit keyword popup box, though they can also remain in the popup where the synonym edit box has to exist.

I may be missing something, but I don't see any way to attach a note to folder, collection or individual photo. Notes like "Taken from mile marker 37 on I7', looking east, just after a rainstorm passed by." I don't really want something extra added, I'd like to take advantage of what's available and the keyword entry box a pretty good place. But I can see how notes could get pretty lengthy so perhaps a "Enter notes" box just above it might be better, with a similar context switch for "selected photos", "target photo only", folder, or collection.

Assigning multiple keywords at one go: Say I have a subset of photos from a shoot that I want to assign a group of keywords to. What I'd like is some way to accumulate them as a temporary keyword candidate list and then be able to apply them all at once to the selected photos. The hierarchy accomplishes this, but more often than not, I'll want to grab things from more than one hierarchy plus maybe some free text. The example that comes to mind is a picture I made of a sculpture that showed a couple of eagles fighting a bear. I'd want my hierarchy from eagle up, but I'd also want sculpture.

One way would be to have another check box in the keyword list that I can click on that adds that keyword (and parents) to a pending list, perhaps the pending list shows up in red in the enter keyword box. Then a button or right click option to add the selected keywords to the selected photos.

Spell checking: I'd appreciate being able to run a spell checker on my keyword list.

"Click here to add keywords" This feature is much too sensitive and not flexible enough. It's too sensitive in that it's very easy to accidentally select one before you've gotten to the one you wanted, and it's not flexible enough because it doesn't show if the keyword is part of an hierarchy or not. It's also not flexible enough because it doesn't show the synonyms.

Synonyms: The only way I can see them is if I edit a keyword via the popup, or if I've selected "Will Export" in the keyword tags edit box (which makes the box not editable). There should be a display mode for the keyword list that displays the synonyms where they belong.

I'd be curious to know if anyone else is interested in these ideas or might like to refine them before I put them in the basket at Adobe.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Brandon, all thoughtful suggestions. Most are probably overkill to my workflow, but I can see the value to others. I expect that Adobe's listening for suggestions/ideas for further out on the LR schedule, particularly in the DAM area. Now that the fundamentals of post processing seem to be firmly in hand.

 

[Mark Sirota]

I would love an easier way to edit the keyword tag attributes (export, etc.). I like the idea of making the switches available in a context menu. Please submit that one!

I think the modified entry syntax (square brackets, etc.) may be a bit too esoteric, more applicable to programmers (I am one) than photographers (I'm one of those, too).

Notes would be very handy. I overload unused metadata fields for that now (typically IPTC Job ID, in my case).

 

[Denis Pagé]

Notes would be very handy. I overload unused metadata fields for that now (typically IPTC Job ID, in my case).

Notes would be very useful! BUT!...

I want to push the idea much further. What about linking your invoices (or any kind of document for that matter) to images or collections the way Keywords are implemented?

What I see is as XMP and JPG are already linked with RAWs of the same name, why not link TXT, XLS, DOC or DotNameIt the very same way. Like the arrow beside the GPS Data is opening GoogleMap or YahooMap with Alt, I suggest that for each file extension found for a file with the same name, an entry appear (like for GPS Data) and that the arrow open the document in the default editing program for that extension or ask with an "Open With" dialog if the Alt key is pressed (On older Mac keyboards Alt=Opt).

:idea::idea::idea:

 

[someothername]

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I suppose some of these are more things that programmers would appreciate, like using brackets to tell Lightroom you don't want that keyword exported. The problem, though, is that there is currently no way to quickly edit the keyword properties associated with an keyword -- you have to scroll down the keyword list, a pretty lengthy chore sometimes, and if you accidentally click while scrolling the wheel or dragging the bar, you can find yourself having selected some other keyword and loosing your focus.

If I double click in the keyword edit box, it ought to highlight the entire keyword, in other words, detect where the commas or semicolons are and highlight the whole phrase, not the currently space delimited word like it does now. The easiest way to remove keywords from a selection of photos is to highlight it in this box and delete it there.

Change the context menu in the edit box to detect if a particular keyword is highlighted and present options relating to that keyword such as no export, include heirarchy, add synonym dialog option and so forth.

Question: What is "open IME"? It's in the context menu in the edit keyword box and I recall seeing it somewhere else too. I searched the Adobe PDF file and it wasn't there, nor was it in the on line help, nor is it here in these forums. Being brave, or perhaps fool hardy, I clicked it, but nothing appeared to happen.

Contextual keyword tag editing: I doubt this is possible with the current database set up, but I would like to be able to have a keyword exported for the photos in collection A, but in collection B, I want the same keyword not exported for the same photo. I have a lot of cat pictures. If I set up a collection, say "export to Flickr", there I want the name of the cat to be exported, since the target audience includes my kids and they would want to see the names. But some of those photos might be good enough that I want to put them in a stock agency. There I do not want the name of the cat exported. So I'm looking at all the photos keyworded with cat and I can tell which images are in collection A and which are in collection B (more on that later), or maybe I've got virtual copies, and I know virtual copies are the ones going to flikr, I'd like to highlight the others and remove the cat's name from just those.

View options: Provide an optional tool tip feature in the grid view with a list of say a dozen things I can have displayed when hovering over an image as well as an option to have it go away quickly or to have it remain until I close it. In particular, I want to be able to display the list of keywords, the full path instead of just the folder (with an option to specify how many parent levels to display), the list of collections this one belongs to (not smart collections, though), the title, the caption and the note if I have one attached. In the context option in the grid view, I'd really like to be able to pick one or more collections from my existing list of collections or, perhaps just as powerful, have some kind of keyword suggestion box popup with a lot more than the nine currently in the keyword suggestion box.

In loupe view, I think I'd rather just include as an option in the context menu the ability to list the stuff I've asked for in the grid view, rather than having it popup automatically as a tooltip. Though I'd want the same kind of tooltip display that I get when I'm in grid view. I'd want to be able to specify a different delay thing for a tooltip popup in the survey view. I can't see any benefit from having a tool tip popup in the compare view. I should know what I'm dealing with at that point.

View option presets: Let me have presets to the view options so I can quickly change from a view with minimal information to one with lots of information relevant to the task at hand. When working with panoramas or a model shoot, for example, I want to see the exposure information, but when I'm organizing an event shoot I want to see the camera and the date time information.

Notes and links. I really like Denis' idea about being able to asociate other kinds of files with an image. Having my note be in a photoname.txt or photoname.note file sounds like something that would be quick and easy thing to implement. Disallow a note when more than one photo is selected, but instead allow what amounts to a collection note, probably stored as an xml that lists the photos selected as well as the note about them. At true folder or collection level, allow things like "export to spreadsheet" with a options regarding what information (title, caption, filename, exif items, dimensions, notes, etc) to put in which column and even thumbnails. Kind of like a contact sheet, but for purposes of preparing a brochure or gallery show catalog, for example, in which you will want to work in your spreadsheet software with individual pricing and so forth.

Stopping for now...

 

[Brad Snyder]

Brandon, lots of good ideas.

Elaborate on where you saw 'Open in IME'? 'Edit keyword box' is a little ambiguous, and I'm not seeing the IME thing anywhere I can associate with an 'Edit keyword box'.

 

[Denis Pagé]

Brandon, lots of good ideas.

Elaborate on where you saw 'Open in IME'? 'Edit keyword box' is a little ambiguous, and I'm not seeing the IME thing anywhere I can associate with an 'Edit keyword box'.

Input Method Editors. For when you want to write Chinese on your US keyboard/Windows version for example.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Aaaah. Crap, I have enough trouble getting it right in my native language.

 

[someothername]

Here's my revised list of keyword features I'd like to see. I'll have to break it up to put it on the Adobe list. Are any of these not really useful?

1. When viewing the result of a keyword list search, activate the drop down marker if there are keyword tags under the selected keyword tags. In other words, if I type in "land" and landscape shows up, I know that there are keyword tags under it that I want to see at this point. If I move the mouse into the keyword list area, away from the search input box, activate the drop down capabilities on the limited set visible. If I click in the search box, deactivate and go back into search mode.

2. Provide a way to work with keyword tags that focuses on the tags themselves. The current single list and "add or edit keyword tag" system makes it very difficult to keep track of what keywords are currently in the list when adding new ones. We need a pair of lists that we can scroll independent of each other and drag and drop between them with smart context menus being presented on the drop. If I drop "cat" on "Cat", I don't want to make "cat" a child of "Cat", I want to be able to choose whether to merge into the target (i.e. make all photos tagged with "cat" now be tagged with "Cat") or to make the dragee a child of the target. Display the export settings for each keyword along with the synonyms in these lists and allow editing in place of these settings and synonyms.

3. In the context menu for keyword tags, provide check boxes for the on/off markers dealing with export.

4. Provide a mechanism so that a list of proposed keywords can be assembled for a selection of photos and approved as a group rather than automatically approving each one at the time of selection. One way would be to add them in red to the "keyword tags" box and provide a button or something to accept the candidate list. This includes being able to select only part of an hierarchy, such as just the bottom 3 out of a five deep list.

5. On the "Click here to add keywords" box, make it behave more like the other drop downs, such as the label selection one, where the choices can be browsed without the too sensitive response it currently has. I like being able to use the arrow keys sometimes, but this is not like other drops downs in LR and although appreciated, is hard to use. Add check boxes to the list when the focus changes from typing in the box to mousing through the list and allow multiple checking for adding to proposed keywords.

6. Provide a notes capability. I'm currently using keywords as my notes and this is not the best way to do it, but is currently the only way, other than using some other metadata field that is also not designed for notes. Notes should be applicable to either selected photo(s) or to folders or collections. It would be nice if they were also stored in a file right alongside the xmp file, though I've no problem with them being inside the xmp or dng or catalog.

7. Provide a way to link selected photo(s) or folders or collections to other kinds of files, such as spreadsheets, documents, or other files. Provide an option, perhaps in the contact sheet area, to export data about selected photo(s) to a spreadsheet, including a thumbnail.

8. When in the "keyword tags" box, a right (context) click on a keyword tag should bring up the same context menu that you get in the keyword list.

9. Provide a keyword display option in the grid and loupe views of the library module. There is not enough real estate available to show the keywords, but we could certainly display the number of keywords assigned to a photo and have a context menu option to show them, perhaps in a tool tip type display that can be moved and stays visible until closed. Another method would be to allow detaching the "keyword tags" box and floating it somewhere else. This way I can scroll through the keyword list while having the keywords for the current photo selection visible.

1'. Folder keywords: Allow designating a keyword tag to apply to a folder or collection. This would not apply that keyword to the photos inside the folder, just to the folder. Of course, there should be an option to apply a keyword to all the photos in a folder or collection also, but what I'm looking for is folder level keywords like smugmug uses. These are not keyword tags for export, but for help in organizing and searching through folders. In the context menu for a folder or collection, provide a way to view these keywords. And of course, include them in the smart collection logic. Allow filtering the folder list by folder keywords. Show a little folder graphic next to keyword tags that have been used this way.

 

[Denis Pagé]

I may be missing something, but I don't see any way to attach a note to folder, collection or individual photo. Notes like "Taken from mile marker 37 on I7', looking east, just after a rainstorm passed by." I don't really want something extra added, I'd like to take advantage of what's available and the keyword entry box a pretty good place. But I can see how notes could get pretty lengthy so perhaps a "Enter notes" box just above it might be better, with a similar context switch for "selected photos", "target photo only", folder, or collection.

Brandon, after reading the official definition for the "Instructions" IPTC field, I am suggesting that until Lightroom is being able to track photo's usage, you use it for taking notes. Altough, this will only apply to selected photo/s or virtual copies.

The definition is as follows:

Any of a number of instructions from the provider or creator to the receiver of the image which might include any of the following: embargoes (NewsMagazines OUT) and other restrictions not covered by the “Rights Usage Terms” field; information regarding the original means of capture (scanning notes, colourspace info) or other specific text information that the user may need for accurate reproduction; additional permissions or credits required when publishing.
​

 

[someothername]

Brandon, after reading the official definition for the "Instructions" IPTC field, I am suggesting that until Lightroom is being able to track photo's usage, you use it for taking notes. Altough, this will only apply to selected photo/s or virtual copies.

The definition is as follows:

Any of a number of instructions from the provider or creator to the receiver of the image which might include any of the following: embargoes (NewsMagazines OUT) and other restrictions not covered by the “Rights Usage Terms” field; information regarding the original means of capture (scanning notes, colourspace info) or other specific text information that the user may need for accurate reproduction; additional permissions or credits required when publishing.
​

Yes, I can see how this is close to a note, though the purpose is pretty clearly to provide information to someone else, some future user of the image, rather than as a note to yourself. Also, it is too small, according to this link: http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_core_mapped.pdf

256 characters will do for many short notes, but is not very much space when you want to put in more than a short note. Plus it's not going to jump out at me that I have a note associated with that image, group of images or folder.

Part of my wish for a note taking feature would be some kind of visual badge or reminder that there is a note. So that feature wish needs to have the following added: " Set up a two state flag for each note so that the user can indicate this is a note about something still to do or this is done. Display the fact that an image or folder has a note attached with a badge or some other visual cue showing up when the status is "not done yet" when in Library grid view. "

 

[Denis Pagé]

Part of my wish for a note taking feature would be some kind of visual badge or reminder that there is a note. So that feature wish needs to have the following added: " Set up a two state flag for each note so that the user can indicate this is a note about something still to do or this is done. Display the fact that an image or folder has a note attached with a badge or some other visual cue showing up when the status is "not done yet" when in Library grid view. "

Yes, That would be fine as an immediate fix and can be very easily acomplished for photos or folders or collections with the underlying database system with the aid of the "memo" data type.

But Adobe (read: Tom Hogarthy) have the nice habit of giving us much more than what we ask for... That said, I will not be surprised to see an "Image Life Cycle Management System" incorporated in a future version.

For now, Lightroom is limited to "From Capture to Print". What need to be implemented to complete the picture is: A system to track "What was done with this image? Where did it go? Was it paid for? Where was it published? How many times? How many copies allowed? Did it go to the Web? In what size? What is the price chart for this one?"... add whishes here.

Conclusion: Keep asking Adobe...

 

[someothername]

Yes, That would be fine as an immediate fix and can be very easily acomplished for photos or folders or collections with the underlying database system with the aid of the "memo" data type.

But Adobe (read: Tom Hogarthy) have the nice habit of giving us much more than what we ask for... That said, I will not be surprised to see an "Image Life Cycle Management System" incorporated in a future version.

For now, Lightroom is limited to "From Capture to Print". What need to be implemented to complete the picture is: A system to track "What was done with this image? Where did it go? Was it paid for? Where was it published? How many times? How many copies allowed? Did it go to the Web? In what size? What is the price chart for this one?"... add whishes here.

Conclusion: Keep asking Adobe...

I hope you've already put this on Adobe's features site, it does appear to be just the kind of thing I'm looking for. Though I wouldn't want it too tightly structured. As long as the database has a primary key for the image, all kinds of subsidiary tables and groups of tables could be added to the system to track the various kinds of paths photographers take with their images. But since SQLite does not enforce foreign key constraints, I wonder how complex it can become before we get problems.

 

[someothername]

Another one:
Contextual keywording and advanced keyword editing mode: Provide a new choice in the "keyword tags" box for advanced editing. In this mode, the [], {} and > syntax for non-export, synonyms and parent-child relationships will be displayed and can be edited by the user or entered by the user. Additional synonyms and changes to export for a tag will not be propogated to the keyword tag list, but will be applied to the keywords for the selected images. Only brand new keywords will be added to the keyword tag list. Changes to or new hierarchies will be applied to the keyword tag list.