Library module What are the top-level words in your hierarchical keywor set?

[PhilBurton]

Operating System:
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):
I'm interested in what other people have done in the top level of their hierarchical keyword set, to give me some ideas.


To ask my question in a slightly different way, if you could, or had to, start all over again, what would those words be?

Phil

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I'm interested in what other people have done in the top level of their hierarchical keyword set, to give me some ideas.

Mine is:
_Location
_People
_Utility (for al my 'Helperkeywords' as @LocationToAdd and @PeopleToAdd that are added to all my photo's on ingestion)
And all the letters of te Alphabet are in my top level keywords too. All my 'normal' Keywords i have put in them (for restructuring this is easier than one long list)

 

[Tony Jay]

I have about thirty:
ANIMALS, COLOURS, PLANTS, WORLD LOCATION, ACTIONS, FAMILY, PEOPLE, and PHOTOGRAPHIC GENRE are a few.
I capitalise them to make it clear that they are non-exportable container-type keywords

 

[MarkNicholas]

Celebrations, Countries, Events, Other, People, Places, Transportation, Wildlife & Animals

Under Celebrations could be birthdays or anniversaries.
Under Events could be Weddings, Rugby Match or a Music performance
Under People is Friends, Family & Colleagues
Under Places I include Hotels, Cafes, Restaurants, Airports etc.

 

[PhilBurton]

Celebrations, Countries, Events, Other, People, Places, Transportation, Wildlife & Animals

Under Celebrations could be birthdays or anniversaries.
Under Events could be Weddings, Rugby Match or a Music performance
Under People is Friends, Family & Colleagues
Under Places I include Hotels, Cafes, Restaurants, Airports etc.

Mark,

I'm curious as to why you have Transportation as a top level keyword.

Phil Burton

 

[Umberto Cocca]

I have those _WHO _WHERE _WHAT _WHEN _HOW _WHY. Quite self explanatory but they force me to think on why I took that picture and what I intended to achieve. Under "what" are all the non-people subjects, "how" includes typically if it is an hdr, panorama, silhouette, composite, etc. "when" groups all the events and "where" has a more meaningful list of location that is not in the Metadata. For the "why" keyword, I group in there all my projects, since the collections are not present outside LR.
Hope it helps!

Inviato dal mio VKY-L29 utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[Tony Jay]

Mark,

I'm curious as to why you have Transportation as a top level keyword.

Phil Burton

I also have TRANSPORTATION as a top-level keyword, as well as ROADS, TRACKS, AND THOROUGHFARES - these are for non-local routes that may traverse several thousand kilometres across states and territories.
Local roads will otherwise be found in WORLD LOCATION falling under whatever local authority they are found.

How one divides up responsibilities - as represented by top-level keywords - is an integral part of designing a controlled vocabulary, as well as facilitating the actual process of practical keywording of images. Remember how, in a previous thread, I spoke about learning how to classify and organise keywording topics. One of the keys is never to be confused about which hierarchy a particular keyword will belong. That is only possible if there is an inescapable logic that governs what choices are made...

In Australia, it is not uncommon in smaller towns, that if a major route traverses it that it becomes the main road of the town. It may also have a local name - like "Main Street". Yet it is also a National Highway. Trying to sort out this tangle within a single hierarchy is well nigh impossible. Splitting keywords in to different hierarchies make it simplicity itself to keyword an image with both the National Highway in question (from the ROADS, TRACKS, AND THOROUGHFARES hierarchy) as well as its local name (from the WORLD LOCATION hierarchy). It is also possible to keyword an image with that particular National Highway route keyword that was taken thousands of kilometres away from that small town without any ambiguity whatsoever since the National Highway keywords are not linked to any particular WORLD LOCATION keyword but are independent from them.

In the same way, TRANSPORTATION, as a top-level keyword makes sense because it needs the same independence from other keyword hierarchies.

It takes a little time to "see" the logic, but it is there.

Tony Jay

 

[Rob_Cullen]

My hierarchy headings-
The ? I use to mark photos that have not, as yet, been key-worded. (now they are- with a ' ? ' )
The zUNSORTED keyword is the default "Put new keywords in this keyword"
DEVELOPMENT contains keywords to find photos that I am currently keen to edit.

 

[PhilBurton]

My hierarchy headings-
The ? I use to mark photos that have not, as yet, been key-worded. (now they are- with a ' ? ' )
The zUNSORTED keyword is the default "Put new keywords in this keyword"
DEVELOPMENT contains keywords to find photos that I am currently keen to edit.

View attachment 10374

Using the smart collection workflow ideas from John Beardsworth and Cletus Lee, I have set up a series of non-exportable keywords to track workflow, and I have to say that it works quite well, at least for LIBRARY. DEVELOP is more complex, with more decisions to make. One idea is to tie the DEVELOP worklow, and therefore the workflow keywords assigned to an image, to the star rating. In my star rating system, three stars is good enough to publish in a book or slide show, but four stars identifies an exceptional image which should get more DEVELOP effort. Workflow keywords are assigned on ingestion or initial scan. Then as an image goes through the workflow, workflow keywords are removed. Works great with smart collections.

One of my workflow keywords is "keywords," meaning that keywords have not yet been assigned to this image. As examples, DATE&TIME identifies an image for which the date or time (time zone) needs to be corrected.

Phil

 

[phcorrigan]

Animals
Bodies of Water
Buildings
Color
Event
Flowers & Plants
Food
Geography
Landforms
Landscape
Objects
People
Structures
Vehicles
Weather

 

[criscokkat]

Has Adobe ever offered any sort of hint if hierarchical keywords are going to stay around down the road? I’m curious to see if I should slowly be flattening my keywords for future compatibility.

 

[phcorrigan]

Has Adobe ever offered any sort of hint if hierarchical keywords are going to stay around down the road? I’m curious to see if I should slowly be flattening my keywords for future compatibility.

I would seriously doubt they would change this. A flat keyword list would quickly become unwieldy.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Difficult to say. They won't change it in Lightroom Classic, but right now, keywords in Lightroom CC are flat. I have no indication that this will change any time soon.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Celebrations, Countries, Events, Other, People, Places, Transportation, Wildlife & Animals

Under Celebrations could be birthdays or anniversaries.
Under Events could be Weddings, Rugby Match or a Music performance
Under People is Friends, Family & Colleagues
Under Places I include Hotels, Cafes, Restaurants, Airports etc.

Mark,

I'm curious as to why you have Transportation as a top level keyword.
Phil Burton

I have quite a number of photos taken of and on airplanes, boats, trains, cars etc. I also include Airports, Highways etc. under this top level keyword. Although I have quite a number of photos, there are not enough to have their own separate top level keyword.

 

[PhilBurton]

I have quite a number of photos taken of and on airplanes, boats, trains, cars etc. I also include Airports, Highways etc. under this top level keyword. Although I have quite a number of photos, there are not enough to have their own separate top level keyword.

Mark,

I was just wondering if you were a railways enthusiast like me. Or as we Americans call it, a railfan. Not to be confused with UK trainspotters. I don't wear an anorak.

 

[Jimmsp]

I'm interested in what other people have done in the top level of their hierarchical keyword set

I have four:
People
Place
Subject
Conceptual Description

Under Conceptual Description, I include things like hot, cold, dominant color, red, blue, B&W, etc.

 

[MarkNicholas]

Mark,

I was just wondering if you were a railways enthusiast like me. Or as we Americans call it, a railfan. Not to be confused with UK trainspotters. I don't wear an anorak.

No I'm not one of those. I just take photos when I am on my travels.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

I currently have the following:

_ANIMALS
animal
_FAMILY
_FOOD
_METADATA
_PEOPLE
people
_PLACES
_PLANTS

I know there is a good reason for the duplicate list some of the keywords, but I haven't worked on my photos in a bit and forgot!

The too level Metadata keyword is used for my workflow and includes such keywords as PeopleNamesComplete, PeopleNamesPartial, DateInTitle, etc.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

 

[marco]

I have a lot of what's already mentioned.
An import one for me is my "000 Workflow".
Everything in there is non-exporting. But it helps me with my workflow collections.

For instance, my "kwcp" (short for "keyword checked people") tells me that every person in that photo has been tagged with their name or that there are no (more) people to tag in that photo.

FaceOK: means that their face is recognized. But I don't use this feature much.
GeenPersonen (Dutch for NoPersons): there are no people, so no need to tag people.
OnbekendePersonen (UnknownPersons): usually people in the background like audience, no need to tag them.
PersonenUitzoeken (PersonsToLookup): the most important people have been tagged. Every now and then I may go back to photos with this tag and see if I can tag more people that are in the background.

I then have a couple of workflow collections.
One of the collections is TagPeople: