Keyword order in Bridge

[Trevor Chriss]

If I have read some posts correctly recently a few of you have been keywording in Bridge and able to sort words in a suitable order to work with the new IM, placing them in order of relevance. I appreciate it appears that this may not be necessary, I still prefer to put the more relevant words at the top of my tag list.

 

I seem unable to add keywords in Bridge without them appearing alphabeticaly.

I have been playing with preferences and going mad. I have just contacted Adobe help and they inform me that just as LR, keywords can only be added alphabeticaly.

 

So if some of you have found a way to add words in an order that you prefer without Adobe doing it for you I would dearly love to know how.

[ReeRay]

In the bottom right corner there's a + sign to add new keywords. Use it and add ALL the keywords and phrases as you desire in one line with commas between. Then they stay put. If you want to change things around then cut and paste is an option.

[Trevor Chriss]

Yes thanks, I have been adding keywords with commas but every time they just drop in place alphabetically.

I have the impression that some people are adding keywords in bridge in order of importance rather than an ABCD..... form.

[ReeRay]

Add All in one box then they stay put

[Betty LaRue]

Not sure what is happening in Bridge for you. As ReeRay said, are you typing all the tags in one go without saving after each one?

 

And are you meaning, by alphabetical order, how they appear in an Alamy search? They always appear in alphabetical order there, but that is just a buyer's view, your order still applies for importance.

 

When I click on images under my avatar, they appear in alphabetical order. But when I am in Manage Images, they appear in exactly the order I entered them in Bridge. And for me, it doesn't matter about the save. I can tag in the order I want separated by commas, save, then think of another tag or two. Insert those between the others and they stay after the save and nothing goes to alphabetical order.

 

All you need to be concerned with is after tagging in Bridge and uploading, is when you click on your image in MI is if your order is intact.

If so, ignore the alphabetical order in a general search, ignore it under your avatar, the only thing that matters is if your order stays the same as you meant in MI.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Betty

[Trevor Chriss]

Thank you both for your replies.

 

I am not talking about Alamy, just Bridge.

 

Whatever order I place them they stack up in the keyword panel in alphabetical order and when I check the box they append to image in alphabetical order as well.

I have tried adding one at a time and all words together in one box, always end up alphabetically.

 

I have just uploaded some images with keywords added I will see how they look in IM, I suspect they will not be in the order I would like them, just as Bridge sent them.

 

Bascially I can not seem to get them tagged in the right order. I must be doing something wrong but I am at a loss.

As I said earlier Adobe support said that it is not possible to add them any other way than alphabetically.

 

Once again thanks for your help.

[ReeRay]

Tell Adobe to contact me and I'll show them how to do it!

 

See attached example

 

 

 

[Trevor Chriss]

I see you are using semi colons to seperate I will try that, although thought I had .

 

Thanks for again helping, really appreciate it.

[ReeRay]

Actually I use commas, the semi colons are the automatic implant of Bridge,

[Trevor Chriss]

I have just again tried and success.

I have now realised my mistake, making a parent keyword and then adding words in the box at the bottom.

 

Thank you so much from both myself and my wife, she is much happier when my mood is better!

 

So much for Adobe support.

[Betty LaRue]

I have just again tried and success.

I have now realised my mistake, making a parent keyword and then adding words in the box at the bottom.

 

Thank you so much from both myself and my wife, she is much happier when my mood is better!

 

So much for Adobe support.

I don't know why I feel joy when somebody finds the cure, but I do. Now you can get on with it.

[MDM]

Tell Adobe to contact me and I'll show them how to do it!

 

See attached example

 

 

 

 

 

Ah. Now I see what people have been talking about. It's all down to Bridge's non-standard behaviour in fact.

 

Each of those lines in Ray's image is actually a single keyword (a single keyphrase or tag if you like), not a series of individual keywords separated by commas or semicolons. Bridge allows commas and semicolons within individual keywords (words or phrases) even though it uses them as separators. That is indeed non-standard behaviour. You can see this if you use the Keywords Panel in Bridge - each line in this is a separate keyword. Ticking a checkbox will add the keyword to a file. It is easy to see that these lines are not separate keywords as ticking a box will add the entire line - it is not possible to separate the words or phrases separated by commas or semicolons as they are not keywords but parts of keywords. And of course, Bridge will keep the actual keywords (i.e the lines in Ray's image) in alphabetical order. This is why the Adobe help said it was impossible.

 

If you try to use commas or semicolons in Lightroom you get an error message saying it is not allowed which is the expected behaviour. However, Lightroom does allow these to be imported if you import a file with these embedded and it retains the commas and semicolons in the individual keywords. It even allows these to be exported. All very odd.

[ReeRay]

Glad it's worked out for you.

 

I'm removing the image now from my Flickr site and, of course, it will disappear from here.

[MDM]

OK. Not sure why you are removing it as it illustrated exactly what you and others are talking about but I'll take it off here from my quote of your post as well if you don't want it on here.

[vpics]

Keyword in File Info first. 

 

If you have additional words or phrases, open each file individually in the Metadata tab. 

 

But whatever you do, don't go anywhere near the Keywords tab. That'll sort everything alphabetically.

[DHill]

So, does this mean I can't export my hierarchical keyword list from LR, import it into Bridge, and then use that to keyword in non-alphabetical order in Bridge? 

[Betty LaRue]

Can you not, in LR, just put a couple of tags, such as....black horse,Brighton,UK. Would that not be enough to find them in LR again?

 

Then in Bridge, build the rest of the tags around these?

 

Don't forget, if you tag an image in Bridge, you can make a template of those tags. Just, in the template, remove the specific ones that most likely won't be in the next image down the road.

A typical template of mine looks like this:

House Sparrow,English sparrow,Passer domesticus,bird,sparrow,animal,day,daytime,outdoors,nobody,Oklahoma,USA,United States,North America

And duplicates where appropriate.

The next time I photograph a sparrow, it's a simple matter to highlight the image or a set, go to

Tools>Apply template.

Find the one you have titled. Mine would be titled "House sparrow, Passer domesticus". Click on it. It will populate the new image/s but needs saving to them. The only tags you'd need to add would be things like blue sky, or rain, or perched, fence, etc....things specific to that image.

Making templates in Bridge then applying them saves loads of time when tagging, especially those needing scientific names.

Betty

[MDM]

So, does this mean I can't export my hierarchical keyword list from LR, import it into Bridge, and then use that to keyword in non-alphabetical order in Bridge? 

 I can't see how this would be possible as Bridge will interpret the exported set as individual keywords and they will appear in alphabetical order in different rows of the Keywords panel - the same as if you had done it in Lightroom. If you really want to have non-alphabetically ordered keywords, then you would need to do what ReeRay suggests - what you are then getting is a single Bridge keyword with the words and phrases separated by commas or semicolons. You can't do this in Lightroom and of course you lose all your hierarchy if you start creating these as non-alpabetical single keywords in Bridge. I think this would be a big waste of time for somebody with an ordered hierarchy of Lightroom keywords.

[Trevor Chriss]

Most of my images are different subjects, so I am frequently creating new sets. I do this in word then copy and paste.

Now after making sure the words are in the order I require them, highlight them all copy then paste into a single keyword in Bridge.

 

Easy peasy, now I know. All thanks to the wonderful people on this forum.

[Betty LaRue]

Most of my images are different subjects, so I am frequently creating new sets. I do this in word then copy and paste.

Now after making sure the words are in the order I require them, highlight them all copy then paste into a single keyword in Bridge.

 

Easy peasy, now I know. All thanks to the wonderful people on this forum.

You found your own path. Bravo.

[DHill]

 

So, does this mean I can't export my hierarchical keyword list from LR, import it into Bridge, and then use that to keyword in non-alphabetical order in Bridge? 

 I can't see how this would be possible as Bridge will interpret the exported set as individual keywords and they will appear in alphabetical order in different rows of the Keywords panel - the same as if you had done it in Lightroom. If you really want to have non-alphabetically ordered keywords, then you would need to do what ReeRay suggests - what you are then getting is a single Bridge keyword with the words and phrases separated by commas or semicolons. You can't do this in Lightroom and of course you lose all your hierarchy if you start creating these as non-alpabetical single keywords in Bridge. I think this would be a big waste of time for somebody with an ordered hierarchy of Lightroom keywords.

 

 

Thanks for clarifying that, MDM. That means that non-alphabetical keywording is a non-starter for me, as it doesn't make sense to set up a new system just for images destined for Alamy. And especially when we don't know what changes Alamy will make in the future that may render any Alamy-specific solution obsolete.