LR Keywords - Tag Options

[Richard Laidler]

Keyword structures in Lightroom have been discussed here a few times recently. I hope the following might be useful to those who follow that approach:

 

If you select any existing Keyword, right click on it then select Edit, you will see the Tag Options of that particular word, e.g. Include on Export, Export Containing Keywords and Export Synonyms. OK for just one, but how could you easily identify all those where (say) you had created synonyms? From the LR Menu, click Metadata, then from that dropdown menu Export Keywords. Enter a filename of your choice (with the extension .txt) and OK it.

 

Whatever structure you created in LR will be replicated in the file. This shortened extract shows part of mine. As you can see it follows my tree structure (no pun intended!) and the synonyms are shown enclosed in { }

 

Trees
            Ash
                {common ash}
                {European ash}
                {Fraxinus excelsior}
            Beech
                {Fagus sylvatica}
            European Larch
                {Larix decidua}
 

If you have also unchecked "Exclude on Export", that keyword will appear in the file enclosed in [ ] for example in this shortened extract:

 

[Seasons]
    Autumn
    Autumn Colour
    Autumn Colours
    Autumn Tints
    Color
    Colors
    Colour

 

Here I've deliberately excluded Seasons from export as I've used it as a Placeholder within my LR keywords simply to group together all those keywords that might be relevant to a particular season.

 

The examples above were created by simply opening the file with Notepad (Windows PC) and selecting bits to copy and paste here. Colours have been added in this post just for clarity. It could also be opened with a spreadsheet or wordprocessor where the ability to search for a specific character or string might be useful.

[NYCat]

Thanks. That looks really useful. I desperately need to bring my keyword list up to a standard where it will be useful to me. I don't know when I will have the time and brainpower to use your system but it looks like something that will help me. I have some hierarchies set up but much of my list is just the result of adding keywords to an individual image as I go along.

 

Paulette

[Richard Laidler]

16 hours ago, NYCat said:

Thanks. That looks really useful. I desperately need to bring my keyword list up to a standard where it will be useful to me. I don't know when I will have the time and brainpower to use your system but it looks like something that will help me. I have some hierarchies set up but much of my list is just the result of adding keywords to an individual image as I go along.

 

Paulette

 

You're welcome. Question for you - do you use the full database managment facilities of Lightroom, i.e. keep one or more catalogues of all your pictures, or (as I presently do) just use it to process raw files, and once exported, remove the images from LR altogether? If the latter, I can suggest a methodology for re-organising all your keywords externally from LR, but its no good if the former.

[NYCat]

I keep everything in Lightroom. Thanks for the help. Keywording in the old image manager worked for me so I wasn't dealing properly with keywording in Lightroom. I have a lot of catching up to do. After the holidays I think I will have the time.

 

Paulette