Lightroom, keywording, part two

Mastering Lightroom Keywording , part two

Keywording in Lightroom can often feel like a daunting task, but it is an essential part of effective photo management. In this section, we will explore the importance of keywording, tips for making the process easier, and how it can enhance your workflow.

The Importance of Keywording, Lightroom, keywording, part two

• Organization: Keywords help you categorize and organize your images for easy retrieval.

• Searchability: Adding keywords makes it easier to find specific photos later, saving you time.

• Consistency: A well-structured keywording system ensures consistency across your photo library.

Tips for Effective Keywording

• Be Specific: Use detailed keywords that accurately describe the content of the image.

• Use Hierarchical Keywords: Organize keywords into categories and subcategories to improve search efficiency.

• Batch Keywording: Apply keywords to multiple images at once to save time during the editing process.

Enhancing Your Workflow

By integrating keywording into your regular workflow, you can streamline your photo management process. Consider setting aside time after each shoot to add keywords, ensuring that your library remains organized and easily navigable.

In conclusion, while keywording may seem like a necessary evil, it is a powerful tool that can significantly improve your photography workflow when approached with the right mindset and strategies.

Lightroom, keywording, part two,Key wording is a necessary evil, time consuming, tedious but never the less something that needs to be done, it is a primary way to search for your images , or if you send images off to stock agencies how potential buyers will find your image amongst the deluge of images now sent in to such agencies on a daily basis . Lightroom does go some way towards speeding up this process- last posts “key word list” tab when kept organised properly can help, but most people enter key words at the key wording tab.

The tab is split into three basic sections, key word tags- key word suggestions and key word sets

1. Keyword tags, this is probably the most used by people, and key words can be typed directly into the main panel and separated by commas (see key wording part one for set up of preferenceshttps://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/blog/key-wording-in-lightroom) or typed into the smaller entry field underneath and entered by hitting the enter key, this also adds the space and comma automatically.

Whichever you prefer to use, the active area will be highlighted by the box becoming a lighter colour

Lightroom will re organise the list into alphabetical order by default

If you have more than one image selected, with keywords applied to them, keywords that are on only some of the images will be followed by an asterisk

2. Key word suggestions are just that, based on an algorithm Lightroom suggests keywords, it’s probably not the most useful tool and personally I rarely use it, but if suggested words are applicable to your image just clicking on it will add it to the image, again separated with a comma and space automatically. I have found that the suggestions are more and more relevant if your key word list is kept in an ordered structure.

3. Key word sets, this panel has at the top a drop down menu that has some built in key word sets by default, but more importantly the ability to create your own, and these sets can be a quick way to add up to nine key words(this is the drawback that a set can only have nine words as I and most people add as many as possible) but never the less it helps speed up the process, and you can always create more than one set (more on this in part three).

In the drop down menu, “the edit set” is where you can call up a dialogue box to change keywords, re name the new set, or delete the set, and clicking the key word, will again quickly add it to the image, separated and with comma

Worth mentioning at this point that any new words that you add to an image are added to the key word list, so for neatness you may want to go into the key word list and put new words under the correct tags, for future ease. Also to note is that when creating a set and adding words, if they are spelled differently or are in any other way different (i.e. name or first and second name) it will add the different one to the key word list, so you may want to change it THE SET NEEDS TO MATCH THE LIST, so in the keyword list remove the one that you no longer want simply by right clicking on the word and delete from the drop down menu

That is a basic outline of the key wording dialogue tab, part three will go into depth on using the key word list tab and key wording tab in conjunction with each other as well as key word entry methods,

1. Keyword tags, this is probably the most used by people, and key words can be typed directly into the main panel and separated by commas (see key wording part one for set up of preferenceshttps://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/blog/key-wording-in-Lightroom) or typed into the smaller entry field underneath and entered by hitting the enter key, this also adds the space and comma automatically.