Lightroom keyword organizing - how do you do it?

[Degrassi]

Hey there!

I've just purchased my shiny, new copy of lightroom. I'm loving the keywording thing. The only problem is, I'm kind of all over the place in terms of what I photograph, and I'm having trouble organizing my keywords.

At the moment, I'm trying to get everything into categories and then subcategories (eg people - athletes - fencers, or nature - animals - birds). The problem is, I have a lot of stuff that seems to fit nowhere, or fit into 2 places (paint - noun? verb?). And then there's stuff like can, explosion, spray paint. Where the heck do I put those?

So I'm looking for ideas. What's your keyword organization system? I have a lot of travel pictures, lots of photojournalism stuff, and some artsy stuff and studio/model stuff thrown in for good measure.

Thanks tons!

[nutsnbolts]

There is this website called http://www.controlledvocabulary.com

I have inquired this question in the past and haven't gotten any true answers other than suggestions regarding the link above and really I am struggling the same thing.

Would be interested in what other thinks as well.

[PixelMagic]

My advice would be to keep it simple.

I organize my keywords in hierarchy around four main areas: People, Places, Events, Objects. Then under those categories I get specific with names of people, places etc.

Here's an excellent article on the subject; it might seem a bit obtuse at first but it certainly makes a lot of sense. I especially like the ideas of using worklist keywords and of using special characters to differentiate the parent from child keywords: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjour...to_help_1.html

[slimninj4]

OH thanks. I was looking for something like this too.

[danpass]

Lately I've been putting the main subject into the field, 'beach' for example, while including specifics, like 'Marco Island', the month (fully spelled out) and the year but no day (as of yet lol)


Also remember that LR will sort by metadata such as aperture, lens, camera body, etc. another cool option.

.

[nutsnbolts]

One thing I can contribute regarding this is that the creating main topics is a great thing to do. Simple.

PEOPLE
--FAMILY
---SMITH
-----dave
-----jen
-----robert
---PATEL
-----anand
-----srini
--FRIENDS
EVENTS
--birthday
--wedding
--engagement_party
PLACE
--USA
----NEW_YORK
-----manhattan
-----brooklyn
----NEW_JERSEY
-----cherry_hill
-----princeton
----PENNSYLVANIA
--EUROPE
----SPAIN
------granada
------sevilla
------toledo
------barcelona
----PORTUGAL
OBJECTS
----bottle
----crib
----balloon
ANIMALS
---DOGS
-----chihuahua
-----german_shepherd
-----hot_dog
---CATS
-----you get it?

This is what I try to do. Notice the case sensitivity as well. This allows me to know that there are sub keywords if it's in CAPS.

[davidcrebelxt]

Originally Posted by FedkaTheConvict

My advice would be to keep it simple.

I organize my keywords in hierarchy around four main areas: People, Places, Events, Objects. Then under those categories I get specific with names of people, places etc.

Very similar for me too:
I also have a group for OTHER which contains miscellaneous as of yet uncategorized keywords.

I don't go overboard tagging everything I see in the image yet... just whats important to me personally.

[ssim]

I have taken an approach somewhat similar to NutsNBolts without delving quite so deep into the subcategories. For example where he does Animals then Dogs then the type of dog such as a german shepard, I stop at Dogs.

I took the time to build all of my keywords in a text file first and then import them into Lightroom. I export regularly and see if I may have misspelled something or anything has gotten out of order. I find it very easy to move them around in a text file.

As it sits right now I have around 225 keywords and I doubt that I am going to have to add too many more. If I do, no big deal. It is better to have too many than not enough. The key is to find the right balance in there.

You have to do some pre-planning around this topic. Do you want the key words to help you find a particular image or do you want it to narrow the field down alot more. Using the above example on dogs, heck you could even add another level to this and say find german shepards named snoopy. My approach has been to apply the right kinds of keywords so that when I do have to search for something it will assist me in providing a reasonable number of images that I will then have to manually page through. If you put too many levels in you can get that same feeling you are having right now with the result of too many keywords.

I like nesting my keywords, which is easy to do when you are building it manually and it then keeps a cleaner display. I did a count on my initial level keywords and I only have 43 keywords with the rest being nested underneath these. You can always open these up to display what you have but for me this system works well.

There really is no right or wrong answer to this subject. The one that is right is the one that works for you. If that means having several hundred then so be it. If you are comfortable and it works, then good for you.

[Degrassi]

Okay, this is kind of what I have been doing. The thing is, I also want my dog pictures tagged as "dog", not just the breed. And maybe the name of the dog, etc etc. Is it possible to have the title as a keyword? Does that create some kind of needless hassle?

As for the rest of it...I was taught that putting as many keywords as possible is good in terms of photojournalism (which is what I'm studying) so that when potential clients search for something, my stuff will come up as often as possible. I think that's why I'm feeling so overwhelmed right now.. but itll be really nice once I get it all set up.

I can't wait to get this all set up!
Cheers!
Dana

Originally Posted by nutsnbolts

One thing I can contribute regarding this is that the creating main topics is a great thing to do. Simple.

PEOPLE
--FAMILY
---SMITH
-----dave
-----jen
-----robert
---PATEL
-----anand
-----srini
--FRIENDS
EVENTS
--birthday
--wedding
--engagement_party
PLACE
--USA
----NEW_YORK
-----manhattan
-----brooklyn
----NEW_JERSEY
-----cherry_hill
-----princeton
----PENNSYLVANIA
--EUROPE
----SPAIN
------granada
------sevilla
------toledo
------barcelona
----PORTUGAL
OBJECTS
----bottle
----crib
----balloon
ANIMALS
---DOGS
-----chihuahua
-----german_shepherd
-----hot_dog
---CATS
-----you get it?

This is what I try to do. Notice the case sensitivity as well. This allows me to know that there are sub keywords if it's in CAPS.

[Nortelbert]

Originally Posted by nutsnbolts

One thing I can contribute regarding this is that the creating main topics is a great thing to do. Simple.

PEOPLE
--FAMILY
---SMITH
-----dave
-----jen
-----robert
---PATEL

Anyone figure out a way of having two Dave Smiths yet?

[nwa2]

How do you use the functionality of keywording as opposed to Categories?

I read an article that said to restrict the "Keywording" to non personal data (e.g. exclude personal names) because the keyword data can get written to the image file. Use Categories for that personal information.

In general that is what I have settled on. I use a hierarchy similar to Nutsnbolts for people, albeit in the category fields. Places, I keep in the keyword fields.

[nutsnbolts]

Just so everyone is on the same page, I never have to type in keywords...

LOCATION, USA, NEW_JERSEY, PRINCETON

I have to just enter in princeton and the categories load up.