Newbie keyword explanation please

[Allsop]

I have today downloaded Photo Mechanics 5 for Mac and using it on my MacBook Air OS Sierra 10.12.5 and want to use the app to catalogue my photographs rather than use Lightroom, (I have my photographs keyworded in Lightroom). I have the following questions:

1) Is there a way to include and view the existing keywords on any given photo?
2) Is there a way to view keywords in the Preview panel?
3) What is the quickest way to apply keywords to multiple images?
3) Is there anywhere that I can read up on keywording in Photo Mechanic 5?

Many thanks for any help.

Andrew-Bede

[Kirk Baker]

Andrew,

I have today downloaded Photo Mechanics 5 for Mac and using it on my MacBook Air OS Sierra 10.12.5 and want to use the app to catalogue my photographs rather than use Lightroom, (I have my photographs keyworded in Lightroom). I have the following questions:

1) Is there a way to include and view the existing keywords on any given photo?

Clicking on the 'i' button that appears when your mouse cursor is over a thumbnail will bring up the IPTC Info dialog.  Among the many metadata fields will be the Keywords field which you can view (and edit.)

2) Is there a way to view keywords in the Preview panel?

Yes.  You can customize the "Info Text" which appears on the top-right side of the Preview window.

http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Info_Panel

3) What is the quickest way to apply keywords to multiple images?

The IPTC Stationery Pad does that fairly well, but there are two interactive panels for keywording: Structured Keywords and Keywords

http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Keywords_Panel
http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Structured_Keywords
http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#IPTC_Stationery_Pad

3) Is there anywhere that I can read up on keywording in Photo Mechanic 5?

The above links and http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Keywords

HTH,

-Kirk

[Allsop]

Thanks Kirk 

[Allsop]

I have had a brief look and tried to work out how to customise the info text as ou mention but can't figure it out! How do I customise the info panel to show keywords?

Also if I click on the "i" button to bring up the PPTC info panel does indeed show a keywords section but the keywords that I applied to the photograph prior to using PM do not show up. Is it possible to get PM to include those keywords?

Many thanks for tour help.

[Allsop]

I have sorted out how to show keywords in the info panel but I still am unable to get it to show keywords already applied prior to using Photo Mechanic as I was hoping thus avoiding having to go through thousands of images to insert keywords. Thanks for any help.

[Odd Skjaeveland]

...
1) Is there a way to include and view the existing keywords on any given photo?

Photo means an image file on disk in this context, right? What kind of files? If they are non-dng raw files from a camera, how did you put keywords in them? (Lightroom does not do that, keywords go to the LR database).

You can set up LR to write keywords (and other metadata) to XMP-files, so called sidecar files, and PM can read those. Have a look at the information video http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/tag/xmp-sidecar-files

[Allsop]

...
1) Is there a way to include and view the existing keywords on any given photo?

(Lightroom does not do that, keywords go to the LR database)...

Ah...that would explain it! Thanks for all your help I am clearer about it now.