double keywords

[christophmerth]

In the Browse-Tab / Keywords I can see the hierarchical keywords als hierachical (with the arrow for dropdown) and a second time as "flat" keywords - this not only unnecessary but also confusing and the list gets very long.

[Kirk Baker]

In the Browse-Tab / Keywords I can see the hierarchical keywords als hierachical (with the arrow for dropdown) and a second time as "flat" keywords - this not only unnecessary but also confusing and the list gets very long.

The metadata in your images has both the hierarchical paths, and each level of that path broken down as individual keywords.  The data in your photos is this way.  If the keywords weren't listed individually, they wouldn't show up in the list.  It's part of the metadata standards to have this arrangement.

-Kirk

[christophmerth]

Thank you - I am coming from Media Pro, and there you can get a hierarchical list of all keywords used in the catalog. This is important for a feature of Media Pro: You can drag & drop an image to the list to add the keyword ... I hope that PM+ will get this feature, but therefore there has to be a list with the hierarchical keywords only. This would be my next feature request ;-)

Greetings, Christoph

[Kirk Baker]

Thank you - I am coming from Media Pro, and there you can get a hierarchical list of all keywords used in the catalog. This is important for a feature of Media Pro: You can drag & drop an image to the list to add the keyword ... I hope that PM+ will get this feature, but therefore there has to be a list with the hierarchical keywords only. This would be my next feature request ;-)

We're not big on drag and drop.  It is clunky and you can accidentally drop images in the wrong place and not know what happened in the end.  I would rather it work like this if it were to be added at all:

Given a selection of images that you would have otherwise dragged and dropped: you right-click on your keyword or keyword path and choose "Add keyword(s) to selected photos".

It would do the same thing but eliminate the problems associated with drag and drop.

-Kirk

[christophmerth]

Thank you again - I will try this workflow,.

But this will not solve the first problem, the double and long list of keywords. Would it be possible to implement a choice to select wether you want to see all keywords or the hierarchical keywords only?

Regards, Christoph

[Kirk Baker]

Thank you again - I will try this workflow.

It doesn't exist yet.

But this will not solve the first problem, the double and long list of keywords. Would it be possible to implement a choice to select wether you want to see all keywords or the hierarchical keywords only?

I suppose there could be two separate branches of the browse tree, and two separate filters, but the lists will individually be the same length as they were when they were combined.  Data is data.

-Kirk

[Michael Naylor]

In the Browse-Tab / Keywords I can see the hierarchical keywords als hierachical (with the arrow for dropdown) and a second time as "flat" keywords - this not only unnecessary but also confusing and the list gets very long.

Lightroom presents the keywords as a hierarchical list with check boxes to assign to single or multiple images.  Simple.

[carlseibert]

Mike - Lightroom embeds hierarchical keywords in the metadata in two (actually three) places in order to make that happen. That's where the duplicate keywords come from. There's no simple or perfect solution to the problem. The good news about the way Photo Mechanic does it is that PM makes sure you don't lose your keywords.

I think you can prevent Lightroom from writing the extra, proprietary, field that causes the problem. But I don't know if doing so would disable any features you might want within Lightroom. 

[Michael Naylor]

Mike - Lightroom embeds hierarchical keywords in the metadata in two (actually three) places in order to make that happen. That's where the duplicate keywords come from. There's no simple or perfect solution to the problem. The good news about the way Photo Mechanic does it is that PM makes sure you don't lose your keywords.

I think you can prevent Lightroom from writing the extra, proprietary, field that causes the problem. But I don't know if doing so would disable any features you might want within Lightroom.

As you say, LR writes keywords in both hierarchical and flat form.  That is helpful for software that is not hierarchical aware.  However, LR doesn't display both forms - only the hierarchical form.  Capture One displays both and I find that to be confusing and unnecessary.

[carlseibert]

Yes, it looks a mess. Fortunately, the duplicated keywords don't affect search.

If a program could be sure that only Lightroom/Capture One/ Photo Mechanic had touched the keywords, it wouldn't be too hard to suppress the lr:hierarchalsubject field and just display the more readable contents of the standard keywords field.

But you can't count on that, thus the mess. I suppose a program could go through all the keywords in the different fields, match them up and make a determination as to whether or not all the lr:hierarchalsubject keywords were properly represented in the normal fields, display accordingly, and write any edits into the appropriate field(s). Phew. What a hassle. I can't blame developers for not going there.

So, I just stew at Adobe for doing such a silly thing in the first place. This certainly isn't the first time their zeal for a new feature has overrun contemplation and common sense. The XMP namespaces are chock a block with instances where they have done stuff in haste the rest of us have to struggle with for all eternity. (Or until we all migrate away from their products, whichever comes first. Like I said, sometimes they make my head explode. Sometimes, they're brilliant, but jeeez.)

[Kirk Baker]

So, I just stew at Adobe for doing such a silly thing in the first place. This certainly isn't the first time their zeal for a new feature has overrun contemplation and common sense. The XMP namespaces are chock a block with instances where they have done stuff in haste the rest of us have to struggle with for all eternity. (Or until we all migrate away from their products, whichever comes first. Like I said, sometimes they make my head explode. Sometimes, they're brilliant, but jeeez.)

Hear, hear!

-Kirk

[Michael Naylor]

For years I've migrated my 20k images between Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One , Photo Supreme, Bridge, Media Pro and others several times as new versions were released.  Each and every time I had to spend days reworking the keywords and deleting duplicates.  I wished to only have a hierarchical list, although I do wonder if that is a good choice.  I'm currently back with Lightroom. They all had their problems, but I think Media Pro was the best - until it was discontinued with no hope for a 64bit version.

I'm retired now, so I do have the time for this, but I'm fed up to the teeth with false promises, buggy software and not being able to do what I need.  You see I've scanned every photo I have going back to before my parents were born, trying my best to figure out the WHO, WHERE & WHEN. The process is almost forensic, because those that could have helped are either too young to remember or dead.

It's a case of trying to guess someone's age, trying to recognise a location with the help of Google's satellite imagery, Wikipedia and pot-luck.  It might help if I could present all the photos I think I've dated on some kind of a linear time line, so I could slot in others where appropriate.  Almost all of the dates I've assigned are no more than a sloppy guess, but current applications don't implement fuzzy dates.

I'm ranting and frustrated with my progress and wish I'd never started, but I would like to finish this project before I die.  Then I won't be needing to post inappropriate contributions to forums like this.  Sorry.