keyword interoperability with Lightroom

[metamatt]

Hi, I've just found PM and am evaluating it on Mac OS X.  It's stupendously fast as a browser, which is much of what I want, so it might be worth the purchase price just for that, but I'm trying to figure out what else it can do and, especially for organizing and cataloging images, how well it interoperates with other software.

I also use Adobe Lightroom, and PM and LR both claim support for XMP; so far I've noticed that for files which I'd marked up fairly extensively in LR (rate with stars, add keywords, crop, and change color balance), the only changes among these which are evident in PM are the star ratings.  I'd expect at least the keywords to be visible in both programs -- maybe also the crop area -- probably not color/"develop" settings from LR.

Can this be made to work better, or is there something else I should try?

While we're on the subject, what features of PM would you recommend to someone who already uses Lightroom?

[Kirk Baker]

Hi, I've just found PM and am evaluating it on Mac OS X.  It's stupendously fast as a browser, which is much of what I want, so it might be worth the purchase price just for that, but I'm trying to figure out what else it can do and, especially for organizing and cataloging images, how well it interoperates with other software.

I also use Adobe Lightroom, and PM and LR both claim support for XMP; so far I've noticed that for files which I'd marked up fairly extensively in LR (rate with stars, add keywords, crop, and change color balance), the only changes among these which are evident in PM are the star ratings.  I'd expect at least the keywords to be visible in both programs -- maybe also the crop area -- probably not color/"develop" settings from LR.

Can this be made to work better, or is there something else I should try?

If you make PM and Lightroom use the same label names (Color Classes in PM) then they will interoperate as well as the 5-star ratings.  Just change PM's labels to match those you've assigned in Lightroom and they'll work fine.  Matching the colors is also useful.

While we're on the subject, what features of PM would you recommend to someone who already uses Lightroom?

Ingest, IPTC Stationery Pad, Code Replacement, Filtering (5-star and color class), IPTC Info, Preview, Slide show, Printing, Exporting (HTML galleries), etc.

-Kirk

[metamatt]

Thanks!  How about the keywords; is there a way to make those match up, or should they be already?

[Kirk Baker]

Thanks!  How about the keywords; is there a way to make those match up, or should they be already?

Keywords should just appear in the IPTC Info dialog in the Keywords field.  Since Lightroom is pretty much an XMP app, you should set PM to read XMP data before it reads IPTC data.  See the IPTC/XMP tab of the Preferences dialog for all of the settings.

-Kirk

[metamatt]

Thanks again.

That works -- if I look in the IPTC info panel. I don't see the keywords in the "keywords panel" though.  Should I?  If not, what's the Keywords Panel for?

Also, can I search by keyword? Or am I getting into feature request territory here?  What I'd like is to be able to select all images in one folder that contain a certain keyword, since I might like different photos from the same shoot according to different criteria (they might not be the best photos so I don't give them a lot of stars but they reflect exactly what I was looking for in that shoot so I rate them highly just for that specific shoot, using a keyword, for example).

[Kirk Baker]

That works -- if I look in the IPTC info panel. I don't see the keywords in the "keywords panel" though.  Should I?  If not, what's the Keywords Panel for?

The Keywords dialog holds the master list of keywords and allows you to choose a subset to apply to a given photo.

Also, can I search by keyword? Or am I getting into feature request territory here?  What I'd like is to be able to select all images in one folder that contain a certain keyword, since I might like different photos from the same shoot according to different criteria (they might not be the best photos so I don't give them a lot of stars but they reflect exactly what I was looking for in that shoot so I rate them highly just for that specific shoot, using a keyword, for example).

The Find panel will allow you to search for a specific keyword among all of the files in a Contact Sheet.

-Kirk

[metamatt]

Better and better... thanks for the help!

[theorib]

metamatt,

Make sure in Lightroom, under the Preferences pane, on the "File Management" tab, you ckeck the "Automatically write changes into XMP". That way, all IPTC information you enter as well as Lightroom adjustments are always writen back to the XMP file on the fly when you change them. That is very helpful not only for IPTC info but also, if you want to open your file in another computer or something like this, it will carry all the adjustments and information you entered within the XMP file!

best,


Theo

[metamatt]

Yup -- that, I definitely do!  That was one of the key selling points of Lightroom for me, actually.  I definitely want to be able to take my files between different computers (or different apps on the same computer) with no hassles.

(LR's actually not perfect at that, but it's better than any other similarly database-driven photo organizer I've seen.)