Can Photo Mechanic or any other program embed keywords for easy Windows Search?

[Sezza62]

Hi, I am going a bit crazy here . I need to know if any program incl Photo Mechanic, Bridge, Lightroom etc can embed Keywords into a photo so that my work colleagues can find the photo easily in the Windows search bar?? Or do I have to rename the file. E.G say they were looking for a specific event, would I have to rename the file to relate to that specific event or can I just keyword it. I need an answer ASAP as the company have hired me for this particular job and I need to know if there is an easier way without wasting too much of their time and money. Thank you.

[Kirk Baker]

Hi, I am going a bit crazy here . I need to know if any program incl Photo Mechanic, Bridge, Lightroom etc can embed Keywords into a photo so that my work colleagues can find the photo easily in the Windows search bar?? Or do I have to rename the file. E.G say they were looking for a specific event, would I have to rename the file to relate to that specific event or can I just keyword it. I need an answer ASAP as the company have hired me for this particular job and I need to know if there is an easier way without wasting too much of their time and money. Thank you.

Which file formats are you using?  If it is JPEG, then all of the apps you mentioned can embed metadata in standard formats.  Whether Windows' search bar will be compatible, I don't know.

If you're working with RAW files, then only Photo Mechanic can embed metadata into RAW files.  The Adobe apps will create a separate .XMP sidecar file to contain the metadata for RAW files.  Once again, I don't know if the search bar will work with embedded XMP or XMP sidecar files.

My suggestion would be for you to get a trial version of Photo Mechanic (and the other Adobe apps you listed) and give them a try and see if they work for you.  There should be no cost involved other than your time.

If you do decide to try Photo Mechanic, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.  As for Adobe's apps, I may be able to help, but you'd likely get better answers from Adobe's forums.

-Kirk

[Sezza62]

Hi Kirk
Thank you for your reply.
I have downloaded all of the apps and the only thing that seems to work is tagging the photos in Windows on the photo itself in the details section.  We get the JPEG photos from the photographer and store them in a yearly category. The marketing team from time to time need to search quickly for a specific photo for one of their marketing brochures. At the moment we have photos dating back to 2002 that need sorting out. I need a quicker process to do this rather than going through each and every folder in windows and tagging them. It seems to be a slow process but that might be my only option. It is a shame because there is not keyword list shown of what they should search for. If they used something like Bridge then the keyword list will be listed before them to see what to search for. But not all of them have an adobe account. Therefore will need to search in Windows.
Sarah


 

[vAfotoriporter]

On a Mac image search simply works as you described. OSX's Spotlight search finds all IPTC data in any image. Windows search however may be different.

If you need to keyword a photo archive growing since 2002 I think PhotoMechanic is the best tool for doing it quick and easy as possible. Bridge, Ligthroom and other programmes offer capabilities to do the work, but PhotoMechanic has the best to offer in terms of speed and efficiency - that is why so many photographers and picture editors use it for this work.

If you have many colleagues who need to search among the same centralised photo collection that is already keyworded maybe some general photo management app like Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa can be a solution. They both can search in IPTC metadata of the photos and are easy to use require no extra investment.
If you really need to stick with Windows' OS level file search, then you may need to add your keywords to your filenames. PhotoMechanic can do this for you in a snap.

[ericbowles]

Why don't you simply import the images into Lightroom and then use the search function there?  The Lightroom CC product allows a monthly license to try out the process and see if it works for you.  If the images are keyworded into the RAW file in PM, LR will recognize the keywords upon import.

While there is a cost, it's nominal compared to all the work involved in trying to make Windows do something it was not designed to do.