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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Whats the use of Implied Keywords in LR ?

I recently took possession of my own copy of LR! Newbie excitement aside, I have a question on implied keywords:

I created a Pets/Anna keyword hierarchy. Now, Anna is a dog. Rather than have a Pets/Dogs/Anna structure, I thought I'd tell the system through the use of synonyms that Anna is a "dog".

However, it appear that LR does not work this way! When I find on "dog", nothing comes up.

The help and other online info conflict on this topic, but I'm starting to think that the synonyms feature only "works" for the export of keywords?

Thanks.
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Edward,

I've absolutely no idea about Light room (but that won't stop me poking...

I guess it a case of classification, keeping a tree structure going.

So top level pets, then type of pet then subsidiary of a specific type of pet.

I expect if you had two dogs, one 'Anna', one 'Fred' you could say that Anna was a type of Fred. If you say Anna is a type of dog, then you would expect sub classes of Anna. (Anna being a new type of pet)

Always remember, 'a horse is a four legged animal, but not all four legged animals are horses (nor do all horses have four legs)' or so my maths teacher told me, a long, long time ago.

Best wishes,

Ray
 
Ray,

If I understand you correctly, I'm not making 'Anna' a type. LR uses a keyword hierarchy, where each level is simply a keyword (again, not a type/folder).
 

Ray West

New member
If Anna is a pet, then if later you have another dog, where would that go.- a pet too? then you get a cat - heaven forbid- where are you putting that (other than outside)?

Most of these structures are good if you want to play the same way, but they all fail, in just the same way as using 'meaningful' unique serial numbers.

I'm not saying you can't do what you want to do, but if they are making any rules of structure, then they ought to enforce them. If they are letting you put any words anywhere, then that will be pretty pointless, just might as well have a plain old text file.

Does the manual define anything? You could try various ways, unless someone has a definitive answer. I'm just thinking how it may be, trying to second guess what they may have done.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Edward,

The structure will be the same, if it is a tree. A file system, a country's political organisation (regions/counties/towns), a family tree, you can think of others. It is the same principle. It gives an easy way of finding things. But there are better ways in some situations. I have no idea if they have a tree type structure/organisation/hierarchy or whatever they decide to call it this year.

Best wishes,

Ray
 
I think I'd like to use Synonyms more like attributes.

Think of it like this - I know the structure I'd like to use, and there is some information that is useful that I don't want in my hierarchy...

So, for now, I want my structure to be Pets/Anna because I don't want her "hidden" under /Dogs. But she IS a dog and I would like her to come up under searches for dogs.

Also, I might have a Animals/Dog hierarchy, but I don't want Anna hidden under that structure either. But when I search for "dog", I'd like them all to show up, including Anna!

I found in a discussion thread from photoshopservices.co.uk that finding photos by their synonym is "on the list" for future implementation... I was just curious if anyone had anymore/better experience with it than me...
 
[non pro user mode..]

I used hirarchy in date, subject etc before but now use all relevant "sublevels" as keywords.

Finding "dogs" from "2007" is easy, anna's are included.
(in my naming she would have 2007, dog, anna)

Martin
 
Martin,

It is very good that LR considers the hierarchy as part of the keyword set. That is just as it should be and works very well.

However, I also like the idea of synonyms but since they don't seem to work as one would think, I will need to go from here! :)
 
Ed,

If you could have your ideal keywording workflow regardless of a particular application, what would it look like? If we come at this from another direction, and you could make a synonym of "Anna" for "Pets/Dogs/Anna" so that whenever you entered Anna as a keyword, the image would get tagged with Pets/Dogs/Anna (even though only "Anna" is displayed) does that work for you? If you searched on pets, dogs, or Anna that image would come up. If you searched on Pets/Dogs images tagged with the Anna synonym would show up, but not if you searched on Animals/Dogs (unless you added that keyword separately). Would it be more useful to have Anna as a set of keywords instead of a single hierarchy? For example, "Anna" would get replaced with "dog, pet, female, cute".

-Colleen
 
Ed,

If you could have your ideal keywording workflow regardless of a particular application, what would it look like? If we come at this from another direction, and you could make a synonym of "Anna" for "Pets/Dogs/Anna" so that whenever you entered Anna as a keyword, the image would get tagged with Pets/Dogs/Anna (even though only "Anna" is displayed) does that work for you? If you searched on pets, dogs, or Anna that image would come up. If you searched on Pets/Dogs images tagged with the Anna synonym would show up, but not if you searched on Animals/Dogs (unless you added that keyword separately). Would it be more useful to have Anna as a set of keywords instead of a single hierarchy? For example, "Anna" would get replaced with "dog, pet, female, cute".

-Colleen

Q1: Ideally, what would it look like? Just like me! :)

Q2: Would an automated attempt to lookup keywords help? Maybe, but this means I would still have to define my hierarchy in a fairly rigid, scientific manner.

Q3: Would keyword "shortcuts" help? This seems very close to the idea of synonyms in LR.

The underlying issue for me is that there are two somewhat contrary purposes for keywords. In a hierarchy, they are useful for browsing and quickly applying sets of keywords. Keywords, once applied as individuals, are useful for searching.

I think the hierarchy should be useful to me for browsing. Also, it is efficient to be able to attach additional keywords to a particular keyword in the hierarchy as this helps the hierarchy quickly apply all the appropriate keywords without cluttering up the structure.

I know my pet Anna is a dog, I don' t need that in the hierarchy. However, I do need it when searching!
 
Just to give a (perhaps) more meaningful example:

I have two (or more) groupings in my family. I have immediate family and in-laws. For example, I have Dan, my brother, and his wife Jan, sister in-law. I don't want Jan buried under People/Family/In-Law/Jan seperately from People/Family/Immediate/Dan.

Now, by giving the ability to tag a keyword in my hierachy Jan with keywords such as in-law and sister, I can select her picture, click on Jan, and be done. Then the picture would be included in a search for in-law and sister!

I find this concept potentially very helpful in reconciling a keyword hierarchy with a keyword search. You create the hierarchy for YOUR organizational purposes (whatever feels comfortable to you) and then complete the description with keywords on keywords so your searches are complete.
 
Thanks, I think I understand how you want the program to behave a bit better. Since Dan is "brother", "family", "male", and say "cyclist" you don't want to type those in for each picture of Dan and you don't want to make a complete hierarchy to contain one person, or have multiple versions of Dan in different parts of your hierarchy.

-Colleen
 
Bingo! =)

Also, it would be nice to be able to add/edit the implied keywords for multiple selected keywords in the hierarchy.

Say, for instance, that I didn't realize at first that I needed to label the people in my family with in-law and immediate. I could just select all my in-law's and type/select in-law, then select all my immediate type/select immediate. Done! Organizational snafu corrected!

FYI
 
Thanks Jeff, I didn't know about some of the drag-drop features...

One thing the article doesn't address, but is a main point in this discussion so far, is how keywords can be combined into a hierarchy for browsing and efficient keyword application.

You know how the article demonstrates dragging a keyword onto a photo? In the article's setup, that would apply only one keyword. If the keywords were organized in a hierarchy (which is easily done in LR), then that same drag drop action would assign multiple keywords based on the hierarchy...
 
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