Keywording at Light Speed – Part V

Posted by Eric Leszkowicz on Feb 18, 2009 in Blog, Keywords | 0 comments

We reach the end of our keywording journey today.  Hard to believe that it has taken 5 posts to cover everything.  Today we will cover two simple methods.

The first method is to first select the images which you are going to apply the keyword.  Click on the image of one of the selected images and drag it to a keyword.  This is a rather redundant way to apply keywords to an image since you could just check the box.  In Lightroom 1.0, there was no little box next to the keyword to check and this was an efficient method.  However, with the addition of the checkbox, Adobe has left this feature in for the two people out there who will still use it over the better designed checkbox.

Keywording at Light Speed – Part IV

Posted by Eric Leszkowicz on Feb 16, 2009 in Blog, Keywords | 1 comment

The fourth post brings us to perhaps the most unusual methods to apply keywords – a spray can. This may not be readily visible on your Lightroom Library Module.  You may click on the arrow and make the painter tool visible. 

The other option is to use the keyboard shortcut (ctrl – alt – K).  Once you pick up the paint can, you enter the keywords that you want to paint on the images.  You can enter multiple words by separating them with a comma.  Existing keywords will be suggested.

Once they are set, just click the mouse on the images that you want to “paint” the keywords on.  You can paint multiple images by holding down the left mouse button and spraying over several images.  Spraying them a second time removes the keyword (you will notice the can turns into an eraser.)

Warning:  Spray painting in real life is not a way to paint things precisely.  Spray painting in Lightroom can be equally as messy.  Be careful.

Why stop there?  You can paint several things onto images.  In Lightroom 2.2, you can paint keywords, labels, flags, ratings, metadata, settings, rotation, and target collections.  This opens up a whole bunch of possibilities.  Nearly all of them I haven’t thought of yet!

When to Use:  This is best used when you have to apply keywords to images that are spread throughout a collection.

Sample Use:  In our weddings we keyword every image that has the groom in the image and every image that has the bride in the image.  So we load up the paint can with bride and then after spraying those images, we spray the images with groom loaded up.

Keywording at Light Speed – Part III

Posted by Eric Leszkowicz on Feb 4, 2009 in Blog, Keywords | 0 comments

The use of keywords sets Lightroom up to use its power as a database. If you don’t enter keywords, they only way you can get to the images is to click on the date – there is a better way. Use keywords.

This is post three that I have been discussing this. I will be honest. I sat down to type a simple post about how to apply keywords using the keywords suggestion panel and then I realized how many different ways that I apply keywords to images.

So here we are – post three.

Today’s method is for all the wedding photographers out there. Weddings in Lightroom are made for those who love to organize things. In other words, my wife. She is very good at keywording weddings. Think about how many things that could be labeled in Lightroom. You could label before the ceremony, ceremony, reception, rings, flowers, each venue, each church. . . You get the idea.

Lightroom 2 has both a suggested list of keywords and a customizable set of keywords. This topic is tricky enough that we need to take a look at a video.

When to Use: This is perfect for using to apply a huge variety of keywords to a set of images, large or small.

Sample Use: As I mentioned above, keywording weddings is my primary use of these panels. However, I do have a family database of images and I use these panels to keyword my family images.

Keywording at Light Speed – Part II

Posted by Eric Leszkowicz on Jan 13, 2009 in Blog, Keywords, Lightroom | 0 comments

Keywording is likely one of the most underutilized features in Lightroom.  Looking at Lightroom as just a RAW file processor is like looking at a computer as something that is only good for checking email.  Lightroom is so much more than a RAW processor.

Since we looked at one of my least favorite ways to keyword, let’s look at perhaps my favorite way of applying keywords.  Whether it is my favorite or not, it is definitely my most used method.

Remember, I am a senior portrait photographer.  When we do weddings, keywords are applied differently.

• Make sure that you are in the library module and in the grid view (hit the letter ‘G’ to switch to that mode.)
• Select the images you want to apply a keyword or a set of keywords.
• On the right hand side you see the list of keywords available.  Click the box to the left of the keyword that you want to apply to all the images.

Keywording at Light Speed – Part I

Posted by Eric Leszkowicz on Jan 6, 2009 in Blog, Featured Articles, Keywords, Lightroom | 2 comments

Getting over your Keywording fears

Many reasons exist to choose Lightroom to develop RAW files and to manage an entire workflow.  The situation a commercial photographer would face is vastly different than the situation a wedding photographer would face.  One thing is for sure that most users would benefit from better keywording.

So why don’t photographers use keywords more?  Two reasons exist.  One is not understanding the value of keywords and the second is seeing keywording as a laborious, time consuming task.

Let’s save the value of keywords for another post and look at speeding up our keyword experience.  Lightroom, like most Adobe products, there is more than one way to skin a keyword. I am going to spend the next many posts talking keywords.  I plan to make several posts about how to add keywords to your images.

First up….Add on import.

When you open the import dialogue box up there are a host of options available to you.  One of which is the keyword box.

You have two ways to place keyword tags on the images:

• Begin typing an already existing keyword.  When you do, Lightroom will give you suggestions on which keyword to use.  Be careful.  Keywords are case sensitive.  So if you enter a keyword ‘Wedding’ it is different than the keyword ‘wedding.’
• Enter a keyword that does not exist.  When a keyword is entered this way it is added to the main list of keywords.

For the record, this is my least favorite way to enter keywords.  They are added to every picture that you import.

When to use:  Use this keywording method when you want to apply one keyword to all images.

Examples of use:  When I imported images from an old hard drive and I didn’t have time to sort the files, I placed them under a keyword “images to sort.”  I do the same when I import images from my cell phones.

More in the next post.