I don’t often get questions about how to apply keywords to photos, but I do hear from people who are struggling to regain a bit of order over an unruly keyword list, so it is to them that I devote this column. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand to wave and automatically fix a disorganized keyword list, you’ll need to roll up your sleeves, put the kettle on, and just get down to business. Keywording is a manual process, and while I do suggest that you check out the resources I mention at the end of the column, you still need to be prepared to do the heavy lifting.

Creating a Hierarchy

If you have already assigned keywords to photos and you want to retain those assignments and create a more structured list you should first consider creating that structure right in the Keyword List panel. You can drag and drop one keyword onto another to nest them together. Let’s say I have a flat keyword list that contains Animals, Dogs, Mammals, and Golden Retriever. I can drag Golden Retriever onto Dogs, then drag Dogs onto Mammals, then drag Mammals onto Animals and create a logical hierarchy while maintaining all the assignments I’ve already made with those keywords.

You can also move a child keyword out of a parent-child relationship by clicking and dragging it above its top-level parent keyword until you see the space above the parent keyword become highlighted, indicating you are leaving that structure, and release the keyword.

Some people find it helpful to create their keyword list outside of Lightroom in a plain text file (here is a great tutorial on that http://bit.ly/KeywordListOutside). You can also simply purchase very large keyword lists (see Resource at the end) that you can import right into Lightroom. While these are both excellent methods to consider I do want to point out that the importing of a new keyword list will not replace your existing keyword list. In other words, if you have a long flat list of keywords that you’ve assigned to various photos and you import a beautifully structured keyword hierarchy it is not going to magically transform your existing flat keyword list into a structure, but rather you will now have your old list with the new list appended on to it, all sorted alphabetically, and it is still up to you to assign the new keywords to your photos, or organize your flat list into a structure.

Re-Assign Keywords

Using my previous keyword example, if I had created that same keyword structure in a plain text file and imported it into Lightroom (instead of creating the structure inside of Lightroom) I would still have the same four top-level keywords, and in addition I would have my new logical structure under Animals. The problem is that I’d now have to re-assign the photos attached to keywords from my original list to the keywords in the new structure.

Here’s how to transfer photos from one keyword to another:

STEP ONE: Working in Grid view with the Keyword List panel expanded, move the cursor over the assigned keyword until you see the arrow appear to the right of the keyword total, and click that arrow to filter your catalog to only images tagged with that keyword.

STEP TWO: Press Cmd+A (PC: Ctrl+A) to select all photos showing in the Grid.

STEP THREE: Move the cursor over the new keyword until an empty checkbox appears to the left of the keyword, and click the box to assign that keyword to all selected photos.

STEP FOUR: Remove the check from the box next to the original keyword to un-assign it from those photos, or see the next section on removing keywords completely. Photos are now only assigned to the new keyword.

Remove Unwanted Keywords

If you simply want to remove a keyword from all photos and remove the keyword itself from your keyword list you can select the keyword in the Keyword List panel and click the minus sign that appears in the panel header. Removing a parent keyword will also remove its children. Proceed with caution.

Tip: You can select multiple keywords in the Keyword List for removal as well. To select continuous keywords, click the first keyword then hold the Shift key and click the last keyword you want to select. You can select non-contiguous keywords by holding the Cmd key (PC: Ctrl) while clicking individual keywords.

Keywording Resources

• Keyword-centric plugins on Lightroom Exchange (http://adobe.ly/KeywordPlugins)
•  Controlled Vocabulary (www.controlledvocabulary.com)
• Keyword Catalog (www.keyword-catalog.com)

1. Press G to jump to Grid.
2. Select all the photos you want to have the same aspect ratio.
3. Expand the Quick Develop panel
4. Expand the Saved Preset section if you can’t see the Crop Ratio setting.
5. Click the Crop Ratio drop-down menu and select the aspect ratio or Enter Custom to create your own.

All the selected thumbnails will update to the new aspect ratio. Press R if you want to jump to the Crop tool and tweak the crop composition.

From the course description …

“Are you a new to intermediate Lightroom user who is looking to take your Lightroom experience to the next level? Do you have the basics down, but still want to know more? Does Lightroom drive you crazy sometimes? Would you like to learn how to better integrate Lightroom into other aspects of your digital life? Would you like to avoid common problems and learn from the mistakes of others? Well then this is the course designed for you. After answering questions from thousands of Lightroom users over the last 3 years I created a course that covers the most common things people have been struggling to understand while integrating Lightroom into their photography workflow.”

Continue reading about Lightroomers Guide to Lightroom class over at ppsop.net. The part of this class I am most jazzed about is that it allows for a level of interaction between me and the students you won’t find in most online learning experiences. This class includes lessons, assignments, video tips and lots of Q&A interaction via the classroom message board. You’ll be able to reach me via email, my blog, and twitter too, so it is the next best thing to having me at your side for 4 weeks while you take your Lightroom skills to the next level!

PPSOP was founded by one of my long time photography heroes, Bryan Peterson, who authored (among many others) my all time favorite book on understanding exposure, perfectly named, Understanding Exposure. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to wrap your head around exposure once and for all.

Bryan produced a great video explaining how PPSOP courses work. My class will continue to run throughout the year so if the January 8 start date doesn’t work for you keep checking back for the next session. I look forward working closely with you over those 4 weeks!

If you are brand new to Lightroom and you are looking for a great place to get started then I suggest taking Jon Canfield’s Lightroom From Import to Output first and then take my class next. I’ve designed my class to build on the materials in Jon’s class so your learning continues to the next level!

Here’s one more performance boosting tip for both Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 Beta. To speed up the process of applying flags and ratings to photos in the Library module you can turn on the Caps Lock key to automatically move to the next photo after applying a rating or flag. If you hold the Shift key it works the same way. Those are both good tips, but I always forget the Caps Lock is on and start typing, so I prefer another option. Look under the Photo menu and check Auto Advance.

With Auto Advance enabled you can just focus on applying flags, ratings and color labels and Lightroom will automatically advance you to the next photo after any one of those is applied. If you want to apply both a flag and a rating before auto advancing hold the Shift key (or enable Caps Lock) and Lightroom will auto advance after the second item is applied. This combo really helps you cruise through the process.

The four Library module views—Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey—are accessible from the Library module Toolbar.

Read The Many Views of the Library Module over at peachpit.com.

Here are the alternatives I came up with that could be used once the import is complete.

You could select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A) the newly imported photos and then drag them to an existing collection or press Ctrl/Cmd+N to create a new collection and add the selected photos to that collection at the same time by checking the “include selected photos” box. Those options work in Lightroom 1 as well.

However, the new Target Collection feature in Lightroom 2 presented another alternative. Here’s how to make it work. First, Right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) an existing collection and choose Set as Target Collection. This means the Target Collection takes the place of the Quick Collection. Then once this is set you can select photos and just press B to add them to the Target Collection. 

You can’t make a Smart Collection the target collection, but others are fair game. This little feature can speed up the process of adding new photos to any collection you choose to target.

The current Target Collection is marked with a + sign after the collection’s name.

It allows you to see what collections that photo has been added to and it allows you to jump over to viewing any one of the collections shown.

Give it a try the next time you want to see how many collections a given photo is included in or when you want to jump to another collection you know that photo happens to be a member of. Note that smart collections are not included in the listing.

First you need to enable Show Image Info Tooltips in the Filmstrip. Just right-click (Ctrl-click) a photo in the Filmstrip and go to View Options  and make sure Show Image Info Tooltips is checked. Once enabled, all you need to do is place your cursor over any photo in the Filmstrip to make the tooltip appear.

The information displayed is the same that is shown in the Info Overlay when you are in Loupe View, which means you can customize what you see in the tooltip. Pretty cool! This works the same in both Lightroom 1 and 2.

Here’s one of those little things that seems to be tripping up a number of Lightroom 1 users who have upgraded to Lightroom 2.

In Lightroom 1, you can expand the Keywording panel and start typing a keyword into the big keyword tag field. As soon as you start typing, Lightroom offers an auto-complete option by displaying any of your other keywords that match the letters you’ve typed so far. This is a handy feature and people have come to rely on it.

However, in Lightroom 2 there is a new field just below that larger field in the Keywording panel. Depite its subtle label that reads “Click here to add keywords,” people who are used to using Lightroom 1 just click into the larger field and start typing. The problem is that the auto-complete function only works with the new entry field.

You can still enter keywords via the larger field, but if you want to use the auto-complete function use the new field expressly designed for that purpose.

It is called Add Parent Folder and what it does is literally add the parent folder to the Folders panel. Why is this helpful? Let me illustrate. Let’s say you have a folder structure by year like this:

Which is fine, but now you need to move all those folders to a new drive because you are running out of room. In this setup you would need to move one year at a time because Lightroom won’t let you select multiple folders for a move operation. However, if the parent folder of all those year folders was added to the Folders panel you could just select the parent folder and move it to the new drive, which would bring along all the subfolders and their contents.

To add that folder, just right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) and choose Add Parent Folder from the contextual menu.

This results in that parent folder appearing in the Folders panel.

This not only makes it easier to move folders but also gives you one more collapsible level of structure in your Folders panel.