Import and Use of your Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog with Adobe Lightroom 1.1

Import and Use of your Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (CVKC)
with Adobe Lightroom 1.1+

[please note] If you already have created an Adobe Lightroom keyword catalog that you may wish to "reload" at a later point, do note that the instructions given below will append the CVKC to your existing data. You may wish to "save" your existing data first using the Export button (as shown below) before you begin.

The following topics are covered on this help page, clicking on the link will take you to that section of the page.

Installing the CVKC files into Adobe Lightroom
Applying Keyword Tags from the CVKC using Lightroom: General Method
Applying Keyword Tags from the CVKC using Lightroom: Advanced Method
Adding Metadata on Import
Using Lightroom Hierarchical Keywords in Practice

Installing CVKC Files into Adobe Lightroom

Launch Adobe Lightroom after unzipping the Adobe Lightroom CVKC file you downloaded from the Controlled Vocabulary website.

Importing keyword files into Lightroom is done from the Library module. Follow the steps below to get started.

1. From the Metadata menu item, scroll down until you see the option to "Import Keywords."

2. Navigate to where you saved the cvkcv3_0-lightroom folder (most likely your desktop).

3. In the navigation dialog, open the folder, locate the Lightroom text file and select it.

5. Click on the Choose button and wait a few moments.

On some older systems it may appear that Lightroom is moving rather slowly, but wait a few moments and all will be fine. When installed you should see something like the following in the left panel of Lightroom.

Applying Keyword Tags from the CVKC using Lightroom

Like other metadata, keyword tags in Lightroom are initially stored in the application itself. They can also be stored in the photo file itself, or (in the case of RAW files) stored in XMP sidecar files. Once applied to photos (or from image files that are Exported from Lightroom), keywords can be read by any application that support IPTC or XMP metadata.

There are several ways to find appropriate keywords in Lightroom. The most straight-forward is to use the arrows to the left of terms at the top level (as shown above) and keep clicking on them to "drill down" through the various levels till you find the term you need. There are two other methods, one of which is not documented in the help file that are worth knowing. If you want to skip to that undocumented method of adding keywords just click here.

Once you have located the keyword you need, you can apply terms to images one at a time or in batches. This is done just like other selections. To select several contiguous images, click on the first image, then hold the shift key down before hitting the last in the series. To select images that are not located next to each other, simply click on the first, and then hold the Apple key/Cloverleaf (Mac), or Control key (Win) down as you click on each of the other images.

Then either drag the keyword from the Keyword Panel to the images, or drag the selected images to the keyword. A small "tag" icon will show in the lower right hand corner of the image.

Another way to do this with Lightroom 1.1x is to use the "Painter" tool. This is normally located at 1) on the user interface below the thumbnails. When the Painter tool is enabled, the mouse pointer becomes a Painter icon and the Painter icon is no longer visible in the toolbar. After choosing the Painter tool, check to make sure that Keywords is chosen from the pull down menu. Type the keyword or keywords you want to add or remove in the toolbar field (the area indicated with the number 2).

Once you’ve specified the keyword(s), you can quickly apply the keyword shortcut to photos by placing the Painter tool (as shown near number 3 above) over the image in question and clicking the mouse. On the first click, you'll see the note above, indicating that the keyword has been applied. If you click on the mouse a second time you will see that the keyword has been removed. When you are done assigning or removing keywords you need to disable the Painter tool. Simply click the circular well in the toolbar area indicated as 1 above.

Note: If the Painter tool does not appear in the toolbar, choose Painter from the toolbar menu.

1. In the Library module, do one of the following:
Choose Metadata > Enable Painting.
In the Grid view, click the Painter tool icon in the toolbar.

The Third Alternative for Adding Keywords:
There is a third alternative, and while a little cumbersome, it actually works better than the other two in practice. It is decidedly "non-intuitive" as this big box option has to be selected by using the pull-down menu in the Keyword Tags section of the Keywording section in the right-hand panel of Lightroom before you begin. I find it much more efficient to use than the "painter" tool option which, unfortunately, is the only one mentioned in the Lightroom help file!

Here's how it works.
1. First use the pull-down menu in the Keywording panel (the one on the right side of the Lightroom window in the default mode) next to the label Keyword Tags to select "Enter Keywords." This is not to be confused with the header titled "Keyword Tags" on the left side of Lightroom.
2, Use your mouse to click into the field below that area so that the background turns white (any existing keywords will be shown in black text).
3. Start typing the term you'd like to add. If you haven't added keywords previously, then most of the keywords you see will be from the CVKC. If you have terms that were embedded in the IPTC Keywords field outside of Lightroom, these will also show up and possibly confuse you. The quick way to tell the difference between those previously entered keywords and those in the CVKC is that the latter will have a greater than symbol [>] separating parts of the path. Typically these only show you two levels, however this is typically enough to distinguish which branch is being accessed.

For example, if I have a photo that includes a dog, I can start typing "dog" and as I enter each character, the number of options available shrinks dramatically until after three letters, I'm down to the following:

dog > pets
dog > canine
dog racing
dog sledding > winter recreation
dog sledding > winter sports
dogwood

From there it should be fairly easy to make a selection.

4. If there is more than one term to select from, do not forget to use the arrow key to move down to your choice and most importantly, press the Enter/Return key to add this path, it's keywords (and synonyms if you are using the CVKC specifically for Lightroom). The box will turn back to a dark grey with the text in white once the term is officially entered.

5. If you want to see what other terms will be included with those core terms from the path, then change the pull down menu you changed before from "Enter Keywords" to "Will Export."

Do note that the default with Lightroom is to alphabetize all of the terms, and at this point there is no way to prevent that from occurring. As you can see this is a bit cumbersome if you switch the pull-down menu back and forth all the time, but there are fewer things that can go wrong than with the other two options.

Adding Metadata on Import:

With Lightroom you can also apply metadata to photos when importing. In the Import Photos dialog box, simply opt to use a metadata preset from the menu.

To apply a new set of metadata to photos while importing choose New and enter the information in the New Metadata Preset dialog box.

To add keyword metadata to photos while importing, type the keywords in the Keywords text box. Use commas to separate the keywords.

Using Lightroom Hierarchical Keywords in Practice:

Here are a few suggestions on dealing with the new Adobe Lightroom "Hierarchical" keywords feature.

When you export a file from Lightroom there is a new option to‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy.’ This is a check box within the dialog in the metadata subsection next to a label stating the same. If you hover your mouse above this option you will see a small window appear with some text informing you that checking this box will:

"include Lightroom hierarchical keyword information in XMP. This option will include all attached keywords and their parents and ignore synonyms."

This option is turned on by default so that keywords are always written to a file’s XMP metadata. This ensures that the keyword hierarchy is preserved when the keyword metadata is viewed on another computer running Lightroom. This is especially important where the keywords used are unknown or do not share the same hierarchical order.

What this means in practice... is the following, if you intend to store this exported file within Lightroom (on another machine, or pass on to someone else using Lightroom), then leave the box checked. If you have two computers that share the same controlled vocabulary (say a laptop for location work and a desktop machine in the office), then if you were to export a photo from the laptop and in turn import it into Lightroom on the desktop machine, then the ‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy’ option doesn't make any difference really because the keyword hierarchy for the individual keywords will be recognized anyway. (Note: This is for a normal export and import not the new export/import catalog command).

If you leave this option unchecked and the second computer does not share the same information about how the keywords are structured in your controlled vocabulary, then the keywords will be output as a flattened list without a hierarchy that is recognized by Lightroom. So if you intend to send the file to a client, or intend to catalog your images with a different image database application you will want to leave it unchecked.

For those of you that want to understand a bit more about how these options differ, read on.

Adobe is storing this hierarchical metadata within the Lightroom namespace area of XMP. If viewed from the Photoshop Advanced panel you'll see something like the following.

I took the same image and exported it with and without the ‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy’ option checked to show how the metadata changes for each option.

The first stream of data shows the parsed XMP for the image that did have the box checked to include the Lightroom Hierarchical Keywords. In this instance, the DC subject holds the regular keywords, and the new hierarchical elements are placed below that in a separate LR namespace.

<dc:subject>
< rdf:Bag>
< rdf:li>Europe</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>Italy</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>Lazio</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>Rome</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>WORLD REGIONS & COUNTRIES</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>architecture</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>landscape</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>sculpture</rdf:li>
< /rdf:Bag>
< /dc:subject>
< lr:hierarchicalSubject>
< rdf:Bag>
< rdf:li>WORLD REGIONS & COUNTRIES|Europe|Italy|Lazio|Rome</rdf:li>
< rdf:li>architecture|landscape|sculpture</rdf:li>
< /rdf:Bag>
< /lr:hierarchicalSubject>

It might just seem like you get the same info in two different locations, but what happens is more subtle than that.

If you leave the box to ‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy’ unchecked in the export dialog you'll get the following data stored in the both the regular keyword field and the DC subjects keyword fields:

Europe; Italy; Latium; Lazio; Roma; Rome; architectural; architecture; landscape; landscaping; sculpture; structures

If you check the box to export with Lightroom Hierarchical keywords, you only get the following in the same fields:

Europe; Italy; Lazio; Rome; WORLD REGIONS & COUNTRIES; architecture; landscape; sculpture

See the difference? The synonyms and items that are flagged as ‘Excluded Category Headers’ (typically those items that are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS) are exported in the first instance, but not in the second.

I'm not aware at this point of an easy way to suppress what are flagged as Excluded Category Headers within the Lightroom Keyword Catalog, so those come through in all capital letters as they would when using most of the metadata annotation options (the primary exception being the CVKC within Photo Mechanic).

So please note that there is a difference, and make the right choice when you export from Lightroom.

Please also note that the format used for the CVKC in Lightroom and Bridge are not the same. Unfortunately at this time, using the synonym designation that is allowed in Lightroom results in that same term being removed from the list when imported into Bridge. If you wish to apply keywords in both Bridge and Lightroom, you may wish to install the same version of the CVKC in both (both use the same UTF-8 encoded text file format). I would recommend using the Bridge version in both, as this will result in a larger number of keywords being available in both, though you may wish to experiment and see which works best for your situation.

[Additional instructions on how to use Lightroom and the CVKC are still being developed. Screencasts may be developed in the future. Check the Download page to see when these become available.]

Please note that your username and password will remain active for the period in question. You are welcome to check back from time to time, or you may wish to join the Controlled Vocabulary "group" by sending a note to (controlledvocabulary-subscribe@yahoogroups.com), or going to the bottom of the main page on the Controlled Vocabulary site at (http://ControlledVocabulary.com/). This list is primarily for the discussion of the use of controlled vocabulary in building and managing image databases, and dealing with metadata for image collections, but I will also post notices of catalog updates in addition to sending you an email.

If you are having problems with the underlying Adobe Lightroom program, check out Lightroom Online Help file, or the Adobe User to User Forums.

Please note that use of the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword catalog is subject to the End-User License Agreement ("EULA"), and that by downloading this software you agree to be bound by those terms and conditions.

Import and Use of your Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (CVKC) with Adobe Lightroom 1.1+

Import and Use of your Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (CVKC)
with Adobe Lightroom 1.1+