Caption field loses focus from one photo to next...

Question

It's that time of year again! I have one race that requires a bib number search, which in turn requires me to enter the bib numbers in the caption field. I used PhotoMechanic last year but was told that I could just as easily do it in Lightroom by entering the number in the caption field and then using command-right arrow to commit the data and move to the next photo while keeping focus on the caption field.
This is happening exactly *some* of the time. Most often, though, when I command-right arrow I'm taken to the next photo but LR sort of "thinks" a little bit and in the process the caption field loses focus. Over the course of thousands of photos, the need to continually grab the mouse and click the focus back on the caption field is cumulatively very, very cumbersome.
Anyone know of a better way to do this?
Thanks,
Dane

Answer 1

Just be aware of the limitations you get for $150...
PM has no editing capability other than cropping an image and even that is pretty limited. So if you aren't going to do a lot of editing then PM might well be the way to go since it might handle metadata editing "better" than LR for the specific task you are doing. Don't forget to add in the cost of the external editor that PM requires.
I'm not looking at replacing LR, just frustrated that I feel the need to supplement it for such a simple task.
BTW, I don't see the behavior you are describing when applying captions to photos sequentially. Sometimes you have to hit ctrl-right a couple of times because of the way LR handles autofill, but you can turn off autofill in catalog preferences.
Yes, when autofill is on I sometimes need to hit command-right arrow a couple of times...once to basically select the autofill option I've been presented, and again to commit the data and move to the next photo. That's not what I'm complaining about. My gripe is that I almost always end up at the next photo with the caption field not having focus as it should.
What were the factors that made you try LR?
I've used LR since the first beta version and have no intention of giving it up. I get frustrated with it now and then, and this is one of those times. Adobe tells me command-right arrow should do what I want, but it doesn't. Why not? So I end up having to use a different app just to add captions.