Catalogs and keywords

Hi,
I'm using Photoshop Elements and think about switching to Lightroom and the full Photoshop.
What concerns me is there any compatibility between the catalogs and keywords so it's possible to migrate my collection.
And what is the best way to go, use Lightroom for the catalog, Bridge or Elements or maybe abondone these altogheter and go for a third party catalog program.
Could anybody give me any clues and thoughts about this, my collection is now about 5000 pics, jpeg and raw.
TIA,
Leo Liekens

Use Lightroom for the cataloguing and adjusting, and then Elements when you need to edit some pixels - but only use one program for cataloguing. You could add Photoshop as well if you find you need/want it.
John

Similar Messages

Catalog and Keyword Non-Image files

In addition to my images, I have a growing collection of background and reference information relating to the subject or location of the images.
I would like Lightroom to be able to Catalog and apply keywords to non-image files.
I use a metadata search to find my images; I want to be able to use the same tool (Lightroom) and the same metadata (keywords) to find other related information.
If Lightroom could Catalog and Keyword all Adobe format files (PDF, InDesign, etc.) this would be a great start.
The next step; selectable list of file-types; export keywords to .xmp

Joe,
Being a digital archivist dealing primarily with pages digitized from the turn of the 20th Century for a religious sect I am highly involved in the usage of keywords. Each page of a work, be it either a volume of a newspaper or a book, contains keywords. I do not use side-car files but instead incorporate my keywords directly into the resultant TIF file.
So I used your posting to see what the answer was. To that end I am presently working on a 1922 title, Thirty-One Years of Organized Work in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana by Church of the Brethren from 1891 to 1922, that will consist of slightly over 500 pages. To test your question I placed the title of the work as a keyword. I then used Bridge's find ability. It did not work.
I forgot that Bridge converts all commas into semi-colons. And changing the colons into semi-colons still returned no results. An examination of the keywords tab showed the string broken down in to sections. Searching for the longest string showed the problem. Returning to my keyowrd string I removed all instances of the semi-colons and re-searched. This resulted in a properyl found file.
So. The longest string I have tested to date is 120 characters, the title of the work minus the commas. I suspect that Curt is correct in his assumption that it is limited by the operation system. I tested this theory by incorporating a double string (without the commas) of my book's title. This was 241 characters including the space between the duplicated title. The search was successful. A triple set of the title returned no hits.
Wayne Webb

Serious SEO problem--How does one apply SEO description, keywords etc. to catalog and product pages?

I'm working with the BC template TRIBECA. It comes with 2 page templates. I used one of the templates to create the catalog and product pages. Now I'm stuck with a single description tag and keyword tag for SEO purposes. Is there a workaround other than creating multiple template pages, one for each catalog and product page?
UPDATE- I mistakenly mentioned I used template to create product pages. Actually product pages are created with a template but not one you can choose. This mystery template uses 2 h1 tags which is an SEO no,no. How do I remove one of the h1s?

You should be able to ammend that layout by going to your Admin>>Site Manager>>Module Templates>>Online Shop Layouts.
All the necessary files will be there. I suspect it is the Overall Layout and Individual Product - Large you are after...
You can also make use of custom 1,2,3 and 4 tags for extra descriptions etc as BC will automatically render meta tags in the corect spot if they are included in the layout.
...also, note that when creating a catalog, you can add a title and description...
...and you can create custom layout templates too>> refer to this article: http://helpx.adobe.com/business-catalyst/partner/using-custom-templates-modules.html
@webmosphere

Images (w/correct meta data) are in catalog and on disk, but LR 5.7 considers them new on Import

For reasons explained below, I want to try to re-import all my images into LR and hope that none/few are in fact considered new and are imported. Yet, for some folders, LR is apparently unable to detect that my source images are already in the catalog, and are on disk, and that the source file meta data matches what LR knows about the images. When I click an image in LR and Show in Finder, I do see the imported image on disk. I can edit the image in the Develop module. So, it seems good, but all is not well.   Sorry for the long post here, but I wanted to provide as much info as I could, as I am really seeking your help, which I'd very much appreciate.
Here are some screen shots that illustrate the problem:
Finder contents of the original images
LR folder hierarchy
an image as seen in LR
Finder content of external LR copy of images
import showing 10 "new" photos
The original images ... (I'm not sure why the file date is April 2001 but the actual image date is January 2011; I may have just used the wrong date on the folder name?)
The LR folder hierarchy ...
An image as seen in LR ...
The external folder containing the images in the LR library
But on import of the original source folder, LR sees 10 "new" photos ...
I tried "Synchronize Folder ..." on this particular folder, and it simply hangs half-way through as seen in the screen shot below.   IS THIS AN LR BUG?   This is really odd, since "Synchronize Folder ..." on the top-level folder completes quickly.
I have a spreadsheet of of the EXIF data for the original files and those created by LR. (I extracted this info using the excellent and free pyExifToolGui graphical frontend for the command line tool ExifTool by Phil Harvey.)   Almost all of the Exif data is the same, but LR has added some additional info to the files after import, including (of course) keywords. However, I would not have expected the differences I found to enter into the duplicate detection scheme. (I didn't see a way to attach the spreadsheet to this posting as it's not an "image".)
I'm running LR 5.7 on a 27" iMac with Yosemite 10.10.2, having used LR since LR2. I have all my original images (.JPEGs and RAWs of various flavors) on my internal drive on the Mac.   To me this is like saving all my memory cards and never re-using them.   Fortunately, these files are backed up several ways.   I import these images (copying RAWs as DNG) into LR with a renaming scheme that includes the import number, original file creation date and original file name.   There should be one LR folder for each original source file folder, with the identical folder name (usually a place and date). I store the LR catalog and imported images on an external drive. Amazingly and unfortunately my external drive failed as did it's twin, same make/size drive that I used as a backup with Carbon Copy Cloner.   I used Data Rescue 4 to recover to a new disk what I thought was almost all of the files on the external drive.
So, I thought all would be well, but, when I tried "Synchronize Folder" using the top-level folder of my catalog, the dialog box appeared saying there were over 1000 "New" photos that had not been imported. This made be suspicious that I had failed to recover everything.   But actually things are much worse than I thought..   I have these counts of images:
80,0061 files in 217 folders for my original source files (some of these may be (temporary?) copies that I actually don't want to import into LR)
51,780 files in 187 folders on my external drive containing the LR photo library
49,254 images in the top-level folder in the LR catalog (why different from the external file count?)
35,332 images found during import of the top-level folder containing original images
22,560 images found as "new" by LR during import
1,074 "new" images reported by Synchronize Folder ... on the top-level folder in the catalog; different from import count
Clearly things are badly out of sync.   I'd like to be sure I have all my images in LR, but none duplicated.   Thus, I want to try to import the entire library and have LR tell me which photos are new. I have over 200 folders in LR. I am now proceeding to try importing each folder, one at a time, to try to reconcile the differences and import the truly missing images. This will be painful. And it may not be enough to fully resolve the above discrepancies.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'd really appreciate your help!
Ken

Thanks for being on the case, dj!   As you'll see below, YOU WERE RIGHT!      But I am confused.
    1. Does the same problem exist if you try to import (not synchronize) from that folder? In other words, does import improperly think these are not duplic
YES. Import improperly thinks they are NOT duplicates, but they are in fact the same image (but apparently not the EXACT SAME bytes on disk!)
    2. According to the documentation, a photo is considered a duplicate "if it has the same, original filename; the same Exif capture date and time; and the same file size."
This is my understanding too.
    3. Can you manually confirm that, for an example photo, that by examining the photo in Lightroom and the photo you are trying to synchronize/import, that these three items are identical?
NO, I CAN'T! The ORIGINAL file name (in the source folder) is the SAME as it was when I first imported that folder. That name is used as part of the renaming process using a custom template. However, the file SIZES are different.    Here is the Finder Get Info for both files. Initially, they appeared to be the same SIZE, 253KB, looking at the summary. But, if you look at the exact byte count, however, the file sizes are DIFFERENT: 252,632 for the original file and 2252,883 for the already-imported file:
This difference alone is enough to indicate why LR does not consider the file a duplicate.
Furthermore, there IS one small difference in the EXIF data regarding dates ... the DateTimeOriginal:
                                                                                               CreateDate              DateTimeDigitized                    DateTimeOriginal              FileModifyDate                              ModifyDate
ORIGINAL name: P5110178.JPG                                     2001:05:11 15:27:18    2001:05:11 15:27:18-07:00        2001:01:17 11:29:00        2011:01:17 11:29:00-07:00       2005:04:24 14:41:05
After LR rename: KRJ_0002_010511_P5110178.JPG    2001:05:11 15:27:18    2001:05:11 15:27:18-07:00        2001:05:11 15:27:18        2011:01:17 11:29:02-07:00       2005:04:24 14:41:05
So ... now I see TWO reasons why LR doesn't consider these duplicates.   Though the file NAME is the same (as original), the file sizes ARE slightly different. The EXIF "DateTimeOriginal" is DIFFERENT.   Therefore, LR considers them NOT duplicates.
     4a. With regards to the screen captures of your images and operating system folder, I do not see that the filename is the same; I see the file names are different. Is that because you renamed the photos in Lightroom (either during import or afterwards)?
I renamed the file on import using a custom template ...
        4b. Can you show a screen capture of this image that shows the original file name in the Lightroom metadata panel (it appears when the dropdown is set to EXIF and IPTC)?
SO ....
The METADATA shown by LR does NOT include the ORIGINAL file name (but I think I have seen it displayed for other files?). The File SIZE in the LR metadata panel (246.96 KB) is different from what Finder reports (254 KB). There are three "date" fields in the LR metadata, and five that I've extracted from the EXIF data.   I'm not sure which EXIF date corresponds to the "Data Time" shown in the LR metadata.
I don't understand how these differences arose.   I did not touch the original file outside LR.   LR is the only program that touches the file it has copied to my external drive during import. (though it was RECOVERED from a failed disk by Data Rescue 4),
NOW ...
I understand WHY LR considers the files different (but not how they came to be so). The question now is WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT?   Is there any tool I can use to adjust the original (or imported) file's SIZE and EXIF data to match the file LR has? Any way to override or change how LR does duplicate detection?
Thanks so very much, dj.   Any ideas on how to get LR to ignore these (minor) differences would be hugely helpful.

Photoshop Elements 6.0 transfer of photos and keywords to Photoshop Elements 13

I have Photoshop 6 with photos and keywords on an older computer. I want to transfer this to a new machine with Photoshop 13. How is this done to preserve/duplicate the keyword attachment?

Please read this help file and follow the instructions step by step.
<Use Backup, Restore to move catalog | Organizer | Elements 6 or later>
Good luck.

Can I migrate tags and keywords created in Elements, to Photoshop CS4?

I have used Elements 11 for cataloguing a lot of photos but I want to use Photoshop CS4 for other purposes. The tags and keywords I created in Elements disappear in PS. How can I migrate them? Does CS4 have a similar cataloguing ability?

When you add keywords to images in Photoshop Elements Orgainzer, they are added to the catalog not to the file directly. You can save the keywords to the file directly by using File > Save Metadata to Files.
If you use the Edit with Photoshop feature of the Organizer, the file does get sent to Photoshop with metadata attached (without having to use the above steps). But in order to see this data you have to go to File > File Info in Photoshop.
Beyond that, not all file formats support metadata or keywords, and not all application have a way of displaying or reading keywords.
Photoshop doesn't have any cataloging abilities. The closest it has is the Bridge companion app. This does not catalog your files, but simply allows you to view the files on your hard drive (similar to Windows Explorer or Mac Finder) with more information displayed.

Lightroom 5 and Bridge 6- Color Label and Keyword compatibility

I've added color labels and keywords to images in Lightroom 5 but I'm not seeing them in Bridge CC.
Lightroom Metadata > Color Label Set is set to Lightroom Default (Red-Yellow etc.
And Bridge Preferences > Labels is also set with "Red, Yellow etc" text.
In other words they are the same, But I'm not seeing the color labels or the keywords in Bridge.
Thanks,

The answer to this problem is that, in order for Bridge and Lightroom to share labels etc. Lightroom has to write its metadata into xmp sidecar files.
To do this go to: Lightroom > Catalog Settings > Metadata Tab and check : Automatically write changes into XMP.

.tif thumbs and keywords not showing in Bridge.

After creating a new catalog in Lightroom 4, the .tif thumbs and keywords won't show in Bridge? .tif files created via the default catalog still show; and from what I can tell, the catalog setting are identical.

The catalog settings pf Bridge and Lr are not identical.
Bridge doesn't work with a catalog.
Lr works with a catalog; that means it works with a database where everything you do in Lr is stored - automatically (without the need for <save>) and instantly.
Bridge just reads files from disk and doesn't have a catalog (database), and - particularly - it cannot read the Lr catalog.
So, in order to make metadata, such as keywords, captions, title, and also your edits created in Lr visible in Bridge you need a "information shuttle" between Lr and Bridge.
This feature is already built into Lr: When you <save metadata to file> (see below on how to do this), Lr writes the data that are saved in the catalog also to the image file (not in the image pixels!!).
In case of a Raw file, a xmp side-car file is created, in case of TIFFs, PSDs, JPGs the data is written into the file header.
If this is done, Bridge will read the data from file and will display your images accordingly.
To <save metadata to file> select one or several images in the Grid View and go >Metadata >Save metadata to file. Alternatively press Cmd / Ctrl + letter S on your keyboard.
Or, you can select <Automatically write changes to XMP> in >Edit >Catalog Settings > Metadata tab.
Color labels will be transferred correctly only if the textual descriptions for the labels are identical in Lr and in Bridge.
Message was edited by: web-weaver

Export Resized Photos as New Catalog with Keyword Hierarchy

I want a new catalog with small jpgs and the hierarchical keywords. But I seem to be able to get each part of that individually but I can't seem to get them all at the same time.
If I select images and export them with "Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy" checked, then import those new jpgs into a new catalog, my keywords are a flat list without the hierarchy. I tried exporting my keyword hierarchy as *.txt then importing it into an empty catalog so the hierarchy already existed. When I imported the new jpgs into that catalog, the keywords still came in as a flat list appended to the hierarchical keyword list.
I tried selecting the images and importing as a new catalog, which gives me a new catalog, but the new catalog has the original raw images.
Any suggestions?
Thanks for any help with this.

Thanks, I thought I might be missing something. I had thought of doing what you suggested, but was worried about the potential for messing up my "real" catalog. If this is the only option, I think I'll just live with the flat keyword list for this project.
To answer your question about why I want to do this: I am exporting photos that I'm putting into a ZenPhoto gallery on my website. I'm resizing the images for the web, and I don't want the resized jpgs in my main catalog. The web jpgs will have something in the Rights Usage IPTC data that I don't want in my main catalog, so I wanted the web jpgs in a catalog to change the IPTC data, although I could do that in Bridge.

Dropping categories and keywords?

Original post by melissa reed
10:54am, May 17
Has anyone had issues with categories and keywords being dropped when services are imported? I create the package in one environment from catalog deployer (an advanced service package). The primary service definition is set to replace. All other settings are set to skip. It doesn't happen all the time or even with all services. It's sporadic. Any others experience this?
TIA!
Melissa

Scott S - Gap, Inc.
8:45am, May 19
I'm having the same issue with categories and keywords being dropped when using the export/import function in ServiceDesigner (v2008.3 SP5) to clone services. It's very easy to re-create the issue:
Person1 exports a service to be cloned. The service is associated with Category A.
Person2 adds a few other services to Category A
Person1 renames the service name in the exported XML and then imports the XML to clone the service.
The import causes all of Person2's services to be dropped from CategoryA.
I'm in the process of writing up more details and will be opening a case with NCC.
--Scott
The import causes all of Person2's services to be dropped from Category A. I'm in the process of writing up more details and will be opening a case with NCC.
--Scott
Chris Morris - HNTB
5:46am, May 20
I don't believe we've experienced this with v9.1.

How to overwrite ratings and keywords when moving files?

I have just edited a number of photos on my computer by adding ratings and keywords. I tried to export them to an external hard drive, so I could free up space on my computer, but I discovered that copies of those photos already existed on the external HD. I selected the "overwrite" option, but the ratings and keywords didn't copy over from the computer versions to the hard drive versions. Is there a way of doing that?
Thanks!

I detect a lot of confusion here.
Originally, you want to move a photo to your external HD to free up space on your computer's internal HD. That's what you said.
Then later, you said that your backups are on your external HD.
So, if you are successful at moving photos from your internal HD to your external HD (however you do it), then you no longer have backups of those photos. This is not a good thing. Now, you have only ONE copy of these moved photos (you used to have two). Furthermore, when your external HD fails (and it will), now you have ZERO copies of these photos. ZERO copies is not good. ZERO copies is bad. You are living dangerously.
You need to address this issue, most likely by purchasing more disk space, and then beginning regular, automatic backups so that you always have two copies of each photo, one copy on each of two physically distinct drives.
Next source of confusion ... you seem to be implying that copies of photos on both hard drives are cataloged in Lightroom. This seems unnecessary and a way to cause confusion. I wouldn't do things this way.

Have PSE 9 and wish to merge duplicated categories, sub-categories and keywords etc?

Have PSE 9 and over the years have found have duplicated categories and subcategories and wish to know the best way to Merge and organise them. Also have a huge list of 'Imported Keywords' and not sure how they are formed and how to mege them with the existing categories, sub-categories etc?
Thanks

The 'imported keywords' category is created when you import picture files which already have been keyworded in PSE (or LR or PS...). When you import you are prompted to keep the keywords. If they don't belong to a category of your present catalog, the keywords will be added there.
Merging categories, sub-categories and keywords:
This is not difficult, but can be time consuming.
- Select a keyword in the 'imported category'
- Right click and select 'edit'
- in the dialog, replace the category or sub-category by the correct one
In that way, you can 'move' a keyword to the correct parent.
If you have duplicates or near duplicates, such as a correct and an incorrect spelling, you have to:
- select all items with the wrong keyword
- assign all selected items the right keyword
- select the now luseless keyword in the keyword panel and delete it.

Reinstalled PSE7 - how to retrieve albums and keyword tags? [Was: Question]

Hiya
Using Photoshop Elem’7- I have had a major problem with my pc and I have gone back to factory settings, I have reloaded the Photoshop software – I can see all my photo’s back on my hard drive and also on Photoshop but I cannot retrieve my albums and keyword tags
Can anybody help me on this topic?

Hi
This is actually the Photoshop forum, and you would do better in the Elements forum.
http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop_elements
But it seems that Elements creates a catalog file where I suspect it keeps the info you are looking for.
This is one link, but you could try Google with Adobe Photoshop Elements catalog location, ot just go ask in the other forum.
http://don26812.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/photoshop-elements-catalog-file-the-critical-link /

New Catalog and No More Key Words

I did a bunch of file housekeeping (empty directories erased and some movement of files to other drives. I created a new catalog and imported all the files again. They all came but without their key words. Did I screw up? I still have my old catalog files.

Tony Reynes wrote:
Ian,
Thank you so much for such a simple and clear answer. Can I do a Hybrid where I save the metadata on the files that have not been moved; create a new catalog and then manually apply key words to the files that I have moved?
Your question indicates you don't really understand how Lightroom stores keywords. By default, the keywords and other metadata are never written to the actual files. So ... moving the files or not has nothing to do with whether or not the metadata will show up on re-import. The metadata should be written to all of your files via Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-S. And as I said in my earlier post, other information in the LR database will not get written to your files when you do Ctrl-S, and will not wind up in the LR catalog upon re-import. And creating new catalogs and re-importing simply isn't the best way to go. So ... forget this hybrid idea, forget this idea of re-importing, go back to your original catalog before the moves and work with that.

Catalogs and Collections

Windows 7 and CS4 Production Premium, LR3 and Acrobat X I have just received LR3.3 so this application is new to me. I currently use a non-Adobe application for my image database management. My images are primarily associated with genealogy work saved as uncompressed TIFF. At this time I have 5716 files in 68 folders. It is organized as follows: The highest level is by family surname (6 folders). Each of these folders contain 9 other sub-folders which represents image content; such as, individuals, siblings, family, etc. One of the highest level folders is used to contain images that have multiple family surname people in the image. In addition to these genealogy folders, there are other folders that contain images sorted by characteristics, such as, trips, scenic, trains, planes, etc. Using the current application terms, I maintain a catalog for each sub-folder. It is a thumbnail of each image in that folder with the file name and IPTC caption "headline" description. I make extensive use of IPTC metadata for each image: Headline, Description, Title, Keywords and Instructions. I want to fully understand the LR3 catalog(s) and collection(s) and smart collection(s) before I begin the changeover to LR3. Q1: Whenever I add a new image to my hard file storage folder, do I have to manually add it to the LR catalog? With my current application, when a folder is selected in that application, it looks for changes in the folder and new thumbnails are generated for the new files. Q2: A smart collection appears to built by keywords from the LR3 catalog and the non-smart collection must be manually built from the LR3 catalog...Correct? Q3: When I build a collection by "keywords" can portions of the file name structure be included (not placed in the keyword metadata) in the build criteria? Q4: Been thinking of using one LR3 catalog for my genealogy images and one for my non-genealogy images. Then use collections (smart or non-smart to be determined) for each of my sub-folders. Sound reasonable? Q5: Can I do a search on the catalog via keywords without requiring a collection name defined? This would be a temporary assemblage of images only. Q6: Can I print the catalog or a collection with the file name and IPTC data (e.g., Headline) under each thumbnail?

Di_paige, thanks for your response.
As noted in my previous response, I took the word "keyword" too literally. That confusion is now cleared up.
A clarification to your question on multiple surname handling. Currently, I have a set of hard drive folders for specific surnames and one other set for images having multiple surname content. I think that if I have one catalog for genealogy that a search by surname will turn up the applicable images in all the hard disk folders (assuming they have been cataloged).
The thought process of a collection per hard disk folders is mostly governed by the desire for printing a document (want to avoid the term catalog) for each such hard disk folder when a person requests such information. Doing so at this level reduces the print size of the document. Now as I get into this with LR maybe it is not necessary if I can simply print a set of images based on file names (with wild cards) and IPTC keyword content.
Thanks again for your helpful answers.

Catalogs and keywords

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