Hierarchical keywords, collections and XMP

Hi, I tried to figure out how LR stores the hierarchical keyword tree in the XMP data. XMP data written by LR contains all the info to recreate the keyword hierarchy. While the keyword text strings are plain ascii, the keyword linking information seems to be in a block named <lr:privateRTKInfo>. Binary stuff... It would be great if there were some info by adobe on how to write XMP data for hierarchical keywords! Background is migration/duplication from another DAM. Also I dont see the need for 'collections' . There seems to be no other functionality than keywords and moreover 'collections' dont survive an XMP export/import (metadata->XMP->export, remove pic, import pic). I guess this is a bug... klaus

Nope. It's how it is. Collections, Snapshots, Virtual Copies and Stacks are not exported in XMP.

Similar Messages

What is the difference between a keyword collection and a smart collection?

I am trying to figure out how to work with a smart collection.
I have no clue/
May someone with more experience on FCU ProX help me please

With Keyword Collections, you apply descriptions (Keywords) that make organizational sense to you: examples, Close up, Wide Shot, Exterior, Action, and so forth. Smart Collections are made from rules that might include Text, Date, Format, and so forth,
Here's a video with examples,
Russ

LR4 - Hierarchical Keyword Metadata Writing Problem

Having found a problem with LR4 in reading hierarchical metadata from photo files, I now seem to have found a similar problem when writing metadata to files.
As before, I use hierarchical keywords with the "/" character as the separator in the photo files metadata.
Let's say I assign the keyword "Christmas" to a photo. This actually has the hierarchy "Events/holidays/Christmas"
When I write out the metadata to the photo, I want, and expect, the hierarchical keyword string to be written: Events/holidays/Christmas.
Instead, what I get are three separate keywords written out separated by commas: Events,holidays,Christmas.
This is pointless - LR4 has just destroyed my keyword hierarchy and just given me a flat list of keywords.
Is this a bug, or is this indeed expected behaviour of LR4? Because if it's the latter, then LR4 is not going to work for me as a metadata editor.
Thanks

That's the expected behavior of LR 3 and 4. Some background:
There is no widely accepted industry standard yet for handling hiearchical keywords. (The Metadata Working Group has defined a standard, but I don't know of any application that has implemented it yet.)
LR stores hierarchical keywords in the XMP:HierarchicalSubject metadata field (a non-standard field recognized by LR and Bridge), with the elements of the hierarchy separated by "|", e.g. Events|Holidays|Christmas. In the industry-standard field XMP:Subject, LR only stores non-hierarchical keywords. You can control whether the containing keywords (e.g. Events and Holidays) are also stored in the XMP:Subject field with the keyword options Export Containing Keywords and Include On Export.
Other non-standard approaches store hierarchical keywords in the XMP:Subject field, with the elements separated by "|", ".", or "/". For compatability, LR will recognize those hierarchical keywords when it reads metadata, controlled by the options in Preferences > File Handling. But LR always writes out its hierarchical keywords using its own non-standard approach.
Perhaps in a few years, the industry will have converged on a standard and implemented it.

Hierarchical Keywords in Filter

Hello Everyone!
I have just moved from Windwos PSE8 with Organizer to PSE8 on Mac with Adobe Bridge. I am trying find my way in the Bridge application. Have searched and watched many videos on it over the internet but I still have one thing that is driving me nuts.
I realized that I could inport and understand my hierarchical keyword structure and have them showed up in the keywords panel (or whatever it is called) in an hierarchical way).
But when I try to use filter and filter my photos based on the keywords I can only see the deppest level word. For example, if I hava a Category of WildLife/Animal/Cat I can only see the keyword "cat". I may have another keyword like Toys/Fabric/Cat and in this case if I only specify the "cat" keywork I will end up with photos from both real and toy cats....
How can this be handled? One of the features that I loved from Organizer was the ability to seach based on differente hierarchical keywords.
Thanks a lot.
Paulo

iPhoto doesn't support hierardhical keywords. Only Aperture does. We don't know what Apple's plans are for updates to iPhoto as we're just users like yourself but you can put in a feature request to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html.

Hierarchical keywords

Now that with LR 1.1 the db/library became finally usable, I wonder how consistent the keyword functionality in LR really is. On the left side we have the 'hierarchical keyword' panel which works great! However all the other keywording tools in the library module seem to deal always with single keywords. For example, if I have duplicate keywords at different hierarchy levels like in the following case:
things.vehicles.cars
events.2007.motorshow.cars
How do I deal with such cases when I use the keywording tool on the right panel? I think that the present mechanisms also enhances the probability for inconsistencies in the keyword tree because of typing errors. My feeling is that a single instance to define keywords in the hierarchical keyword tree and other tools to assign them to the pics would be the best, but maybe I simple don't fully understand the keyword concept in LR...

I have been taking a new look at some of my hierarchical keywords now that LR1.1 is out and am even more puzzled. I have a group of old images that had never been in LR, but had been re-organized in Vista Photo Gallery. When I tried importing some of them into LR1.1 they came in with the hierarchical tree intact in the Keyword Tags panel as pretty as you please with only the lowest level of the keyword chain displayed in Keywording. Then I copied a RAW file to my desktop, imported it into LR with no keywords, added the hierarchical keywords I had previously imported and exported the file to a new jpeg. Photo gallery added each keyword as a top-level keyword instead of adding them to the proper hierarchy. Those keywords are separated by commas in the picture/properties/details/tags field. What really puzzles me is that if I import a jpeg that I had previously exported from LR with a top level keyword and added to a keyword hierarchy in Photo Gallery it comes in with all the keywords in the hierarchy separated by a "/" even though I do have the "Treat "/" as a keyword separator" box checked in preferences. For my personal needs, it still more convenient to use only top level keywords in LR and to use the drag and drop method in Photo Gallery to organize them into hierarchies- at least until Adobe and Microsoft sort this out or someone shows me what I am doing wrong. Edit: I should say that I re-imported the just-exported jpeg file. It came in with the keywords separated by commas.

Showing the real timecode on keyword collection clips

When I create clips in a Keyword collection is there any way to have them show the correct timecode when in a list view? Under the media start column the timecode appears to be the starting timecode of the main clip the keyworded clips are from.
In fact once I have made a keyword collection with a lot of clips (in this case it is long interviews with keyword clips for different parts) I can't figure out any way to sort those clips in the keyword collection. They seem to be there randomly. Like sorting by timecode would put them in order but since the start column is all the same it won't sort them.
Seems a simple thing so I must be overlooking something.

Say I have a hour long clip that has start timecode of 02:10:10:10
I make lots of keyword selctions called Good Bite. When I got to that keyword collection and go to a list view and look at the Media Start column every one of those clips in that keyword collection show a start time of 02:10:10:10
Though they clearly aren't really that start time as many of them all come later out of that same clip. I can see the REAL timecode in the timecode viewer at the bottom. Since the media start doesn't show the right timecode there is not way to sort by that timecode or even use that as a refrence.
This seems like a HUGE oversight as seeing timecode is important. The timecode is there the column just doesn't show it, it shows the timecode of the first frame of the clip the keyword subclip came from. These seems very wrong.
Does that make sense? This seems like such a simple thing.

Hierarchical keywords and vista compatability

Any chance Lightroom could export/write Hierarchical Keywords that are compatible with Vista?
http://blogs.msdn.com/pix/archive/2007/02/01/hierarchical-tags-and-xmp.aspx
I expored a photo with hierarchical keywords in Lightroom and they did not appear in Windows Photo Gallery.
Looking at the jpg in notepad it appears that the parent/child relationship is not written in the XMP block. The keywords are instead flattened.

As far as I know there needs to be better standards on how hierarchical keywords are stored in XMP. It would be ideal if there was a standard to store hierarchical keywords in legacy ICPT fields, even though they were not designed for a hierarchy. Just getting everyone to agree on the delimiter would be a great help. I'd like to be able to store my hierarchical keywords on my jpg ICPT fields as a backup that is independent of side car files and ideally independent of any software, right now users have to jump through a lot of hoops to make keywords written in one application, perfectly compatible with another one.

Should I Avoid LR4 and Get LR3 Because of My Huge Hierarchical Keyword List?

I abandoned LR2 several years ago because it crashed from my hierarchical list of 12,000 keywords. (Botanical and common names and other terms.) I have been using CS5/Camera Raw/Bridge to manage and edit my images. The hierarchical list is necessary for my stock photo business.
I will soon be needing to compare and edit images for a book publication and gallery show and I am thinking I may need to return to LR so I can work more effciently. I do not care about not exporting some keywords or synonyms etc. I think (right now anyway) that it is fine that all keywords associated with the images get exported for my stock submissions. I ususally check off only the sub-keywords or sub-sub-sub keywords.
Here are my questions:
1) Is LR 3 able to handle my huge list of hierarchical keywords which is now larger than 12,000 words?
2) Should I upgrade to LR3 and not to LR4 to avoid the keyword mess I have been reading about but don't understand very well?
3) Is it possible to even upgrade to LR3 now that LR4 is released?
3) Would LR4 handle my keywords better or worse than LR2? Than LR3?
4) Is there a work efficiency reason to upgrade to CS6 without using any version of LR and continue using Bridge and Camera Raw as I have been?
5) Is there anything else I have not thought to ask? I am somewhat technically challenged and dread learning new software, having been burned in the past with ExpressionsMedia disaster and LR2 which crashed etc.
Thanks for any and all input from the forum!

I try to answer your questions. I also have a large list of hierarchical keywords (funny ... also botanical names) but not as much as you have.
1) I think that Lr3 is able to handle your list of keywords. I have not heard from anybody that there is a limit to the number of keywords that Lr is able to handle.
2) There seem to be some keyword issues in Lr4. My keywords were perfectly fine in Lr3 but after upgrading to Lr4 some of my keywords were not populated, meaning that the keywords themselves were listed in the keyword list but the image count showed 0. I still have my Lr3 catalog so was able to check (with Lr3) that, indeed, in Lr3 all the keywords in question were populated with the correct number of images. Fortunately there were not too many of these not-populated keywords, so I corrected the issue manually.
Since correct keywords are mandatory for your stock business, you are right in hesitating to upgrade to Lr4. In my opinion, the improvements that Lr4 offers over Lr3 are mainly in areas that are - probably - not so important to a stock business: improvements in the Develop Module and new Process Version, the Book Module, the map Module. On the other hand I would think that image management is paramount for you and in this area Lr4 is not much different than Lr3.
3) You will not be able to get an upgrade to Lr3 from Adobe now that Lr4 has been released. So you had to find a 3rd party vendor (B&H? Amazon?) who still sells Lr3.
4) Apart from the issue described above, I don't see any difference in keyword handling between Lr3 and Lr4. Lr2 is too far back for me - I don't remember.
5) My suggestion for you would be: You have to upgrade at some point. The longer you wait, the more difficult the transition will be because the differences of future versions to Lr2 will become greater. Since at the moment version 4.1 is in the works (there have been two RCs (Release candidates) of version 4.1 already), maybe it would be wise to wait until the final 4.1 version is out. maybe the keyword issues have been fixed.
6) You can "upgrade" to Lr4 and still have Lr2 on your system. All the Lr versions are stand-alone versions, not "plug-ins" for the previous versions. So you can have two (or more) different Lr versions on your system. So I would suggest that you upgrade to Lr 4.1 (once this version is out) but leave Lr2 on your system. When you Lr4 you will be asked if you want to upgrade your Lr catalog to Lr4 and you have the option of saving the Lr4 catalog as a different file, so that your Lr2 catalog is still available for Lr2 (Lr2 will not be able to work with the Lr4 catalog!). That way, if anything is amiss in Lr4 you can go back to Lr2 and work from there.

Is it possible to use markers in a Premiere Pro sequence such as Chapter / Comment / Segmentation and export the XMP metadata for a database so that when the video is used as a Video On-Demand resource, a viewer can do a keyword search and jump to a relat

Is it possible to use markers in a Premiere Pro sequence such as Chapter / Comment / Segmentation and export the XMP metadata for a database so that when the video is used as a Video On-Demand resource, a viewer can do a keyword search and jump to a related point in the video?

take have to take turns
and you have to disable one and enable the other manually

Adding new files to the existing Keyword Collections

Hi,
I have been using Keyword Collections as folders when importing files - not sure if there is a "normal" way of creating folders for clips/audio/other files?
Anyway, when I start a project and import a folder with a few files, I create Keyword Collection. Later on, when I add more files into that folder in Finder and try to import the same folder as keyword collection again, the "new" files will not be assigned with that keyword collection. They're thrown straight into the event and the keyword collection only shows files from the first import.
In other words, having a Keyword Collection created when importing a folder - is there a way to assign more files to it later on? Sorry if it's a stupid question.
Thanks,
Kamil

YYou can drag them into the keyword collection once you've imported them. Another simple way is to pick up the files in the Finder, use Cmd-tab to switch to FCP, and drag them directly to the collection. The clips will import using your import preference.

How can I sync Bridge between multiple computers at work with keywords/collections/search?

We've been trying to find a digital asset management platform at work for a while now and I recently came across Bridge (we have the Creative Cloud). It's perfect! Except we're all on a bunch of different computers and would need to be able to search the same keywords/collections all from the same server (the photos are in many different folders though). Is there a way to be able to sync all keywords etc on multiple computers? Or if someone opens Bridge and can search right away without having to make all the keywords persistent by finding each photo and clicking on it? We're all on the same Creative Cloud team.

I actually did already create a book with all the files in it, but I couldn't figure out how that was helpful. The hyperlink panel doesn't seem to have any "book" options (unless I'm looking in the wrong place?) and just linking to the different files (after creating the book) didn't have any different results than linking to the files before I created the book.
I thought maybe linking to the different files in the book would work if I could export the whole book to pdf at once (which would be super-helpful in and of itself), but that doesn't seem to be an option either.
I guess what I'm asking is for you to elaborate on what to do after creating the book.
Thanks!

Option To Insert "/" Between Hierarchical Keywords

"Treat "/" as a keyword separator" works for me when importing on Vista. I would like to see it added as an option for export. For example, I have keyword hierarchies of Places/National Parks/Yellowstone and Wildlife/Bears/Grizzly in both LR and my Vista Photo Gallery. Having LR automatically insert "/" when I export would automatically add them to their proper place in Photo Gallery. I would expect that "Places/National Parks/Yellowstone,Wildlife/Bears/Grizzly" would pop up in Keyword Tags and that when exported the images would be added to their proper hierarchies. Of course, this should be optional.

So to sum up, I should be spending time devising a sensible keyword structure for the entire library, and then per project/import, select which keywords I'm likely going to use for this particular set of photos
Yes, find keyword sets for typical workflows - the ones you will need for family shots, for vacation trips, for specific projects you are working on.
That seems to make sense, however what happens if I have forgotten to add an already existing keyword to my button sets and add it later (using the textfield above the button set selector), will that duplicate the keyword (ie adding it again to the toplevel), or will it select the keyword from deep down in the already existing hierarchy (the preferred approach!)?
if you add an already existing keyword in the searchfield, the search will show all already defined versions of this keyword. You may have used it more than once - for example "Flower"
There are predefined keywords that may be using the same term. Click the one you want to use.
Then the existing keyword will be used.
You can add new keywords to the button set any time from the "Edit" panel:

What's annoying about Events, Keyword Collections & Move to trash

Today I was given a project to edit where the Event was already created, the media was optimized, keywords added and keyword collections created to split the media into folders. All I had to do was to sync the 2x cam's to separately recorded audio, and begin grabbing sound bites.
Nothing unusual so far....
To start my syncing, I began by finding all the clips from CAM-A and added the keyword SYNC 1 (CAM-A). I also added the separately recorded audio file within this keyword collection. Clicking on the SYNC 1 (CAM-A) keyword collection icon, I highlighted all the clips, right-clicked and chose Syncronize Clips.
This is what I find annoying: When I choose Syncronize Clips, The synchronized compound clip doesn't automatically appear in my SYNC 1 (CAM-A) keyword collection folder, instead I need to click on the event and add the keyword for it to appeare in that keyword collection. Wouldn't one think that if I chose to create a Syncronized Clip in that keyword collection that FCPX knows thats where I want it to appear...!
Anyway so in this particular case not all the clips synced, so what I then did was chose the un-synced clip + the audio clip and synced them alone. As i synced these clip separatley, what I was doing was moving the already synced clip to the trash, totally forgetting that these were also being deleted from my main event folder. Boy was I "P***'S'd"
Again what I found annoying: if you move a clip to the trash in a keyword collection, you actually delete that from the event too. Persionally I'd like to see an option so that you can righ-click and delete a keyword rather than having to twirl down the triangle, double clicking the keywords to activate the keyword editor, which you then have to select the keyword and hit delete to remove it out of that keyword collection.
If for arguments sake a clip wouldn't sync, what I then did was find a small snippet of the same audio. I would make a range selection and add a keyword to both the clip and the audio file.
What I also found annoying: when you open the Syncronized Compound Clip, your unable to stretch the clip to the left, instead I needed to use my "P" tool to move the clip to the right, which then gave me room to streatch the clip to the left.
Sorry I just had to get that out of my system....

andynick wrote:
Yes - and I'm another who loves FCP X . . .
(but doesn't it drive you round the BEND somitimes)?
Absolutely Andy.... I won't go into what does and doesn't drive me mad, but your absolutely right, at times I have a smile from ear to ear, and other times I'm left scratching my head and spending valuable time trying to work out a workaround or workflow.
andynick wrote:
I think Apple's recommendation of 4GB RAM is a joke.
True... I spent a day with a colleague editing side by side. He has a 17" MacBook Pro Quad 2.3Ghz with 4GB RAM, and I run on a 17" MacBook Pro Quad 2.3Ghz with 8GB RAM. You wouldn't believe the difference an extra 4GB's of RAM can make, I can only imagine how your system will run on 16GB
BenB wrote:
You can right-click a clip to remove keywords, but the only option as present it to remove all keywords at once (Cntr+0). Cmd+K to remove one keyword when you have multiple keywords seems pretty dang easy to me. If you had more than one Keyword, what would the option in a menu be? It could make for a very long menu, it'd have to be a dynamic menu, it'd get too convoluted. So, Contrl+0 or Cmd+K seems pretty easy and efficient to me.
Ben it was only a suggestion…! Anyway It's probably best we rest this here, it's clear we have different opinions on this one
BenB wrote:
As for workflow, no, FCP X is a totally different workflow than any other NLE, period. You can't compare. I've been training editors for years who have lots of experience, are from cable networks, and they still walk away faster, more efficient editors. Thus, I have to say, how long you've been editing, and how many different systems you've use, really doesn't have any bearig when learning something, especially as radicallly different as FCP X.
Who's comparing?
The only reason I mentioned what software I've edited on in the past, was so you can see my ability to adapt. FCP X isn't that different! you still work with media, you still need to manage, organise or name your bins, or in FCPX's terms keyword collections. The list could go on....
Anyway I'm not here to boast about my experience or the software I've edited on, instead I posted a "personal" view in what I thought would make a nice enhancement, which at the end of the day is just my view…
BenB wrote:
I've worked with Larry Jordan a couple of times. Good tips and tricks stuff. But the Apple authorized training materials are best for learning from the begining and getting a good handle on things in general. Nobody (and I mean nobody) knows FCP X like Steve Martin.
I respect your advise and have just purchased, and am now downloading Steve Martin's tutorials.
You've got me curious... I'd like to see how different Steve Martin explains FCP X as opposed to Larry Jordan's videos.
I'll report back on this one as soon as I've viewed them all
BenB wrote:
Fill out the feedback page, as I have done a kazillion times already, and let Apple know we need these new Sync'ed Compounds to retian the keywords of their originals. It would make for a faster workflow. Seems it'd be easy for them to program in.
Already done and let's hope so.....
BenB wrote:
Here's what I do when sync'ing a bunch of stuff. I create a Smart Collection that is just a Text parameter that "includes" the word "Compound". Then when I make the new Compound clips, I can get right to them. It's a workaround.
10 points for this tip Ben....
This is a perfect example where someone (me) expresses his thoughts, then someone (you) finding a solution.
Love your work mate....!
BenB wrote:
I don't do multiple syncs at once, because of bugs, that's all.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but an explanation as to why and what bugs would be wonderful.
Ben, again please don'y take my response as being aggressive. I believe we all come to these discussion forums because some of us have questions, others idea's, and most importantly the ones that give us solutions. That's what makes this community a happy place to come too

Changing name of a clip in a keyword collection

When I find something interesting in the interview I am editing I will select it and give it a "soundbite" keyword. After a while I accumulated about 10 of them. So then I wanted to change their names so I know what they are but FCX changes the name on all of them to the same thing, so they all have the same name now, which is not very helpful. I don't know know if this is the way it is supposed to behave or not but I think it is doing it because all these soundbits came from the same clip. Is this right? What's the best way label/name them so I can identify what they are?

DSLR is the event that's selected. The clip MVI_1681 has two selections, both in the test keyword collection. Here I can make a note to one selection and not the other. If I make the note in the keyword collection it happens as you describe. Not sure why that is. May be a bug.
It may help you to filter in the event browser for just the clips in the keyword collection you want. Press Cmd-F. Click + and choose keywords. Select just the keyword you want and only those clips will appear in the browser as they if you select the keyword collection.
Sorry can't add the image on the forum at the moment. Forum is messed up.

Supplemental Categories to Hierarchical Keywords

Hey All,
I'm a convert first from iMatch, then to Media Pro and finally LightRoom. My files have got dot limited supplementalcategories fields in them, which Media Pro recognized okay and created hierarchical keywords, but LightRoom doesn't.
Is there a way to:
1) Get LightRoom to create the hierarchical keywords? I've parsed out a list of the keywords using exiftool, but trying to do an import in Lightroom has thus far been an exercise in fruition.
2) Assign the keywords as defined in the supplementalcategories?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
thanks
Chris

Yes,
I know LR supports hierarchical keywords.
All these files have dot delimited IPTC Supplemental Categories. LR sees them.
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.003.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.004.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.005.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.006.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.007.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.008.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.009.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.010.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.011.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.012.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.013.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.014.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.015.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.016.jpg
http://www.dubea.com/fotos/lr/20040315-Rain Gutter Regatta.017.jpg
The challenge is translating those supplemental categories into LR hierarchical keywords without reclassifying >10k images....
Any assistance is provided.
Another, related topic.
I'm refreshing IPTC data from my files intl LR and it's stuck near the end. I suspect one of the files has is corrupt. How do I figure out which file it's stuck on?
Thanks
Chris

Hierarchical keywords, collections and XMP

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