Library Filter - limited use?

When I got a first look at version 2.0 I though great, it will be better as a DAM program than before and may be able to stop using my other program.
However, when I start to try and use it I find a number if limitations: -
1. Not all fields are searchable.
2. In the metadata bit the fields you can choose are limited.
3. As noted in a previous post the text search can bring up unexpected results.
For example, I have been making use of the category field, and find it very useful, but find in lightroom that it is not a searchable field, and is not listed as a choice for the metadate filter.
A number of questions come to mind: -
1. Is it me who is not using the program correctly;
2. Are there work rounds;
3. Are Adobe likely to address some of these and improve the DAM side of the program; and
4. Is it possible that some of these can be resolved with a metadata plug-in.
All thoughts much appreciated.

Are you sure you don't have any space or any invisible character there in the search box?
If it is empty, my guess is: corrupt catalog. Try creating a new catalog, import some test photos and check if search works fine.

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How to use path names for library filter?

Hi all,
I have been looking for a way to use the library filter functionality to show only images in a particular folder (or subfolder thereof). From the help pages [http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WSAB7B303E-081D-4617-BF47-B4B8D3D49CC3.htm l] I found that the image path is included when you filter using 'any searchable field'.
However, I do not seem to be able to use a full path name, just the individual directory names. To give an example, I can locate files in c:\data\photos using 'contains all: c data photos', but this will also select images in 'c:\data\someotherproject\photos'. I have tried all combinations of slashes and backslashes, but have found no solution to this problem. Does anyone know what the internal representation for the path name is, and if it's possible to search for it?
Just to pre-empt the obvious answer: I know that you can simply click on a folder to show its contents. However, using the filter bar would be a more permanent selection of a working directory, which remains when you click on a collection, for example.
Thanks.
Simon

Sorry, I could have been clearer.
What I'm trying to achieve is the following. My computer contains photos by myself, my wife and others, organised in three main folders. Having them in separate catalogs isn't convenient, because we often have photos of the same event (outings, holidays). However, most of the time I only want to work on my photos, and my wife wants to work on hers. A directory filter would be a good and fool-proof way of doing things. I am currently using a special keyword to do this, but I must remember to apply the correct keyword when importing.
Adding a folder as a favorite only works to select that folder in its entirety. What I would like to do is to have a 'master' folder selected and then use Lightroom as I normally would (select folders, collections, etc) Filtering by path name would enable me to do just that - and it does, except that there are false positives due to not being able to enter a full path name.
A smart collection has the same problem: the 'Folder' rule doesn't seem to support paths. And even if it did, it's not possible to select two collections with a logical 'and' operator, unless you make a new smart collection for each possibility.
My current keyword workaround is functional, but slightly error-prone. And in any case, if 'any searchable field' includes the file path, it stands to reason that there should be a way to match that with the entire path. The documentation isn't clear about this, so I hope that anyone can shed some light on this.

Using Windows 7 and LR 5 when I look at the Keyword List a certain keyword has 7 pictures but when I check the Library Filter with that keyword 350 pictures are shown which includes the 7 pictures that have the keyword. Why does the Library Filter showi

Using Windows 7 and LR 5, when I look at the Keyword List a certain keyword has 7 pictures but when I check the Library Filter with that keyword 350 pictures are shown which includes the 7 pictures that have the keyword. Why does the Library Filter showing pictures that do not match the query

Dan,
Here's what's going on in the catalog you sent me, "Joel & Caitlin's Wedding". There is the keyword "gwenn", which is explicitly assigned to 7 pics. But keyword "schwartz" has a number of synonyms, including "gwenn", and it is assigned to 25 pics. There is no overlap between the two sets of pics.
I discovered these two occurrences by doing Metadata > Export Keywords, opening the exported file in an editor, and then searching for "gwenn". I found two occurrences of "gwenn":
gwenn
schwartz
{gwenn}
From this, you can see that the keyword "schwartz" has 9 synonyms, of which "gwenn" is one.
The filter criterion "Keywords Contain gwenn" will match the 7 pics that are explicitly assigned the keyword "gwenn", and it will also match the 25 pics assigned the keyword "schwartz", because that keyword has a synonym "gwenn".
This illustrates the behavior I mentioned above: The criterion "Keywords contains x" will match against any of a pic's assigned keywords, any of those keywords' ancestor keywords, and any of the synonyms of the assigned keywords and their ancestors.
So LR is operating correctly here, if not in a way that's easy to understand.
It appears that you are using the synonyms of "schwartz" to represent individual members of the Schwartz family. A better way of representing family relationships is to have a parent keyword "Schwartz", with subkeywords for each family member, e.g. "Gwenn Schwartz", "Joe Schwartz", "Jane Schwartz", etc. Repeating the family name in the subkeywords has a couple of advantages. LR usually only displays the "leaf" name of a keyword, so instead of showing you just "Joe", it will show you "Joe Schwartz", helpful when there are a number of different people whose first name is "Joe". Also, if you ever export your pics to other software, it may not understand the LR hierarchy and won't show the parent keywords, so again it's more informative to see a keyword named "Joe Schwartz" rather than "Joe".

How do I filter photos using the keyword hierarchy?

Since Aperture 3.1 came out, I've been taking another look at it and considering switching back from Lightroom. One baby step was to set up a proper keyword hierarchy with Aperture. Trying to use that for sorting photos, I started feeling incredibly frustrated and felt like I must be missing something screamingly obvious.
Here's my issue. Using the keyword HUD, I can set up a nested, hierarchical keyword list. The HUD helpfully displays a running tally of all photos that keyword is applied to. "Great!" I thought, I've got 46 photos of John Smith, let's take a look at them. So I click on the number. Apparently, while Aperture is happy to show you the number of photos with the keyword, it's not willing to take you to those photos (i.e., create a library filter and show the results) via the Keyword HUD.
Bringing up the filter HUD seems unhelpful for the opposite reason. While you can search via the keywords there, it doesn't show the keyword hierarchy! Am I missing something? Say I've got keywords for two people, Adam and Zoe, filed under People/Friends/. Using the keyword box in the filter HUD will list one at the beginning and the other at the end of my entire list of keywords. Worse, the filter HUD only seems helpful for keywords if you know which ones you're looking for, which defeats the point of using a hierarchy. If, say, I know there's 3 or 4 people I'm looking for under a particular category, but I can't remember their name of the top of my head, how do I go about finding them using the filter HUD? All I have is the long, uncategorized master list of keywords.
Again, I feel I must be missing something obvious. Thanks for your help.
Cheers.

I agree, clicking on a keyword in the HUD that has a number after it to get those photos seems like a no brainer. Even though I know it doesn't do that I still find myself clicking on it before I catch myself. Need to send feedback to Apple on this, clicking on a keyword should create a filter to and display those images.
In your example the images of Adam and Zoe should be tagged with the keywords that apply to them. That is they would have the keywords people, friends, male or female, Adam or Zoe, and whatever other keywords you use to describe these images. Then you check as many keywords in the filter that apply and you can remember.
While the keyword HUD shows the keywords in a hierarchy, keywords applied to an image are one dimensional, linear. Its just a string of words without structure. The hierarchy is just there to make it easier to conceptualize the structure.

Library filter presets not working correctly across catalogs

I am having a trouble with Library Filter Presets that are shared between catalogs. I like to set up presets that filter on specific keywords. For example, I have a preset called "Label - Project 365" which turns on the keyword metadata filter and searches for "Project 365".
All is fine and dandy from within the catalog in which I actually created the preset. When I switch to the other catalog, though, the preset does not filter for the keyword "Project 365". In fact, it turns on the keyword metadata filter but does not appear to select any of the keywords at all. If I click on the proper keyword in the metadata filter (in this case, "Project 365") and update the preset, then it works fine on this "second" catalog... but as a result it will no longer work correctly in the original catalog.
Has anyone else come across this behavior? Any pointers on how I might correct it? Thank you for your time.

A bit more information if it helps. When I look in the filter preset file itself, this is what I see. I really don't know how to interpret everything here. There is an entryt for "columnBrowserDesc" that contains an integer for "selections". Perhaps this is how it is identifything the keyword of interest? If that's the case, perhaps it may be the culprit. (And if so, I've simply run into a limitation that I can't do much about.)
s = {
    id = "691866C7-0E43-45D3-9E89-1D2762BA6ADE",
    internalName = "Label - Project365",
    title = "Label - Publish 365",
    type = "LibraryFilter",
    value = {
        columnBrowserActive = true,
        columnBrowserDesc = {
                criteria = "keywordHierarchy",
                selections = {
                    291,
        customLabel = false,
        filtersActive = false,
        label1 = false,
        label2 = false,
        label3 = false,
        label4 = false,
        label5 = false,
        labelOp = "any",
        minRating = 0,
        noLabel = false,
        pick = "flagged",
        ratingOp = ">=",
        searchOp = "all",
        searchString = "Cemetery",
        searchStringActive = false,
        searchTarget = "all",
        whichCopies = "<nil>",
    version = 0,

Library Filter Question

Within the Metadata Library Filter I often use the 'Treatment' tag to view just colour or just B&W images. I discovered that to give an image the 'Black & White' treatment stamp you needed to use the B&W section in the develop module. However I often use CS5 for my B&W conversion so my question is, is it possible to get this "Black & White' treatment stamp without actually using that aspect of the Develop module?
Thanks in advance guys

Unfortunately not.
Your black and white photos made in Photoshop, will be treated as "Color", even if they were converted to a grayscale "space" in Photoshop. And you cannot even change the treatment to "Black and White", because the treatment control is disabled for grayscale files. This is a little dumb.
My work around is to apply a "BW" keyword to these files, then use a smart collection with the following rule set:
Any of the follwofing:
Treatment is "black and white"
Keywords contain words "BW"

Dates not showing up in Metadata Library filter

I sometimes use the Library filter to filter pictures by date, which has worked very well before.
When using it today, I discovered that only 23 (edit: the 23 first) of 43 pictures taken on Oct. 26 would show up, and the pictures taken on the 27th and 28th didn't show up at all. In fact, those dates aren't even on the list - but there are 47 pictures from the 27th, and 53 from the 28th in the catalog. The missing pictures do show up when I remove the filter.
All pictures are in the same folder, all taken with the same camera and the same lens. I am not using any other filters, and in the unfiltered view there are no question marks, and the Metadata Status is Up to date.
I've tried Relaunch and Optimize, computer restart. Using version 2.5, Windows xp.
Has anybody else experienced this?

What dates do those images bear? When in folder view, with all one day's shoot in grid view, will they sort by date shot, by time imported, by name?

Where is the photo count in the Library Filter of Lightroom?

Look at this screenshot.
This is from an online tutorial and is a typical view of the Library Filter. Notice that there are photo counts to the right of each of the search criteria. For example, All (2 Cameras) - 487 photos. Canon EOS 5D - 404 photos, etc.
Now notice a screen shot from my iMac with Lightroom 5.2 on OX 10.9 Mavericks.
Notice that there are no photo counts after the search criteria. WHERE DID THEY GO? Or for that matter, were they ever there in this iteration of LR? I think they were but I'm not sure. Incidentally, I am aware the count will appear in the filmstrip (see the next photo) but that is not nearly as useful.
If anyone can help me get this to work as I suppose it should, please let me know.
Thanks a bunch,
Craig

Thanks Rich.
Would be helpful to all if Adobe would acknowledge such known bugs on their 10.9 Mavericks compatibility page.
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/mac-os-mavericks-compatability.html
The white sliders are mentioned but not the missing photo count (which was obviously reported in the beta phase). I'm sure there are more.

Library Filter behavior in Lr3 RTM

I upgraded to Lr3, and am pretty excited to be using the new version. There are a few minor issues I noticed relating to my workflow process, the biggest being the following:
In Lr2.x I was able to click a folder in the Dev module, and the Lib Filter would automatically filter by date. So, I could then go my Keyword List, choose a keyword, have the Library filter reset according to my chosen keyword, and then I could quickly go back to my folder/date view by then returning to the folder, etc... in Lr3 though, I can no longer do that. Now, if I Keyword filter, it retains those settings if I click back to a folder, forcing me to reset all my filter options at the top. Is there just something I am missing to fix this, or just an oversight in feature set?
Thanks,
cas

Thanks for the reply... that is very "not cool" as it will put a huge damper in my workflow. I used the hopping around between filters constantly, and this is just going to make things a nightmare for me. FYI, I did try the lock feature, and it didn't work as I expected.
Thanks,
cas

Library Filter ('Metadata') defaults-change

In the 6+ years I have been using LR each and every day I have never once utilized any of the four default terms cooked-into the 'Metadata' Library Filter ('Date', 'Camera', 'Lens', 'Label').
Is there a way for me to set up new metadata search terms as defaults so I don't have to putz w/changing the same-old-same-old each and every time I open this filter?
thx.

Hmm, in my LR 5.2 Windows 7 64-bit, it remembers the most recent columns in the Library Filter Bar Metadata browser. If I do View > Show Filter Bar (\), then Library > Enable Filters (Ctrl+L), then click Metadata in the filter bar, I get the most recently used configuration of columns. The configuration is remembered across restarts of LR. I've never noticed the columns changing underneath me -- I wonder what's different about how we use LR or the configuration?
Regardless, the filter presets are stored in
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Filter Presets
(and somewhere analagous on Mac). You can edit them with a text editor. Be sure to save a backup copy.

Library filter keyword search odd results for containing keywords

I have a keyword tree Family>Smith>Peter. I used the library filter keyword containing "family". This produced a large list of images and in the keyword tag box I saw the word "Family" with an asterix. I deleted the family keyword from the list and save the metadata. i was epxecting my filter to show no photos but it still shows the same number. It would seem that althoguh no photo has the keyword "family" on it they still show up in the filter because they contain "peter" and this is a child of "family".
Is this normal behavior as extremely irritating as trying to rationalise al lthe parent keywords that have bene accidentally exported. If I only want photos where family is a keyword is there anyway I can do that?
Thanks Mike

The problem is I lable close family by name, but large family groups as "family". If I just want photos with large family groups I should be able to search by keyword "family" and only get images that have that as a tag. However I get these plus any photo that has any keyword that is beneath "family" in the hierachy. I have turned of the export function so an image with just "peter" does not show "family" under the "will export" keywords.
It seems the default search is by keyword and everything below it. Is there some setting that it will only return images that just contain the actual keyword asked for?
Mike

Library Filter: Metadata Browser: Add Focal Length

Please add Focal length as an available Meta data to browse in the Library Filter.
Purpose:
I'm currently considering to buy a new zoom lens. To determine the best zoom range for the lens, I like to see which focal length I use most often by profiling my existing images.
The information is already available in the images exif data, it only needs to be exposed in the Lib Filter.
Reinhard

A few posts before yours:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.3bc46ae7
...and dozens of others can be found if you had taken the time to look.

Library Filter Text not working in LR2

Hi,
If i use the library filter for text and set it as "filename" and "contains" w/o entering any characters into the search bar I get 3 images, although I have it set to seach "All Photographs" in the catalog section. Please see screenshot.
If I enter any letter in the search bar, It says "No photos in selected item".
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Amanda

Are you sure you don't have any space or any invisible character there in the search box?
If it is empty, my guess is: corrupt catalog. Try creating a new catalog, import some test photos and check if search works fine.

Library Filter in LR5

I am using the library filter in Lightroom 5. I have flagged some photos and want to use the filter to find these photos.
The filter is including both the flags and the star rating. I only want to search the flags and don't know how to stop the filter from using the star rating at the same time.

Click on the highest selected star to turn it off, i.e. if the search is looking for 3 stars (or higher/lower than), click on the third star to turn off that particular search.

Library filter: photo count missing on OS X Mavericks

When using the library filter on metadata no numbers are shown anymore, even not after clicking restore default presets?
How to resolve this?
Thanks in advance
Bob

It's a known Mavericks bug which is fixed in the 5.3 RC from http://labs.adobe.com
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr_5_2_os_x_mavericks_missing_photo_ count_in_library_module

Library Filter - limited use?

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