Lightroom - Advice on Keywording

splendid101

Story bros?


Just looking for some general advice/opinions on keywording in Lightroom.

1st I should ask, I'm currently using a trial version. If my trial runs out and I don't renew until a few weeks/months later (but keep my catalogue backup) will my keywords still be there when I finally install it? Anyone any experience on this?

How much keywording do you do? I'm wondering if I'm going a bit over the top. Here's a sample of keywording on a picture of a bird:

"Australia, Birds, Juvenile, Juvenile Pacific Gull, Kangeroo Island, Pacific Gull, Seagulls, South Australia, Travel, Wildlife"

Too far?


Further, I'm wondering if there is any point in tagging something as "Wildlife" if it is tagged as "Bird", or "Seagull"? When they are under Wildlife hierarchy?

If I search for "Wildlife" all pictures under its hierarchy will show up, correct? So maybe it's pointless tagging something Bird as I can just tag it Sparrow and as Sparrow is under Bird it will come up if I just look for my Bird pictures, or indeed, wildlife?

Hope that makes some measure of sense.

I do like the idea of them being tagged with the right words.

I'll probably have many more questions but I'll leave it there for the moment.

I think it's a great programme, but is quite expensive. I think it's worth it so far.

mdebets

splendid101 wrote: »

Story bros?


Just looking for some general advice/opinions on keywording in Lightroom.

1st I should ask, I'm currently using a trial version. If my trial runs out and I don't renew until a few weeks/months later (but keep my catalogue backup) will my keywords still be there when I finally install it? Anyone any experience on this?

How much keywording do you do? I'm wondering if I'm going a bit over the top. Here's a sample of keywording on a picture of a bird:

"Australia, Birds, Juvenile, Juvenile Pacific Gull, Kangeroo Island, Pacific Gull, Seagulls, South Australia, Travel, Wildlife"

Too far?


Further, I'm wondering if there is any point in tagging something as "Wildlife" if it is tagged as "Bird", or "Seagull"? When they are under Wildlife hierarchy?

If I search for "Wildlife" all pictures under its hierarchy will show up, correct? So maybe it's pointless tagging something Bird as I can just tag it Sparrow and as Sparrow is under Bird it will come up if I just look for my Bird pictures, or indeed, wildlife?

Hope that makes some measure of sense.

I do like the idea of them being tagged with the right words.

I'll probably have many more questions but I'll leave it there for the moment.

I think it's a great programme, but is quite expensive. I think it's worth it so far.

About Lightroom, I think you should be ok. As you can have different catalogues with different Keyword hierarchies, they must be stored with the catalogue (but not 100% sure).

If you have bird already in a Wildlife category and you have set the Wildlife category to be included at export, your picture already has the Wildlife category.

As to how many keywords are enough and how many are too much, that mostly depends on why you are keywording.
Are you keywording just for yourself, to find the pictures again in the future, you just need to keyword for whatever searches you are planning to keyword. If you know you'll be going to look in the future for a seagull which is standing on one foot facing away from you, but having her head turned towards you, then you have to keyword for it.
If you are only ever going to search for seagull pictures in general, that is enough to keyword for.

If you are keywording, because you want to sell the pictures via a Stockagency, I would highly recommend to look at their requirements and how similar pictures are keyworded.

im invisible

Lol at tags for the thread

Paulw

Your catalogue will be fine.

I keyword to death. I'd rather have too many than too few, especially since they help find specific files.

But, its just a personal preference. Use as many or as few as you need or want.

I uploaded some picts to FlickR the other day and files had 16+ keywords.

splendid101

im invisible wrote: »

Lol at tags for the thread

Thanks for the replies guys.

I heard speculation that the Lightroom price will be dropping in the next few months so may hold off on getting it til the end of the summer.

Although it really is great....