I have been looking for a long time for some software that would allow me to manage keywords in an efficient manner. What do I mean by efficient? It’s pretty simple: all I want is the ability to group my keywords into categories or domains. For example: I want car, boat, ship, carriage, bus and bicycle to all be grouped into a domain called transportation. This seems simple, but I can’t really find any decently priced 
software to do that. Now, I was suspecting that Adobe Lightroom might do what I wanted but the price was way too much for me! Eventually I decided to give Lightroom a try and found out why people like it.
Conclusion
As I got to the California pictures, I created more categories of keywords. For example I created: nature for the different nature attractions like: beach, mountain, lake. I have also added one called amusement parks. This was obviously for Disneyland, California Adventure and the rest of the thousand amusement parks in Southern California. After a while, I noticed that I was NOT adding that many keywords because I would be finding them in the already defined keywords…which was a pretty cool feeling !
So, did I like Adobe Lightroom?
I actually did what I wanted to do and…I liked the software too! Of course I did…it costs over $250…it better deliver! I wish I could buy it. Until I can afford it I will continue looking for cheaper versions that support this little exercise that I just described. One really cool thing about Lightroom is that it saves all the keywords into the IPTC fields that are embedded into each image file. This way, all my effort will not be wasted even if I’m will not be using Lightroom. Any program that can read the IPTC fields, will pick up all my keywords. This is the advantage of using open standards!
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, thanks for the numerous tips on your website! They’re very helpful as I just got Lightroom and am now seriously looking to organize my photos.
I’ve just discovered something that you didn’t mention in your post though. Lightroom doesn’t automatically write your keywords out to IPTC.
“Up to now, I’ve been talking about XMP metadata relating to the Lightroom develop instructions. You may be wondering about the other metadata, such as keywords, ratings, etc. The same holds true for them. You need to push this data onto an original file if you want it to travel with the file outside of the Lightroom environment. You can do this on an image-by-image (or selection-by-selection) basis from the Library module menu command Metadata?Save Metadata to File. Or you can set your catalog preferences so it’s done automatically to all files and all file types (File?Catalog Settings/Metadata tab, then check Automatically write changes into XMP).”
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2008/01/01/saving-metadata.html
Maybe you could mention this in your post
Thanx for your comments Alvin…thanx for the link as well. Good article. It is true…Lightroom doesn’t automatically save your image metadata to your files…you have to set it up for that. This issue applies to all photo management software…they all have to be setup for this operation. I have actually mentioned this issue in another article: http://www.organizepictures.com/2008/07/portable-image-metadataportable-image-metadata
Your comment made me read that article again and make it more clear…so thanx again. I hope you get to finish organizing your pictures. The more pictures you have the more you need to organize it.
Hello. I really enjoy your organization tips and all. I reorganized all my folders using your idea about events. It took a tortuously long time but I think it will be easier to search now.
Before, I organized my folders using location based keywords, which seems now to be more appropriate to do with tags. For example, I would make folders like this: Country/Name of State OR City/Place in State Or City. But your way is better. I like it. Thanks.
Now though, I want to tag all those 1000s of pictures! : |
Some of them are already tagged from a long time ago. But, needless to say, many new and untagged pictures have gathered so I need to re haul the whole system. I use Windows Vista Windows Photo Gallery to do the tagging. It came with the computer. I can also make Categories with that Software too. Also I can do batch tagging.
Another thing. I also backed up all those reorganized folders and photos on 7 DVDs. (Cheapest method right now).
My original intent was to move all my original pictures completely off my hard drive (because space is becoming so tight) and then only keep thumbnails or scaled down copies that I can search. This would turn 28 GB into only 1 GB on my PC. Do you know an easy way to do that?
Once again, thanks for your site.
Doesn’t Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista do the same thing?
tj…thanx for your comment. I’m glad you found my site helpful. It looks like you have done a lot of work but it will pay off in the long term.
I’m not too familiar with Windows Vista tool for organizing/tagging pictures. If it does categories and tags you’re half way there. I’m not sure if it supports IPTC/XMP fields, which means that the tags you’re creating can be written in the image files themselves. If you can’t do that, all your tags and keywords will not transfer on another operating system or software…you will only see them on your computer. So, in this respect I don’t believe Windows Photo Gallery works the same as Lightroom or ACDSee.
Read this article for an better explanation:
The road frequently travelled by image metadata
Yes…keep doing those backups they are a life saver.