If you have been using image keywords or tags for a while, the topic of managing your keywords is very relevant. If you’re new however, to image keywords, then this topic might not seem necessary, at least not now. However, after applying keywords to your images without any strategy, you will end up having a pile of keywords that you can’t sort out. Just like folders can become unusable if not named and organized correctly, keywords too can become unusable if not maintained properly. In order to avoid this problem you need to create efficient keywords, or in other words, you need a controlled vocabulary. But how do you create a controlled vocabulary?
Why worry about managing your image keywords?
The greatest strength of keywords is their greatest weakness as well. The greatest strength of keywords is that they are free form, meaning that you can assign any keywords to any of your images. Whatever words come to mind when you look at an image, well…that’s what you can assign to your images.
This easiness of creating keywords will start becoming a problem when you can’t remember what keywords you have assigned to images that contain similar elements.
Are your image keywords a pile of junk?
Let’s take a simple example. You take your kids to the park on two different occasions, let’s say a month apart. The first time you go to the park you take a few pictures and you come home and have a great time looking at them and you assign some keywords: park, playground, swing, maria, stacey, smiles, sings, morning, dress. Great!
The following month you take the same kids to the same park and take some pictures. You come home and you start adding some keywords: park, playground, swinging, maria, stacey, smiling, singing, morning, dresses. This is all good, but this time, because you couldn’t remember what you used before, you have created different words for the same objects or emotions. For example, swing is equivalent to swinging, smiles is equivalent to smiling while sings is equivalent to singing, and dresses is the plural of dress.
You can easily see the problem and with time and many of pictures this small problem will become a giant problem.
What do you do to avoid this problem?
You need a controlled vocabulary
A vocabulary is made of words. A controlled vocabulary is made of a list of words that limit the variations of similar words. If you have created such a list and use it to apply it to your images, then you are controlling your keywords and keeping your sanity. A controlled vocabulary will provide the opportunity for you to assign keywords that you have already used and avoid creating duplicate keywords. In the case when you need to add a new keyword, at least you know that you don’t have an existing keyword. This way you control your keywords.
What software programs help you create a controlled vocabulary?
Some software programs try helping you with this task by providing you a way to create categories of keywords. This is probably the greatest help you can get from a software program when it comes to managing your image keywords. Most image management software programs do not address this problem at all.
You would not expect this feature from small image viewers like FastStone Image Viewer or XnView, but you would expect it from a big name like Picasa. And yet, Picasa does not help in this area. The only thing you see in Picasa is the most common image tags you have used before, and it can only fit 10 or so image keywords on the screen.
Adobe Lightroom seems to be the only program that provides a great way to organize your keywords. You can simply create keywords and place other keywords inside of those. This way you are essentially creating categories of keywords.
A small and mostly unknown program, called PIE (Picture Information Extractor) helps as well. PIE gives the user the ability to have an external text file where you can simply list the keywords and then use that file when you assign IPTC keywords. The only problem with PIE is that the software will sort that file alphabetically and thus loose any structure you may have put in the file. But it is a step in the right direction.
Next page: Useful suggestions for creating a controlled vocabulary
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Recommended reading:- Tutorial 5 – Harness the power of keywords
- What is the future of your image tags?
- 5 steps to create precise keywords for tagging your pictures
- Adobe Lightroom – an exercise in keywording
- How to start organizing your digital pictures
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