P: Ability to NOT import image keywords

If Lr is not handling existing keywords correctly when importing images then engineering time would be better spent fixing that issue than adding a feature to remove keywords.

Removing the Keywords form imported images does not address the OP's issue. IMHO an option to NOT import keywords also does not address the issue.

The problem is that when Lightroom imports Keywords from Metadata it does nothing to check to see if those Keywords already exist somewhere in the Keyword library and it creates a new one.

For example, If I have an existing parent keyword called France that is a child of Europe, and then import an image that contains the keyword France in its metadata, Lightroom will create a new parent keyword:

Europe
>> France
France

If you then import another image that contains FRANCE, Lightroom will create another one:

Europe
>> France
France
FRANCE

This becomes a major issue for anyone using hierarchical keywords AND exporting images to Photoshop (or any other external editor) because Lightroom will expand the entire keyword hierarchy prior to exporting, and then it will import all of those keywords as new parent keywords when reimporting the edited image.

The entire Keyword library then becomes completely polluted, making hierarchical keywords an ridiculously challenging thing to maintain.

So there are a number of potential problems here, and since Lightroom really doesn't have a decent Keyword editor there is no good way to fix it.

I don't like the idea of having an import option to remove existing keywords and think that Lightroom should continue to respect metadata that is already in the files. The Import dialog should be about getting files into Library and under its control as quickly as possible - not about fixing legacy metadata. Right now the user can select Previous Import and simply remove those unwanted keywords (and do so on a more granular basis than with all-or-nothing import option).

I forgot to add: Deleting the keywords from just-imported photos doesn't stop them from getting added to your heirarchy. For that, you'd have to import the photos into a temporary catalog, delete the keywords, Save Metadata To Files, then import the photos into the real catalog. (You can also use tools like Exiftool to batch-remove keywords before you import the photos.)

I like the suggestion about having an option to prevent importation, but I just want to make sure readers know they have simple options with the current LR.

There's a simple idiom for removing metadata such as keywords from just-imported photos. Select all of the photos, go to the Keywording pane, and clear all of the text in the Keyword Tags box.

This idiom works for any set of selected photos. It also applies to any metadata that appears in the Metadata pane, e.g. Caption.

This would be especially ususeful when reimporting images that have been edited externally. In that case when the edited image goes out all the hierarchical keywords get expanded and they get added as new individual keywords rather than the image just containing the top level keywords. This is maybe a slightly different problem that deserves its own thread, but the solution might be the same.

I would love an "ignore existing keywords in metadata during import" option.

I agree with you Sean. Better keyword management is being discussed on a separate post. Once you get past a few hundred keywords LR is an act in frustration. I need to spend more time with images and less time with keywords!

Interesting idea. I think they really just need to provide an adequate Keyword editor and this problem would go away...