P: Expand searchable metadata fields

Making all IPTC attributes searchable shouldn't be a major effort as the attribute set is standardized. What I am personally missing are Source, Subject Code, Scene Code and Person Shown (from IPTC extensions). I can imagine other people miss other attributes. You lose half of the purpose of IPTC if the attributes are not searchable. Thanks

I agree Aperture had some better search capability, but let's not get too misty-eyed. Unlike LR (from v2 IIRC), Aperture never even supported IPTC Extended metadata.

Thanks Alan; I'd forgotten about Friedl's Data Explorer. And I have it. IIRC it did a better job of hunting for various location metadata, which can be in more than one spot I think.

Hi. I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. There are two plugins that enhance searching in Lightroom, John Ellis' Any Filter, and Jeffrey Friedl's Data Explorer. They are really complementary. Any Filter allows you to set up repeated searches easily, while Data Explorer is better for one-off searches. I use both, but definitely use Data Explorer more (probably because I don't have to think as hard when I use it).

Just a word to the carpers in this thread: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness -- at least if you are trying to get work done.

Meanwhile, you can search much of that metadata with John Ellis' excellent plug-in, Any Filter. You can save searches too. Handy for more than just searching, and it's got a variety of operators to refine the searches. Probably better than anything Adobe would come up with; sometimes it's just better to maybe leave things like this in better hands, since Adobe doesn't care much about those who make heavy use of metadata (still no real keyword implementation in CC, for example). http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfilter.htm#download

After 5 years there is still no solution to search metadata fields and their combination in Lightroom. How excellent the search capabilities of Aperture were!

Got to admit, it's kind of ridiculous that this still hasn't been added to Lightroom. I use the IPTC Extension panel all the time, for every photo. I have nearly 150k images, and I use pretty much every field, but specifically the Event, Person Shown, Model Info, Location Created and Location Shown fields.

I was attempting to search by the Event, and was dumbfounded when I realized it wasn't capable of searching that part of the metadata. Can't say it's just Adobe, either. It's the Lightroom team. The fact the red-headed stepchild of Adobe known as Bridge can search ALL metadata, including IPTC Extension proves it can and should be a feature of Lightroom.

I moved from Bridge to Lightroom due to its superior keyword and overall metadata management features, but now see its search is severely handicapped in comparison.

It is SO frustrating that I can't search these fields. It's forced me to use other software.

Note to Adobe: a Person Shown is a different criteria than say a person's name in headline, caption, title, etc. For example, I have people's names in fields related to creation or ownership. And sometimes I want to use a keyword with a person's name that is NOT a People keyword, like images related to George Washington, even though he is not shown. So it's an important criterion.

Adding my voice here as well.  I started using iView Media Pro at least 15 years ago if my memory serves me well.  Way before Lightroom and Bridge.  iView allowed for Custom created fields, and those serve me well in my work and in my archive of over a million photos and other digital assets.  Media Pro calls that field People, where in the Adobe applications it's referred to as Person Shown.  In either case, the People Field has indeed transferred to the Person Shown field in Adobe apps.  However, adding that and possible any other Custom fields in the Search criteria would be a tremendous and most useful tool, and one that could possibly convince me to migrate over fully to LR and to Bridge and finally move away from Phase One's Media Pro, which has not seen any improvements in years.  Thank you.

Agreed. Being able to search "person shown" would be a great help. Conversely, not being able to search it makes "person shown" almost completely useless.