P: Offer to use the duplicate keyword that you have just tried creating rather than ask you to creat a new different keyword.

Forum|Forum|30 days ago
August 10, 2026
4 replies
43 views

I spend hours and hours keywording, creating a very large index from every Vehicle Museum, Car Show, Car Race meeting etc. To save a lot of duplicated processing the first thing I do is to create a keyword of the number plate - vehicle tags. This immediately stops me creating a keyword all the keywords for vehicle already in the database.

This vehicle is one that I have seen more than once.

In both 2009 and 2025. Two different Show keywords on the one photo.

If Lightroom simply gave me the option to use the keyword that I am trying to create as I already have the plate keyword in the database it would save me a lot of time getting through the plethora of keywords to find the existing keyworded photo. I simply add the new venue keyword to the older photo and then delete the new photo - saving processing, storage etc etc.

It takes a lot of time to find the existing keyword, to then tag the new photo with it, open both photos to check if it is the same vehicle, then add the new show/event Keyword to the old photo and delete the new one.

I have over 30,000 photos under the Transportation Keyword and each new show or event I go to invariably adds 400+ photos to be processed.

Bob Somrak

Legend

@david48lindsay

@JohanElzenga reply about “auto complete” should do exactly what you are asking. I just tried it with your example.

M4 Pro Mac Mini. 48GB

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

I’m puzzled why you use this workflow, as it seems pretty inefficient to me. Why do you try to add the number plate as new keyword, if you don’t even know if it is really new? Why don’t you start with adding the keyword to the image? If the keyword exists, you’ll get that auto-fill pop-up. And if the keyword does not yet exist, you’ll create it on the spot by adding it to the image. All you’ll have to do next is drag it under the L keywords in the Keyword List.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Maybe I do not understand your question, but Lightroom Classic offers an ‘auto-complete’ of a keyword you start typing, based on existing keywords. You may have to turn this on in the preferences if you do not see that.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

D

david48lindsayAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks - No this isn’t the issue.

The issue is that the majority of the time the vehicle photo needs a new keyword for the number plate. I simply create the plate under the Alphabetic Keyword for the plate. So a photo with the Number LOVLOC is created under the L Keyword.

So I am happily creating a set of keywords and suddenly get the message -

If I had the choice at this point to simply click a button to say - Yes Use this existing Keyword it would save me hours.

Instead I have to back out of creating a keyword, then open the F Keyword Tree and scroll down to find the existing keyword, or scroll back to the Keywording box as you illustrated and type the keyword in at that point then scroll back down to the Number Plate section of the Keyword Tree again. It represents a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

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