P: Lightroom Add support for Boolean Search

@Adobe, where do we stand on this development, pls ?

It's been quite a long time

I need this as a way to know if I've published a photo previously. Search NOT and [keyword=] published. So I know which photos I have to choose from that I haven't used already. For all of us who use Lightroom with a web site and social media posts... how are you doing this?

I am trying to switch over to use Lightroom CC more than Lightroom Classic as it is nice to use multiple devices (iPad, laptop, etc.) to work on the same photos. However, when I try to search for photos using keywords it will only let me search photos that have ANY of the keywords selected. This does not help me narrow down my search when multiple keywords are selected. I want to narrow the search down by adding more and more keywords not just add more and more photos to look through. I want to end up with a few dozen photos to work with for a project not a few hundrred photos that are not even related. Please add a CONTAINS ALL button to the filter using keywords so one can actually narrow down their search not make it bigger.

For me it's really the boolean search in Lightroom CC to be able to exclude keywords. My photos themselves are in general folders, meaningless, so I can't make a selection with that.

Also, as mentioned before, a not feature is really important to review the photos not already in an album.

There's a "Not in any Album" dedicated search feature in the Lightroom desktop app, has been there for a couple of years. To use, click on All Photos then click in the Search bar. That brings up a list of all the searchable "facets", click on the "Album" facet, the list of albums appears.....then scroll to the bottom of the list and click on the "Not in Any Album" entry that you will find there. An even quicker way would be to start typing "not in any album" directly into the search bar and after a few letters have been typed the "Not in Any Album" entry appears below, click on it to execute.

A boolean search feature would be really useful for me too. I like to take pictures for various reasons - as a hobby, for work, for memories etc. I like to categorise them into albums like sceneries, work, art references etc. Sometimes I use the photos in sceneries as references, so I want to view both the art refernces and sceneries together (like "in references or in sceneries") to choose the perfect fit. Also, as mentioned before, a not feature is really important to review the photos not already in an album.

Dear Adobe,

Now when you search for keywords, Lightroom CC automatically uses the "OR" operator and displays all images with one of the keywords used.

Can you please make this optional and create an "AND" and "OR" option in the search bar so you can use the "AND" operator to display only images that have all the added keywords in the search bar to narrow down your selection.

Many thanks!

Alex Pansier

Lightroom CC is a great product with a very high potential (Desktop PC and iPad), however at this stage, there are still a few critical features missing. I'm surprised why it takes so long to include these basics:

1.It still needs a powerful SEARCH function. If you pay a subscription for Lightroom CC, it's because you have many photos. So the Search function is the basic essential. Being able to search with AND / OR / NOT is a real must-have. If you're looking for photos of one person AND his dog, you need to be able to include AND. Same thing if you're looking for several people together, or several people in a specific place, or with a specific tag. The search function needs to work for Persons, also in the people's tab (currently disabled). Currently, we can only search with OR.

2.The second critical feature missing in Lightroom CC is DYNAMIC / SMART ALBUMS (like the dynamic playlists in iTunes): You create an album with several criteria, like keywords, people, or location (also using And/Or/Not). And the folder gets updated automatically when new photos are added to Lightroom, or new keywords are added to a photo. So you don't need to add the photos to the album or folder manually. In effect, the album would be a bit like a detailed saved search. Examples: your family, a group of friends, a specific location where you come back regularly, a specific topic you like (Sports with certain people)....

3.PERSONS: How can you add someone’s face in a picture, who was not recognised ? Assign People tags to pictures that were missed is essential: Once the indexing has been completed and Lightroom CC has found all the potential faces, it is critical to have the ability to add People Tags to pictures that were "missed" where no faces were recognised. You will never be able to prevent: the algorithm will never be able to recognise 100% of appearances for one person. There will always be many reasons for someone even in the middle of a sharp picture, which the algorithm cannot recognise: because it's a child with a tiger face mask, because the person is turning his back on the picture (and you still want to keep that picture), because he has swimming pool glasses on, because he's swimming and covered with water - because he's too far (and small) on the picture, because his head is upside-down on the picture - and so on.... For all these reasons, it is absolutely critical to:  (i) be able to manually add one person / face to a photo, even if Lightoom has missed someone on the picture. Currently, you can add a tag with a name (but not a person), then you have 2 tags in LR for that person: 1 keyword + 1 person's tag. This is really suboptimal for searches. (ii) also, currently, using LR on the PC, the software shows you the people already recognised on the picture. So you know if someone is missing or not. However on the ipad, this is crucially missing.

4.BULK EDIT: How can you rename the filenames in bulk for many pictures at the same time ? (like you do in Photoshop Elements, also like EOS utility, adding the date & author name). When you import photos directly from the camera to the Ipad, you basically skip the step of EOS Utility (or equivalent), which renames properly all the imported files, and also adds the copyright in the raw file. For the direct import to iPad's Lightroom to work well, it needs to do bulk edit.  The issue goes to the point that when you export to Jpeg, if you want to customise, you cannot include the capture date. Even EOS Utility does better…

5.IPAD: quite a few features from the desktop version are not available in the iPad yet: (i) recognise faces in the Tag tab, select several pictures and add the same Tag, same legend, (ii) pile 2 pictures together, (iii) merge pictures together into a panoramic one, (iv) view GPS location details.

6.A MAP VIEW of the pictures is another must-have, like the iOS map view of photos. And you need to be able to add a location for all the places where the camera had not recorded it. There will always be some. And it will create issues with the Search function, until we can add manually the location.

7.Photo show : could you please add a feature to see them in random order ?

8.Add photos by selecting several Albums at the same time (currently you can select only one album at a time)

9.Black&White: taking photos in raw, they’re all in colour to start with. Then with LR, we can create a B&W version without losing the colour version. That’s great. However, i cannot put a B&W tag to a version picture. How can i search and see all my B&W together, next to each other ?

10.In the Desktop PC, how do you copy several pictures together to paste them in a Windows folder outside Lightroom ?

11.How do you transfer thousands of pictures (in Raw) to your children for them to keep all the work done: stars, faces recognised, tags, versions, photo settings…

Image search with boolean operaters would be a welcome feature.

Althougt cloud search is very efficient, the possibility to exclude some photos (NOT operator) to narrow the search results may help to speed up the process. 

Beside that, boolean operators are useful for keywording maintainance and bettering, so to improuve search experience.

Please consider this possibility in future Lr developments.

Thanks.