Lightroom: Exact text match in smart collections and filters, including matching spaces

"And why is the Up-vote button missing from this entry?"

It was originally entered as a Problem, not an Idea, and the up-vote button is only available for Ideas. With the old software platform for this forum, a moderator could convert a Problem to an Idea, and the Problem Me Toos would convert to Idea Votes. But with this new inferior platform, they don't convert. The old Me Toos are still counted as Likes. 

(Don't blame Adobe for this -- the old platform company GetSatisfaction was bought by Sprinklr, who promptly end-of-lifed the old platform and replaced it with this inferior version. Adobe is actively working on replacing the Sprinklr platform.)

The lack of exact match for keywords is a glaring oversight that Adobe hasn't cared to fix.  

See here for how to use the Library Filter bar to do exact match:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-exact-text-match-in-smart-collections-and-filters-including-matching-spaces/5f5f44fb4b561a3d422d7e08?commentId=5f5f490f4b561a3d424cf0a9 

See here for using the operators Starts With and Ends With to nearly exact match:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-exact-text-match-in-smart-collections-and-filters-including-matching-spaces/5f5f44fb4b561a3d422d7e08?commentId=5fc34681ecf16939894a521b&replyId=5fc34681ecf16939894a521c 

If you do a lot of searching of mulitple keywords (e.g. "Bob Smith" and "San Francisco"), try the Filter By Keyword command of the Any Tag plugin.

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-organized-by-date/5f5f44f14b561a3d422ab0ba?commentId=5f5f48984b561a3d422bdf45 

Several years back, there was a forum entry collecting search suggestions. Well, they didn't happen so perhaps that entry faded away. I think it is time to restart. 

One of the suggestions was for a true boolean search. 

And why is the Up-vote button missing from this entry? 

I'm really surprised there is no option to filter by an 'is' command.  For example if have a keyword for a player number 6 and there is also a player number 66 if I try to create a smart album by keyword '6' it will come up with '66' as well since under keyword there is only the option for 'contains' no 'is'.  So to work around this I have to add a letter or other symbol to make the 6 unique.

The lack of exact match for keywords is frustrating. But a much better workaround surfaced recently using Starts With and Ends With:

This matches the keyword "John Smith" but not "Smith John" and not "John Smithson". It's not absolutely perfect -- it would accidentally match "John Smith John Smith", but I think in practice there wouldn't be any such examples.

(Up until a couple years ago, Starts With was broken and couldn't be used in this way.)

Face Detection speeds up the process of organising photos of multiple people.

The most intuitive label for face detection is using the person's name.

However, Smart Collections Any Searchable Text options fails to perfectly match the name because there are no options that understand word order. Names where first names and surnames have similar root words are easily confused.

The end result is you have to start making exception condition rules which also means being on top of every name in the list. Then you have to go through every collection to make sure there are no mistakes - of which there were.

Just tried this on 100 people and the face detection speeds things up, but every gain in time was lost to trying to fix the broken text search.

PS. Don't merge this. It has to been seen by those who own the (newer) Face Detection feature.

Thanks for this. You beautifully worded what I mostly feel as "I can't )(*&*(@#&$! believe that in 2020 I still can't (*(*#@$!@ search in a decent )*&*(&#$! way".

Thanks for this. I entirely forgot that Starts With and Ends With for most fields were silently fixed a year or two ago:

Would not have guessed that side effect. I'll give it a go.

Thanks for merging, John. It is incredible (and mind boggling) that this has been going on for 9 years. Here's my conclusion having read this thread....

I would concur with William and Patrick (from 5 years ago) that from a software point of view this isn't a rocket science change. 

But also from a user experience point of view somebody at Adobe has to own this problem. Photographers expect to be able to have a tool that can search their own professional library intelligently. Sure you can make machine learning models that can visually find a toaster, but that isn't what photographers need - they label based on the type of work that specialise in. It needs to be efficient and easily used. Not all photographers no regex syntax 🙂

Maybe the issue is "Classic" and that internally they've moved on to the next mobile thing.

I've landed here because I was trying to solve a problem where you have 100 faces in 1500+ images that you have sort. The Face detection is a good starting point, but the failure in keywords just makes this clumsy.

Great I can recognise faces but I can't robustly search for them and file them efficiently.

UX design is caring about the little things and understanding the business context of the user base. Adobe needs to remember that people who use their products are typically running a business (or are part of a business). They invest in tools like Lightroom and Photoshop (and Muse :-p) to keep their business running. Not considering the little things and the workflows that business face every day wastes time (and money).

Somebody at Adobe could use XD to start mocking up a better interface and talk to the software team about the technical hurdles to implement it. You could start with two interns....

I too came across from Aperture and have looked at Final Cut Pro / Motion and Premiere / After Effects. So I have both an Apple and Adobe perspective.  I'm also a software developer and UX designer. There are times when I look at Adobe products and just get the sense that somebody who knows UNIX has influenced a particular user interface feature. There's definitely power to do things but nobody hasn't put in the effort to remove the technical clutter and make the product enjoyable to use.

Count how many times you have to reach out for a help guide to figure out a feature. The contains, contains all, contains word pop up labelling is indicative of the underlying issue.

It's not about making everything simple, it's more about designing the experience to be intuitive and providing the professional power when it is needed. Design it for the intended audience.

Fixing keywords shouldn't be difficult. String search technology is well established in 2020 especially if we are dealing with an sqlite back end.

I nominate that the monetary component of my annual subscription that was paying for Muse development should be funnelled into fixing keywords / search in Lightroom Classic.