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

Why conversations get merged: 

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

"From a UX point of view it is not immediately obvious how the first three contains variations are different. You would have to look up help or experiment to figure out what you thought it meant to confirm that it did what you were thinking."

I agree that the naming and semantics are a complete mess.

"the trick is to use 'Ends with Thomas Peter'."

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

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-text-filtering-problems-with-starts-with/5f5f44fc4b561a3d422dcece

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/default_topic/lightroom-filter-and-smart-collection-criteria-title-starts-with-and-title-ends-with-dont-work/5f5f46224b561a3d42756610 

(Title is still broken, though.)

The old convert-the-phrase-into-a-single-word workaround!

There's a book called "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" that explains why software engineers do this and why they should stop 🙂

That works as well, but using ‘ends with’ (if necessary combined with ‘starts with’) should do the trick without having to resort to synonyms.

I know that many of the experts (including many on this forum) don't like this option, but I have found it useful (especially with people names such as in your example) that share parts of names (e.g. Thomas in your example), but I am starting to use surrogate names.  

For example:  Keyword name = "Peter-Thomas" (note "dash" between Peter and Thomas),  Synonym = "Peter Thomas", uncheck "export this keyword",  leave checked "export synonym".

Same thing for "Thomas-Smith"

Now you can filter or set a smart collection that says "Contains All Peter-Thomas Thomas-Smith"  and you won't get Fred Thomas or Peter Jones included or even "Peter Thomas Smith"

This technique is obviously a kludge or back door work around but it does work and it's unlikely that Adobe will make any changes to the keywording section of LrC to remedy this long standing problem.   

1: Contains is an 'or' query. That means that 'Contains Peter Thomas' will find images of either Peter or Thomas.

2: Contains all is an 'and' query. 'Contains all Peter Thomas' will only find images of both Peter and Thomas, but that includes Peter Drake and Thomas Smith. 

3: Contains words is a query on full words only. 'Contains Peter' will also find images of Ben Peterson. 'Contains words Peter' will not find these images.

4: If you only want to find images of Thomas Peter, not the combination Peter Drake and Thomas Smith and also not Thomas Peterson, then the trick is to use 'Ends with Thomas Peter'.

Edit Smart collection allows text to be searched to create a dynamically filtered image collections.

The options are:

• contains
• contains all
• contains words
• does not contain
• starts with
• ends with

From a UX point of view it is not immediately obvious how the first three contains variations are different. You would have to look up help or experiment to figure out what you thought it meant to confirm that it did what you were thinking.

However neither of the "contains" options successfully solves the problem if you are searching for say:

Peter Thomas and Thomas Smith, who might be two different people that you want in two different collections. 

For some reason contains all works for one of the collections but for the other collection it includes both Thomas'. Weird. Had to use a does not contain in only one of them to make this work. The asymmetry doesn't make sense either.

What's the business impact? Potential privacy breach if you don't check that the filters are working properly.

The suggestion would be to have a verbatim match which should be called "Exact Match". 

Clarity is important in the labelling.

"can you use the keyword list but only search in one folder?"

Yes:

1. Make sure that File > Library Filters > Lock Filters is checked. (This is the lock icon on the right side of the Library Filter bar.)

2. Click the arrow to the right of the desired keyword in the Keyword List. This sets the current source to be All Photographs.

3. Click on the desired folder in the Folders panel.

Sorry, one more question, can you use the keyword list but only search in one folder?

Thanks again!
Take care 🙂