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Turtlebun
Participant
July 14, 2019
Question

Mass assigning key words

  • July 14, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 992 views

I have just recently updated to Lightroom CC mobile on my ipad.  I have previously been working on the desktop version on my laptop.  I will be migrating all of my photos to lightroom CC, but want to know more about key words.  I ‘think’ I have mastered how to move collections to CC, but things I’ve read say that key words don’t transfer over. So I don’t want to migrate the whole catalogue until I figure that out.

Is there a way to mass assign keywords to photos in Lightroom CC?  I would like to select a group of photos and assign them the same key word.

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    3 replies

    99jon
    99jon
    Legend
    July 15, 2019

    You can add keywords in bulk in Lightroom on your laptop. Use shift+click to select a batch and then click the keyword icon (bottom-right) and type your keyword into the box. It will be added to all selected photos.

    You can use the migration tool to add all of your Classic originals to the cloud including keywords. Collections will transfer as albums, but folders are not recognized. Color labels are assigned as keywords. See the link below for exceptions and suggested preparation before starting migration.

    Migrate photos and videos from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom

    Theresa J
    Community Expert
    Theresa JCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 14, 2019

    Why are you migrating all of your photos to Lightroom? What are you hoping to gain from Lightroom that you can't do in Classic? Do you know how to sync collections in Classic to have selective images in the cloud? Classic gives you the ability to selectively choose which photos are in the cloud and which ones aren't. Lightroom uploads everything to the cloud. Are you sure your plan has enough cloud storage for all of your photos?

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    TurtlebunAuthor
    Participant
    July 14, 2019

    I got a new ipad. I will be using it instead of my laptop. I am switching everything to mobile with cloud storage.  

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 14, 2019

    If keywords are important to you, then you should reconsider that switch to Lightroom CC. While Lightroom CC does offer a crude way of adding keywords, it isn’t really meant for that. You can’t use hierarchical keywords, for example, and you don’t have a way to quickly add keywords to multiple images. Even adding keywords to single images is a pita, because you have to type them each time. No keyword list, no ‘recent keywords’ or ‘suggested keywords’ buttons. Instead of keywords, Lightroom CC uses artificial intelligence to auto-tag your images.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
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    TurtlebunAuthor
    Participant
    July 14, 2019

    Thanks!

    Key words aren’t honestly something that I used very much in Lightroom Classic, but I thought since I am switching to CC, that it would be a good time to tags things as I brought them over.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 14, 2019

    Well, keywords are not synced between Lr Classic and the cloud, but there is a way to make them upload (once). I don’t know if that also works if you migrate a Lr Classic catalog to Lightroom CC, but I expect it will. What you need to do is select all images and then choose ‘Metadata - Save metadata to Files’ before you migrate.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
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