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A
Anonymous
May 28, 2020
Answered

Keywording Issue

  • May 28, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 5812 views

Can someone please explain to me how to remove keywords from within Bridge. The Manual says:  

 

"To delete a keyword, select the keyword by clicking its name, and then click the Delete Keyword button at the bottom of the panel or choose Delete from the panel menu."

 

When I do that, about 15 to 20 seconds later the keyword reappears. In fact, in most cases if I've deselected the keyword (cleared the box), a few seconds later the box becomes rechecked again on its own. I can't turn it off. I have repeated this process now literally 100's of times and the results are the same. So far the only way I've been able to actually delete a keyword is to select all the files in a folder and click on the box to the left of the keyword. Typically the keyword is at a "-" state (only some files have that keyword applied) so clicking it applies it to all files. I then have to wait quite a few seconds to close to a minute or so while the metadata finishes writing. Then I need to click the box again to deselect all the images from that keyword and again wait for the metadata to finish writing. After that I can delete the keyword, assuming the boxes haven't all rechecked themselves again. At this rate, it will take me until V2021 is released to complete this action. So obviously there is something I'm missing here and I'm hoping someone can explain to me why I can't simply hit the Delete key with the keyword highlighted regardless of whether it's attached to files or not. Thanks much.

 

iMac 27 5K, 32 GB RAM, Catalina 10.15.4

Bridge 10.0.4.157 (CC 2020)

 

Thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer

    Ok, I think I found the key in all this so I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else runs into this. In the files I've been referring to, they keywords are being stored in the IPTC field of the image. It would appear (and I have yet to fully test this) that if you delete those keywords from within LR Classic, LR Classic "kind of" filters them out so you don't see them. Now I'm a little confused about that because when I look at the IPTC fields in LRC, I don't see any fields that say Keywords, so perhaps the Keyword Pane in LRC is the IPTC field for the file. However, that doesn't explain why after deleting the keywords in LRC yesterday, then copying that image over to a test folder and opening it in Bridge today, there is still has an IPTC Keywords field and it's populated with the keywords that I had deleted in LRC yesterday. Obviously there's a lot going on there that is escaping me. Nevertheless what is happening is that I was deleting them (or trying to) from Bridge's keyword set, but as I did so, Bridge would refresh the image and in the process, re-read in the IPTC Keyword field and "pop" - there they would be again. So while I'm still confused (a fairly steady-state situation for me these days 😉 ), I do think I've stumbled on to the reason why the things I'm seeing are happening. It is a bit odd that when Bridge displays the keywords in it's keyword pane, why you can't adjust the IPTC keywords from there; and perhaps this is how it's supposed to work, but for some reason, isn't. There is still more to discover in this, and I'll keep at it but for this thread's purpose, if anyone is having troubles with keywords in Bridge, I would recommend going to the IPTC Core section, selecting the keywords in the Keywords field and deleting them from there. Then you can go back to the Bridge Keyword Pane and proceed as you normally would. By the by, I subsequently added a keyword a few keywords to 2 of the files I was having issues with (after first clearing out the IPTC>Keywords field manually) and those did populate the IPTC>Keywords field as expected. I then cleared them from within the Bridge Keywords Pane and they did clear as expected. The mystery remains as to why I haven't been able to clear (or easily clear) the IPTC>Keywords that came with the file via the Bridge Keyword Pane, but at least this offers an explanation as to how to clear it if you're running into this issue yourself. The investigation continues, but this does resolve this problem, if not fully.

     

    Thanks again for the help Lumigraphics & Stephen. Much appreciated.

     

    EDIT - Addendum:  I discovered that there was one folder I had not eliminated the keywords from and voila, I suddenly had a keyword list as long as your arm again. Fortunately it only took a minute to delete the unwanted keywords, but unfortunately it left a bunch of left-over keywords in the keyword list again that I will only be able to delete one at a time as they are not in any metadata field (obviously). They weren't assigned to any photos so it was easy to delete them, but nevertheless it was a very time consuming process. This tells me Bridge does not have a dedicated keyword list and everything just goes into (and comes out of) the IPTC Core>Keywords field. It also tells me that while I might have a nice, compact list for the images I do need to track, that list will suddenly grow to "x" proportions as soon as I click on an image outside of these folders and which may have keywords embedded themselves. That just doesn't work for me and thus the keywording setup in Bridge really isn't of much use unless you have a completely unified setup, such as a single stock listing with nothing else from other sources. Unfortunately for me, I also have digital art, Illustrator files, etc., etc. Those need a totally different set of keywords and since Lightroom will only read pixel based files, I have to use something else to deal with those files. I think Finder will fill that role for me quite nicely. Anyway, hopefully this thread is of use to others who may be experiencing similar frustrations. Thanks again to responders. I appreciate your time.

    3 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    Correct answer
    May 30, 2020

    Ok, I think I found the key in all this so I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else runs into this. In the files I've been referring to, they keywords are being stored in the IPTC field of the image. It would appear (and I have yet to fully test this) that if you delete those keywords from within LR Classic, LR Classic "kind of" filters them out so you don't see them. Now I'm a little confused about that because when I look at the IPTC fields in LRC, I don't see any fields that say Keywords, so perhaps the Keyword Pane in LRC is the IPTC field for the file. However, that doesn't explain why after deleting the keywords in LRC yesterday, then copying that image over to a test folder and opening it in Bridge today, there is still has an IPTC Keywords field and it's populated with the keywords that I had deleted in LRC yesterday. Obviously there's a lot going on there that is escaping me. Nevertheless what is happening is that I was deleting them (or trying to) from Bridge's keyword set, but as I did so, Bridge would refresh the image and in the process, re-read in the IPTC Keyword field and "pop" - there they would be again. So while I'm still confused (a fairly steady-state situation for me these days 😉 ), I do think I've stumbled on to the reason why the things I'm seeing are happening. It is a bit odd that when Bridge displays the keywords in it's keyword pane, why you can't adjust the IPTC keywords from there; and perhaps this is how it's supposed to work, but for some reason, isn't. There is still more to discover in this, and I'll keep at it but for this thread's purpose, if anyone is having troubles with keywords in Bridge, I would recommend going to the IPTC Core section, selecting the keywords in the Keywords field and deleting them from there. Then you can go back to the Bridge Keyword Pane and proceed as you normally would. By the by, I subsequently added a keyword a few keywords to 2 of the files I was having issues with (after first clearing out the IPTC>Keywords field manually) and those did populate the IPTC>Keywords field as expected. I then cleared them from within the Bridge Keywords Pane and they did clear as expected. The mystery remains as to why I haven't been able to clear (or easily clear) the IPTC>Keywords that came with the file via the Bridge Keyword Pane, but at least this offers an explanation as to how to clear it if you're running into this issue yourself. The investigation continues, but this does resolve this problem, if not fully.

     

    Thanks again for the help Lumigraphics & Stephen. Much appreciated.

     

    EDIT - Addendum:  I discovered that there was one folder I had not eliminated the keywords from and voila, I suddenly had a keyword list as long as your arm again. Fortunately it only took a minute to delete the unwanted keywords, but unfortunately it left a bunch of left-over keywords in the keyword list again that I will only be able to delete one at a time as they are not in any metadata field (obviously). They weren't assigned to any photos so it was easy to delete them, but nevertheless it was a very time consuming process. This tells me Bridge does not have a dedicated keyword list and everything just goes into (and comes out of) the IPTC Core>Keywords field. It also tells me that while I might have a nice, compact list for the images I do need to track, that list will suddenly grow to "x" proportions as soon as I click on an image outside of these folders and which may have keywords embedded themselves. That just doesn't work for me and thus the keywording setup in Bridge really isn't of much use unless you have a completely unified setup, such as a single stock listing with nothing else from other sources. Unfortunately for me, I also have digital art, Illustrator files, etc., etc. Those need a totally different set of keywords and since Lightroom will only read pixel based files, I have to use something else to deal with those files. I think Finder will fill that role for me quite nicely. Anyway, hopefully this thread is of use to others who may be experiencing similar frustrations. Thanks again to responders. I appreciate your time.

      A
      annatribe
      Participant
      January 22, 2022

      Glenn!! Thank you so much for pursuing and posting this.  A while after the fact but this advise has just ended the complete frustration I was having withthe same problem as you.  All is so much better now.

      Cheers!

      Stephen Marsh
      Community Expert
      Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 29, 2020

      It would perhaps be helpful if you posted screenshots to illustrate.

       

      https://helpx.adobe.com/au/bridge/using/keywords-adobe-bridge.html#remove_keywords_from_a_file

       

       

      A
      Anonymous
      May 29, 2020

      I tried to attach a video but it says I don't have permission to do that. So, enclosed is a screen shot. I deselected the "aged" keyword from a single image. About 10 seconds after I did, it rechecked itself. I was still focused on the same image. I repeated this process 3 times and each time it rechecked the box on it's own. This is what's confusing me. Many thanks again. I do have to go out but will be back in about 4 hours or so (it's now 14:03 GMT). Note this was from an image I imported from a training file so the keywords you see are not mine (the ones above the "Other Keywords" are, but those too seem to exhibit the same behaviour).

       

       

       

      Stephen Marsh
      Community Expert
      Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 30, 2020

      The "aged" keyword is in italics, it is non-persistent and is found under "Other Keywords".

       

      See if any of the following info from the link in my previous post help:

       

      "Note: Temporary keywords, such as keywords that you get from other users, appear in italics in the Keywords panel. To make temporary keywords permanent in Adobe Bridge, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) the keyword and choose Make Persistent from the context menu."

       

      and

       

      "To remove a check mark forcibly, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the keyword box. This method is especially useful when you select multiple files to which the keyword was applied only to some, causing a hyphen to appear in the keyword box. To forcibly remove a check mark from a keyword and its parents, press Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift (Mac OS) and click the keyword box."

       

      and

       

      "Tip: To lock a file so that keywords can’t accidentally be removed, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the file in the Content panel and choose Lock Item. When an item is locked, you cannot add or remove keywords, edit metadata, or apply labels or ratings."

      L
      Lumigraphics
      Legend
      May 29, 2020

      Are you trying to remove keywords from your files? If a keyword is in any file, you'll see it in Bridge.

      A
      Anonymous
      May 29, 2020

      Trying to remove them from the set of images I have in a specific folder. It seems that when I click the box to remove the "assignment", it just reassigns itself. To be honest I worked on this until 1 this morning and was back at it by 6. I'm a little buffaloed at the moment. Basically as the manual states, you should just be able to right click a keyword and delete it. What it doesn't say is that the keyword has to be unassigned to all the other images in other locations, which I didn't know about (I thought the images were independent of other files or databases - i.e. Lightroom). Many of the keywords are in italics, which came in with the images as I imported them (such as images that came with exercise files from books and online training). Those ones seem particularly difficult to get rid of but I have no need of them and I doubt they are located anywhere else in my system. Anyway, this explanation is probably only adding to the confusion so maybe let me put things this way:  I have a folder of files that have keywords assigned to each image, some of which are mine and some of which are not (those in italics). How do I delete all the keywords? I don't want to affect my keywording in my Lightroom Classic program in doing this.

       

      Thanks for responding - appreciate it.

      Justin Other
      Justin Other
      Inspiring
      April 12, 2022

      I'm new to all this, but I hit this wall within the first day of evaluating Bridge. My solution is as follows:

       

      1. In Bridge and from the Keywords panel, right-click the keyword you want to delete and select Find…
      2. The results should be every image in your currently active selected set or folder. Note that as others have written on here, Bridge relies on Spotlight for searching but it also seems to have adverse reactions with Spotlight (in my situation, at least). Make sure you're seeing all the files you expect to see before continuing.
      3. Do a Select All on the images.
      4. Uncheck the keyword.
      5. Wait for Bridge to finish updating the metadata on all those files. (!important)
      6. Right-click the keyword again and this time select Delete.

       

      If the keyword Find… fails to return every file you expect to see, you'll have to select them by hand or find another way to group them.

       

      One issue I've found with Bridge is that it can't immediately update IPTC keywords. If you don't allow Bridge enough time to complete the remove keyword task, the delete task will fail and you'll see some of your files still have the keyword attached. I imagine this software bug was discovered years ago, but apparently nobody thinks it's very important.

       

      The keyword un/check process is rather slow. I'm on a Mac Studio with files on an SSD and to update 150 images that are each under 1 MB takes almost two minutes. I can only imagine if I wanted to update all 3000 of my files at once. Blargh.

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