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Bridge creates keywords rather than selecting the ones I made.

Community Beginner ,
Jun 04, 2018 Jun 04, 2018

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So I am tagging archival photos as my job. Part of my hierarchy looks like this:

Programs

     Business

          Accounting

          Business Administration

               Management

               Accounting

However when I tag a photo with the business tag, it tags it for a second, then removes itself then adds an additional business tag in the 'other keywords' tab

Programs

     Business

          Accounting

          Business Administration

               Management

               Accounting

Other Keywords

     Buisness

I don't know why this is happening. I've tried deleting the business keyword, going into the metadata tab and deleting it from there, I've tried closing the program between deleting the 'other keyword' business and tagging the 'programs' business. Everything that I can think of.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 11, 2018 Jun 11, 2018

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Ok so; I don't know if this is a bug or the correct solution but I found a solution nonetheless.

I guess what bridge is doing is 'remembering' old keywords for some reason despite me deleting them. It also seems to be adding keywords I've never added, they look like file explorer adressess'  (programs/business/business_administration) and for some reason those do not delete no matter what i try. But for the other problem I've found 2 methods that work so far.

1: delete the hierarchy and the added 'other keyword' entirely. Re-do the heirarchy from scratch

2: drag the deleted keyword (the italicized one) up to the same level as the one you want bridge to remember and make it persist ant by right clicking it (if dragging it into the hierarchy didn't already make it persistent) and then move all the levels below it into the new one.

   

     Unfortunately by both methods there is a running problem with bridge that is; any images tagged under the old hierarchy (deleted or moved) will remember their old keys and you will have to re-tag them as you find them to the new hierarchy.

     Alternatively BEFORE you delete any of the keywords; right click on them and select find and browse to the folder the images are in. This will make re-tagging much faster. 

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New Here ,
Jul 24, 2018 Jul 24, 2018

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Melissa thanks for your solution/workaround as provided above

first why do these pages take so long to load . second to adobe support personel browse these pages. if not why not, if yes why haven't they commented and explained how to deal with this issue....

i am experiencing this same problem. this (as described in the original post) is an extremely difficult to deal with when you have literally spent days weeks even months labelling image files using the bridge system .

I simply can't believe the level of incompetency that would lead to a high faluting company like adobe to design a file management software program that would have these issues in it.

this is not an issue with an individual file playing up we are dealing with here. this is an issue with the whole utility of bridge software as a file management utility. In otherwords, if it isn't fixed days and days of the users work have either been wasted or need to spent to sort the problem bye using workarounds. for me it is totally imcompetence.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 24, 2018 Jul 24, 2018

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The “non-persistent” italicised keywords under “Other Keywords” are in the browsed/viewed files, they are not in Bridge’s Keywords XML database.

To fully understand what exactly is going on, the existing keyword structure from file info raw data would be required, as would knowing how your keywords are structured in the keywords panel and how your keywords preferences are configured for read/write. This is probably more complex than one may first assume.

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Participant ,
Sep 10, 2018 Sep 10, 2018

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I have the exact same problem.  I've spent hours trying to fix this.  I've deleted, moved, and completely erased keywords as described by others.  I've deleted all keywords and then deleted cache and tried to re-enter the key words. The system just keeps on putting them in the "other keyword" category in addition to where I want them or it puts them somewhere else where I just might stumble across them.  Very frustrating.  We just need the location where the old hierarchy is stored so we can fix this.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 10, 2018 Sep 10, 2018

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In addition to my reply#3 above, the path to the underlying keyword XML ’database’ can be found here:

Prepression: Bridge – Restoring a Lost Keyword XML File

I have never seen the location of the non persistent other keywords ‘cache’ mentioned by Adobe or end users.

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Participant ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Thanks.  I really appreciate your taking the time to respond,  but I'm not sure what to do with the info.  For instance the last item was:

<set name="Other Keywords" disclosed="true">    </set></keywords>

Should I set "True" to "False"?  Based on the last sentence of your response I'm thinking this won't solve the problem.

I have exported my hierarchy of keywords into a text document.  What if I deleted all the XML data in the Adobe Bridge file and then imported my keywords.  Do you think this would eliminate the problem, or are the "bad" keywords somehow embedded into the image file XMPs.  If that were true the only way to fix the problem would be to delete the files themselves and recreate them.  Obviously that's a non-starter.

R/Jim

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Community Expert ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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All keywords are embedded into the image file, or XMP sidecar file for raw images.

The italic text other keywords appear when a file is browsed that has keywords that do not exist in the main keyword XML database.

See my reply #3.

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Participant ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Stephen,

I understand that the keywords are embedded, and the problem is we need to be able re-organize them to suit our needs and right now that doesn't seem possible.  Once the keyword is created it is locked forever into whatever hierarchy exists at that time.

What I and I think others are saying is that we want to create a NEW hierarchy and Bridge is putting certain words in an old hierarchy we may have used earlier.  That's what we need to be able to change.

For instance, I have a hierarchy of keywords that start with the parent word Fauna then Birds.  I then have a list of specific birds under that.  If I enter the keyword Birds in older files, Bridge opens a keyword Parent called Plants & Animals and then a sub key word of Bird, so my entry is duplicated.  I believe Plants & Animals is what Bridge ships with and probably what I originally used 10 years ago.

Another example: I have a "Cities" Parent word. If I've tagged a photo with say "Paris"  at some point in time before I created that Parent word, Bridge  will put "Paris" in Other Keywords even though I now have Paris listed under Cities.  I can delete Paris in all my files, delete the keyword Paris from Other Keywords and Paris from Cities;  when I recreate "Paris" in Cities and then tag all my photos, Paris shows up again in Other Keywords.  I have tried deleting cache thinking that might clear things but it doesn't.

Once again, I appreciate your time on this.  I'm not very computer literate, so if this is user error on my part, I'm happy to learn a new trick.

R/Jim

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Community Expert ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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From my post #3:

To fully understand what exactly is going on, the existing keyword structure from file info raw data would be required, as would knowing how your keywords are structured in the keywords panel and how your keywords preferences are configured for read/write. This is probably more complex than one may first assume.

Even better than the file info raw data would be a few example files, even if they are 1 pixel in size, it is only the metadata that matters.

Screenshots of your keyword prefs would be good as well.

This can be fixed, you just need to work out where you are coming from and where you are going.

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Participant ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Stephen,

For keyword preferences I only have "Read Hierarchical Preferences " checked.

I've attached an image that has the problem with key wording "Birds" that I described above.  I also grabbed the RAW data file on this image but I can't see how to attach a word document to this response.  So I just copied and pasted below the info that pertains to the keywords in the image.  In the third line down you can see Adobe's Parent category (Animals & Plants) followed Adobe's sub category of Birds (although this is maybe a category I created many years ago).  The 4th line is the Parent category I want to use along with the sub categories pertaining to the attached image.  Being able to delete Adobe's category would solve this problem, though the I'm not sure if it solves the second example I gave above (Other Keywords).

Anyway, thanks for hanging in.  Whether we can solve this or not, I'm learning stuff and am appreciative of all you are doing.DSC_6134.jpg


   <lr:hierarchicalSubject>

            <rdf:Bag>

               <rdf:li>Animals & Plants|Birds</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds|Egrets & Herons</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds</rdf:li>

            </rdf:Bag>

         </lr:hierarchicalSubject>

      </rdf:Description>

   </rdf:RDF>

</x:xmpmeta>

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Community Expert ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Thanks!

I double checked the metadata with ExifTool:

[IPTC]          Keywords      : 2006, Everglades FL, Egrets & Herons, Birds

[XMP-dc]        Subject       : 2006, Everglades FL, Egrets & Herons, Birds

[XMP-lr]        HierarchicalSubject       : Animals & Plants|Birds, Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds|Egrets & Herons, Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds

As expected, Bridge is adhering to MWG standard of writing the same entries to the legacy IPTC Keywords, in addition to the standard XMP-DC Subject. Also, Bridge also writes out Lightroom hierarchical keywords, which may use a different format than Bridge.

From the Raw Data of File Info:

<dc:subject>

            <rdf:Bag>

               <rdf:li>2006</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Everglades FL</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Egrets & Herons</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Birds</rdf:li>

            </rdf:Bag>

</dc:subject>

<lr:hierarchicalSubject>

            <rdf:Bag>

               <rdf:li>Animals & Plants|Birds</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds|Egrets & Herons</rdf:li>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds</rdf:li>

            </rdf:Bag>

</lr:hierarchicalSubject>

I’ll let you know what I come up with, the fix will likely be ExifTool based unless I can hack existing Bridge scripts to do the job.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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For keyword preferences I only have "Read Hierarchical Preferences " checked.

So you don’t want to write hierarchical keywords?

Currently the metadata in your file reflects this, there are just separate keywords, with no relationship between them (except for the Lightroom ones that are auto generated whether you like it or not).

I believe that this is the major part of your problem.

Can you give me a screenshot of the keywords panel and how it should look, I’m getting a bit lost… Is it like this (2 levels deep from the main category):

Animals Insects Birds Fish

> Birds

>> Egrets & Herons

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Participant ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Honestly I had no idea what that meant (I think I mentioned I'm computer illiterate).  Still not exactly sure what it means.  In any case, I've checked the write option as well.

Hope that helps some how.

Need to sign off till tomorrow.

R/Jim

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Community Expert ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Separate “Flat” Keywords:

separate.png

________________________

Hierarchical Keywords:

hierarchical.png

<lr:hierarchicalSubject>

            <rdf:Bag>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds|Egrets & Herons</rdf:li>

            </rdf:Bag>

</lr:hierarchicalSubject>

<dc:subject>

            <rdf:Bag>

               <rdf:li>Animals Insects Birds Fish|Birds|Egrets & Herons</rdf:li>

            </rdf:Bag>

</dc:subject>

________________________

Should I use flat or hierarchical keywords? | The Lightroom Queen

Nested, hierarchal keywording | Adobe Bridge

________________________

ONE PROPOSED SOLUTION – PRESUMING THAT THE EXISTING LR:HIERARCHICALSUBJECT METADATA IS CORRECT OR MOSTLY CORRECT:

It is easy enough to clear out the old DC:Subject (and indirectly the IPTC:Keyword) metadata using a Bridge script, leaving the lr:hierarchicalSubject intact, then copy the lr:hierarchicalSubject metadata back into the DC:Subject (and indirectly to the IPTC:Keyword) metadata fields. This 2 step process could be turned into a single step process if one knows how to combine the two separate scripts. The same thing can also be performed using ExifTool in a single command (I can drive ExifTool, scripting is much harder for me).

This way you can leverage the existing Lightroom hierarchical keyword structure in the “standard” subject/keyword metadata. This looks promising and the least amount of tidy-up work!

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Participant ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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Stephen,

Thanks for the links, especially describing the difference between flat and hierarchical key words.  I'm OK with being organized around hierarchies.  The Adobe link was useful too in understanding the preferences, obviously I had just stuck with the default.  Unfortunately, I don't know anything about scripts so the "proposed solution" is not going to work for me.

At this point, I'm thinking I should just live with the duplication and "mess" as described by the LR Queen.

R/Jim

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Community Expert ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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I think you can fix the mess. Let’s recap/reset the discussion from my end…

Your files currently have 3 kinds of embedded keyword metadata in them: DC:Subject + IPTC:Keywords + LR:HierarchicalSubject

You would also have a metadata keyword panel structured in a certain format. The keyword panel structure may or may not match some of the data currently in the files.

There are at least a couple of options to move forward knowing the points above:

1) Leverage existing metadata to help fix the mess in a more automated fashion (i.e. if the LR:HierarchicalSubject happens to match your new keyword structure)

2) If the existing DC:Subject + IPTC:Keywords + LR:HierarchicalSubject metadata is creating issues when you are manually retagging using the keywords panel and new structure, then you can remove the Subject+Keywords and or the LR:HierarchicalSubject metadata using a script. You don’t need to know how to write script code, it already exists… All you need to do is follow simple instructions to install the script and then it is available from a menu in Bridge just like any other.

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LEGEND ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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When you see an italicized keyword, delete it in the keyword panel. Don't try to use it. Then add your actual correct keyword.

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Participant ,
Sep 11, 2018 Sep 11, 2018

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Lumigraphics,

I appreciate your time.

Please read my reply to Stephen.  FWIW, deleting a temporary (italicized) keyword doesn't work.  As soon as I re-enter the keyword where I want it, it shows up again in the old place.  Please note in my response above, I believe this happens when a keyword was entered before the new hierarchy was created.  I've been trying to organize my images (many thousand) and make them more searchable by categories.  This involves going back as much as 15 years ago.  Seeing those old images is fun but dealing with this issue is not.  I guess I'll have to get past my OCD and move on.

Thanks again,

Jim

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LEGEND ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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Yes a script could fix this, OR:

Select ALL of your files. UNCHECK all of the unwanted keywords to remove them from the files. THEN (once no files have those keywords assigned) DELETE the unwanted keywords.

Finally, create and assign the keywords you want to use.

Hierarchical keywords are simply in categories. Example:

Wildlife

     Birds

          Raptors

               Hawks

               Eagles

          Songbirds

          Waterfowl
     Mammals

          Large

               Horses

               Cows

          Small

               Raccoons

               Squirrels

Cities

     North America

          Large Cities

               New York

               Chicago

          Small Cities

So you would have Wildlife|Birds|Raptors|Hawks as one keyword, not four.

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Participant ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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Lumigraphics,

Thanks for your input.  Unfortunately, I know nothing about scripts so that's a non-starter.

Unfortunately your option 2 doesn't work.  Over the last few days I've tried it dozens of time, exactly as you described.  Each time the old hierarchy pops up.  This is what led me to believe the info is embedded in the image file.  I may be wrong on the cause, but the effect is that no matter what I do, short of deleting the original image itself, the old categorization keeps showing up.

As I mentioned to Stephen, it may be time to move on.  Though frustrating that I can't fix it, having duplicate keywords in different categories isn't the end of the world. 

R/Jim

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LEGEND ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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The keywords ARE in the image files. That's why you UNCHECK the old keywords, so Bridge removes them from the file.

Once that part is done, none of your files will have those keywords embedded.

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Participant ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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I wish it were that simple.  If it were, there wouldn't be all these posts on this site and others trying to resolve the problem.  As I said, I've done what you suggested dozens of times across many images.  I've even deleted cache, closed Bridge and restarted my computer before re-opening the folder of files and applying the keyword.  Sure the new keyword shows up where I put it, but Bridge also re-opens the old Parent Keyword and sub key word that I wanted to eliminate. What you propose is exactly how Bridge should work with keywords, but it doesn't.

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Participant ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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Stephen, Lumigraphics,

My OCD kicked in again and I found the following procedure will work.  By going to File Info for an image and deleting the keywords, closing Bridge and then opening it again, you can add a keyword, e.g., Bird, without the old Parent, e.g., Animals and Plants opening.  That's the good news.  The bad news is, while you would think that by selecting all images with the same keyword set you could delete them and get the same effect, that is not what happened. It only seemed to work by deleting each file one at a time.  Not very practical.

I'm not totally dismissing operator error, but I tried this with several different folders of images.  As you've both pointed out, some sort of script could probably accomplish this.

Anyway, I thank you both for your time.

R/Jim

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Community Expert ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

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I did not refresh the page and missed your overnight reply, however these image samples may help to work out what is going on with existing metadata and if it is creating issues or perhaps useful to help automate the cleanup.

no-keywords.jpg = all keyword metadata removed

no-keywords.jpg

dcsubject-iptckeywords.jpg = only dcsubject & iptckeywords, no lr-hierarchicalSubject metadata

dcsubject-iptckeywords.jpg

lr-hierarchicalSubject.jpg = only lr-hierarchicalSubject, no dcsubject & iptckeywords

lr-hierarchicalSubject.jpg

Hope this helps and good luck, I’m happy to help.

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