I search my LR catalog by text - it often returns images that do not contain that text!

[Crockny]

This has been a long standing issue and I can't for the life of my figure out why searching for "street" for example will also include pictures of birds with no keyword "street" ... what gives!

[Srishti Bali]

Hi @Crockny,

Thanks for reaching out. A few details will help us understand what’s happening:

• Which version of Lightroom Classic and Windows are you using?

• Has this behavior started after a recent update?

• Could you share a screenshot or short screen recording showing the search term and the unexpected results?

Once we have this info, we can dig deeper and help troubleshoot.

Regards,

Srishti

[Crockny]

Yes of course ... LR Classic 14.4, Windows 10,  -- in trying to find an example using "New York"  it seems the search is  picking up "New York" from metadata even though it is not in the keywords ...

[JohanElzenga]

Do you specifically search for keywords, or for any text? If you search for any text, then perhaps your photos are tagged with GPS coordinates and so Lightroom finds the word 'street' in the GPS location...

[Crockny]

I am searching keywords but see above - I think it's picking up metadata that is not in the keywords

[johnrellis]

There is still ambiguity in your descriptions. Please post a full-resolution screenshot (not a phone pic) of the Library Filter bar showing what you're searching, and we'll be able to help.

[johnrellis]

The filter in your screen shot is Keywords Contains Words New York. The Keyword Tags panel for one of the matching photos show APAP, Charnett Moffet, Fine, Motema Show.

It's likely that one of those keywords is a hierarchical keyword whose ancestors contain the words "new" and "york".  For example, Motema Show < New York City < New York < US < Places.  When a hierarchical keyword is explicitly assigned to a photo, LR considers its ancestors also assigned to the photo, and those ancestors will be searched the Keywords criterion in filters and smart collections.

So the filter shown in the screenshot would match any photo assigned Motema Show, New York City, or New York.

You can quickly verify the ancestor keywords of Motema Show by typing "motema" in the Filter Keywords box of the Keyword List panel.

[Crockny]

Hmm I think you are onto something, although I think the culprit is the word "fine" which for the life of me I can't remember why I was using that.  However in the keyword list when I search for fine I see no hierarchy but I see it attached to other words like "fine, butterfly" etc.  A lot of them ...

Anyway Lightroom is acting up so that's all for tonight ... thanks for your help.

[johnrellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

The issue is what keywords are matching "new" and "york" when you use "Keywords Contain Words New York".   Type "york" into the Keyword List's Filter Keywords box and post a full-resolution screenshot of the Keyword List panel.  Here's my keyword list when I do that:

[Crockny]

Well at least I've learned how to use the snipping tool!  It seems I have made a lot of mistakes in my early keywording ... 

[johnrellis]

Your screen shot shows all the keywords containing "york", and none of them contain the keywords in one of the matching photos: APAP, Charnett Moffet, Fine, Motema Show. So it's hard to tell from a distance exactly what's going on. 

If you do the menu command Metadata > Export Keywords and then edit the exported .txt file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad), you can more easily see the entire hierarchical structure and discover why "Contains Words New York" is matching a photo.

[Crockny]

Thanks - I will try that ...