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

[areohbee]

Is there really no way to search metadata for a term that has spaces in it? e.g. "brown hair".

[John R Ellis]

"And why is the Up-vote button missing from this entry?"

It was originally entered as a Problem, not an Idea, and the up-vote button is only available for Ideas. With the old software platform for this forum, a moderator could convert a Problem to an Idea, and the Problem Me Toos would convert to Idea Votes. But with this new inferior platform, they don't convert. The old Me Toos are still counted as Likes. 

(Don't blame Adobe for this -- the old platform company GetSatisfaction was bought by Sprinklr, who promptly end-of-lifed the old platform and replaced it with this inferior version. Adobe is actively working on replacing the Sprinklr platform.)

[John R Ellis]

The lack of exact match for keywords is a glaring oversight that Adobe hasn't cared to fix.  

See here for how to use the Library Filter bar to do exact match:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-exact-text-match-in-smart-c... 

See here for using the operators Starts With and Ends With to nearly exact match:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-exact-text-match-in-smart-c... 

If you do a lot of searching of mulitple keywords (e.g. "Bob Smith" and "San Francisco"), try the Filter By Keyword command of the Any Tag plugin.

[John R Ellis]

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[COBill]

Several years back, there was a forum entry collecting search suggestions. Well, they didn't happen so perhaps that entry faded away. I think it is time to restart. 

One of the suggestions was for a true boolean search. 

And why is the Up-vote button missing from this entry? 

[John R Ellis]

The lack of exact match for keywords is frustrating. But a much better workaround surfaced recently using Starts With and Ends With:

This matches the keyword "John Smith" but not "Smith John" and not "John Smithson". It's not absolutely perfect -- it would accidentally match "John Smith John Smith", but I think in practice there wouldn't be any such examples.

(Up until a couple years ago, Starts With was broken and couldn't be used in this way.)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks for this. You beautifully worded what I mostly feel as "I can't )(*&*(@#&$! believe that in 2020 I still can't (*(*#@$!@ search in a decent )*&*(&#$! way".

[dw24154351]

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

Would not have guessed that side effect. I'll give it a go.

[dw24154351]

Thanks for merging, John. It is incredible (and mind boggling) that this has been going on for 9 years. Here's my conclusion having read this thread....

I would concur with William and Patrick (from 5 years ago) that from a software point of view this isn't a rocket science change. 

But also from a user experience point of view somebody at Adobe has to own this problem. Photographers expect to be able to have a tool that can search their own professional library intelligently. Sure you can make machine learning models that can visually find a toaster, but that isn't what photographers need - they label based on the type of work that specialise in. It needs to be efficient and easily used. Not all photographers no regex syntax 🙂

Maybe the issue is "Classic" and that internally they've moved on to the next mobile thing.

I've landed here because I was trying to solve a problem where you have 100 faces in 1500+ images that you have sort. The Face detection is a good starting point, but the failure in keywords just makes this clumsy.

Great I can recognise faces but I can't robustly search for them and file them efficiently.

UX design is caring about the little things and understanding the business context of the user base. Adobe needs to remember that people who use their products are typically running a business (or are part of a business). They invest in tools like Lightroom and Photoshop (and Muse :-p) to keep their business running. Not considering the little things and the workflows that business face every day wastes time (and money).

Somebody at Adobe could use XD to start mocking up a better interface and talk to the software team about the technical hurdles to implement it. You could start with two interns....

I too came across from Aperture and have looked at Final Cut Pro / Motion and Premiere / After Effects. So I have both an Apple and Adobe perspective.  I'm also a software developer and UX designer. There are times when I look at Adobe products and just get the sense that somebody who knows UNIX has influenced a particular user interface feature. There's definitely power to do things but nobody hasn't put in the effort to remove the technical clutter and make the product enjoyable to use.

Count how many times you have to reach out for a help guide to figure out a feature. The contains, contains all, contains word pop up labelling is indicative of the underlying issue.

It's not about making everything simple, it's more about designing the experience to be intuitive and providing the professional power when it is needed. Design it for the intended audience.

Fixing keywords shouldn't be difficult. String search technology is well established in 2020 especially if we are dealing with an sqlite back end.

I nominate that the monetary component of my annual subscription that was paying for Muse development should be funnelled into fixing keywords / search in Lightroom Classic. 

[John R Ellis]

Why conversations get merged: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[John R Ellis]

"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.

[John R Ellis]

"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-wit...

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/default_topic/lightroom-filter-and-smart-collection-cri... 

(Title is still broken, though.)

[dw24154351]

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 🙂

[JohanElzenga]

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

[Califdan2]

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.   

[JohanElzenga]

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'.

[John R Ellis]

"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.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

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

Thanks again!
Take care 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

   Has a solution been found yet?
Thanks so much 🙂

[JohanElzenga]

BTW, I think that a smart collection that searches on 'Jane Smith' should find photos labelled with the keyword 'Bob and Jane Smith'...

[JohanElzenga]

We certainly do agree on that. 

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, we certainly agree on that.

The criteria "starts with Jane Smith & ends with Jane Smith" will match a photo with these two keywords: "Jane Smith's home" and "Bob and Jane Smith".

The smart collection 'Start with Jane Smith' and 'Contains Words Jane Smith', as I suggested, should not match this photo. 'Bob and Jane Smith' will not match start with Jane Smith. And "Jane Smith's home" does not contain the word Smith. Unless Lightroom also ignores the '-character and considers "Smith's" as "Smith" plus "s"... I haven't checked that.

Similarly, the criterion "contains words Jane Smith" will match a photo with the two keywords "Jane Crate" and "Bob Smith".

The smart collection 'Start with Jane Smith' and 'Contains Words Jane Smith' will not match this photo because it does not start with Jane Smith.

[John R Ellis]

While the counter-examples to these approximations may seem "rare" to you, the more keywords you have, the more likely you'll trip over them. As the author of the Any Filter plugin (which does provide exact match for keywords and all other fields), I've seen over the years a fair number of surprising gotchas from my customers.  Put another way, there's no accounting for other people's naming of keywords 😆

But, to build on Dan's observations, I think we all agree that the lack of exact match is an embarrassing defect in smart collections.

[John R Ellis]

Another complication with all these approximations to exact match is how LR handles the presence of multiple keywords. Two examples:

The criteria "starts with Jane Smith & ends with Jane Smith" will match a photo with these two keywords: "Jane Smith's home" and "Bob and Jane Smith".

Similarly, the criterion "contains words Jane Smith" will match a photo with the two keywords "Jane Crate" and "Bob Smith".

[John R Ellis]

Another approximation that gets close in most circumstances for multi-word keywords:

starts with Jane Smith
ends with Jane Smith

[JohanElzenga]

Perhaps this is the answer: create a smart collection with two criteria that both must be true:
- Start with “Jane Smith”
- Contains words “Jane Smith”
That should exclude images that only contain Jane Smithson, but still include images of both Jane & Jane, or Jane Smith and any other person called Smithson.