Long time issue of LR modifying keywords I enter

[Robert Ripps]

I have been trying to get an answer to this issue of over 10 years, so here I go again- sometimes when I add a keyword to an image(s) in Lightroom Classic (and before LR, in Bridge), I see it, but then pretty quickly afterwards, it changes what I entered, adding extra information, based on an older image I keyworded maybe 15 or more years ago in Bridge.

So, when I enter Reflection, see it in there…

But a moment later, LR has added all of this extraneous information.

This happens with many other keywords that I add, that I used to have set up in a hierarchy in Bridge a long time ago, before LR came along.

When I go to Keyword List in LR, and type Refection, this is what it shows.

I have Auto-complete text in the Keyword Tags field turned off in Interface preferences.

I am sure there is a simple way to stop this from happening, but I have been unable to figure it out, nor can anyone else give me an answer.

I am running LR Classic 10.4, macOS 10.14.6.

Thanks.

[Rob_Cullen]

You need [Auto-complete] turned 'ON' when you enter KWs, otherwise how will you know which of your "Reflection" keywords you are adding to a photo?

The "Reflection<Other Keywords" is simply indicating (by the < ) which of your multiple "Reflection" keywords has been added to the selected photo.

[Robert Ripps]

Hi Rob, thanks for reaching out. Maybe I am not understanding how LR is supposed to work, but to me, all I need is the keyword, in this case, Reflection, to be added. I do not care which of my keyword sets I got it from, nor do I need to see a parent added. I could live with it showing up in only LR, but when I open an image in Photoshop, I see all that other information in there, so instead of Reflections, I see “Reflections <Other Keywords” which looks sloppy.

Also, most of the time, the keywords it is adding extra text to are not in multiple LR keyword sets but LR is merely pulling that info from an old, obsolete way I had created keyword sets in Bridge version 4 or earlier. It is not set up that way in LR, but perhaps pulling from older images, so mistake gets compounded each time I add those certain keywords.

I just don’t understand why LR can’t keep the keyword the way I type it or pick from my created sets, and feels like it needs to amend it.

[Sean McCormack]

So Other Keywords is a containing Keyword. You can right click on Reflections inside this and choose Edit Keyword Tag.

You can turn off the export of these containing tags. 

Alternatively copy all the images from that Keyword into a new Reflections keyword tag that doesn't have the containing keyword. 

[Robert Ripps]

Interesting. So I would have to go to each keyword that shows it has or is a sub key word, and uncheck that box?

So in this example, for each keyword that shows up under Place- NYC Neighborhoods, I would have to click on Landmarks, New York City, New York State, and United States, & deselect that export option? And Place- NYC Neighborhoods itself?

Also, when I tried to deselect this one, Place- NYC neighborhoods/Landmarks, I got this error message:

Lastly, should I still turn on “Auto-complete text in Keywords Tags field”

Thanks.

[Rob_Cullen]

I can see in your last screen-clip of the KWs you have *at least) FIVE keywords "United States". No wonder you are getting confused.

You need a re-structure and tidy up of all those redundant duplicated keywords.

And you should have 'Parent' keywords above their 'Child' Keywords, (not the reverse!) so-

.Place

....United States

........New York State

................New York City

.......................New York City Neighborhoods

........California

........Colorado

etc.

So , eventually, you might approach having only one KW for a location.

An example of where you need more versions of the same KW is where you might use "Brand" as a 'Child' KW under both 'Vehicles' and 'Cameras'.

If you do NOT have “Auto-complete text in Keywords" turned on- How are you going to identify which "United States" heirarchy the KW belongs in?

In the case of "Brand"- Auto-complete would show you the two options to select the Correct 'Brand' for the applicable 'Parent'

.Brand<Cameras

.Brand<Vehicles

If the photo is a car, you would select the "Brand<Vehicles" in the Auto-complete text.

[Robert Ripps]

Not exactly sure how to tidy up everything, as I never actually set up a formal hierarchal structure in the first place. As I recall, I just created a few lose groups of basic keywords in Bridge around 20 years ago, but once I started using LR 15 years ago, I have done all my keywording there. In LR, I just have created keyword sets to easily add basic keywords, and named the sets so they are quick and easy to use for my workflow (while dealing with the set names falling alphabetically).

A few times in LR, I have the same keyword in multiple places, as it made it easier to add them- so Brooklyn Bridge might be under “Place: NYC, Landmarks, Bridges”, or it might be under “Place: NYC, Manhattan Landmarks Lower Manhattan”. But, I don’t think this is the issue, as when I add Brooklyn Bridge from either set, it does not add the name of the set as a parent.

Most of the time this works fine for me. But now, almost a quarter of a million images later, some keywords I had from Bridge are still getting changed based on what I had done in Bridge (and mostly involving New York city neighborhoods). So what I am saying is, since the problematic keywords were from Bridge, do I make changes to the structure in Bridge? Or should I delete all of them from Bridge as I no longer use it for Keywording?

This is what I see in current version of Bridge in keyword tab (just the US section):

I don’t necessarily need a hierarchy, or every possible descriptive keyword, I just want to add some basic keywords to better help me search for images. I appreciate your guidance, and I am sorry if I am not quite grasping all this.

[Rob_Cullen]

My first suggestion- Stop using Bridge for keywords, or any thing in Bridge that might affect image metadata. Or better still Stop using Bridge!

Next do some learning to help you tidy the LrC keyword list. You will get more advice from the links than if I were to try and explain here in the forum.

How to Use Hierarchical Keywords In Lightroom Classic

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/keywords.html#import_and_export_keywords

Controlling Keywords - Lightroom Killer Tips

Organize Your Lightroom Keywords into Keyword Hierarchies | Laura Shoe's Lightroom Training Tutorial...

[Robert Ripps]

As I have said previously, I only started keywording in Bridge maybe 20 years ago, and but then started using LR only for keywording maybe 15 years ago. Only reason I mentioned Bridge is that seems to be where my troubles are coming from- legacy keywords used on a few images a long time ago that LR still applies to images today. I never set up a hierarchy in LR, just keyword sets, so it is pulling it from elsewhere. So when discussing cleaning things up, I wondered if I should delete all the keyword set up in Bridge, to prevent issue going forward.

Those links look really helpful, so I will try to see what I can learn to improve my keywording, and hopefully stop that extraneous information from being entered in LR. Thanks Rob & Sean.

[Sean McCormack]

I would at least add the base keyword to Lightroom before deleting the heirarchy. You can always build a heirarchy again at any time. The keywords in Bridge should match Lightroom, but it's possible that something happened along the way that put them out of sync. 

[Sean McCormack]

At one stage Lightroom changed how you use a separator to creating containing keywords. You have '/' marked in preferences as a separator, but in your capture, you're also using / inside the keywords, so this is a legitimate error. Either change the preference, or edit the tags that contain a /.. E.g. the last containing keyword there is  Place-NYC neighborhoods/L... 

But to answer the question, yes, you need to turn it off if you don't want the containing keywords. That said, @Rob_Cullen is spot on here that you do have tidying up to do as there's a lot of repeition here that will continuw to make your life and keyword management confusing. I think reorganising these, creating fresh hierachies, will fix the issue of seeing the containing keywords in the 'Enter Keywords' part of keywords (There is a separate 'Keywords and Containing Keywords' option. 

[Sean McCormack]

I forgot the Auto Complete question. I have it on generally, and I do have some repeat keywords, so often I may have to edit, but it's still faster than typing out every keyword each time. I think if you tidy up, autocomplete will work better for you.