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Hello, I added a Keyword "Family" In lightroom and used it as a "header" keyword, with all the names inside it. Unfortunately when I created it I left all the tick boxes ticked, inc, person. What has aphappened without my realising it for some time, is that "Family" has been added as a keyword to hundreds of images. I have one folder of images, without this keyword, did this with a third party program, as this folder doesn't have many files. Although what I don't understand is, that LR still shows the Keyword "Family" in the keywords in the Metadata window, it shows this in collection and folder. although windows explorer clearly shows this keyword has been removed. Next to the keyword, it doesn't show any files, but when I do a metadata search for "Family" it shows hundreds. There is a minus sign to the left of the KW "Family", but reluctant to just delete it. I have now edited the KW "Family" and unticked ll the boxes, hoping it would no longer be a "header" keyword and would show the file count and allow me to delete it from the files in the collection.
I really hope that's clear, been 3 days trying to sort this, downloaded Exif pilot, to try and remove all the "Family" keywords, but as my images are two folders down, it does t seem to want to st recursively, even if it did I'm not sure it would do what I need. Even if I cleaned up all the files, would I then be able to read the MD back to Lightroom and thus remove the "Famiky" KW ?
I think in future when I create a top level KW I should untick all the radio buttons......just don't want to start all over again.
need to sort this please any ideas ?
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That's a long problem description ... but it's not clear to me what the desired outcome is here. Could you please state clearly what would be the desired result?
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I need to remove the TAG Family from all my files, also Lightroom still shows Family as a keyword on a folder of images ( collection and folder) although windows explorer shows it's not there
thanks
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Make a backup of your catalog file. Then, the check box next to Family should be set to empty.
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I can make a backup of the catalog file, wasn't clear about the next step, the Keyword Family doesn't show a number, it's higher level keyword 🤷🏻:female_sign:
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Then I am confused, your screen capture clearly shows the check box next to Family is not empty.
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It has a minus sign but no numbers to indicate it's associated with files, maybe because it's a parent keyword think the issue was that I created it as a parent keyword, but left the person box ticked and it's associated with lots of files so should I simply delete it ???
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As I said, you want to set the check box to the left of Family to be empty.
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What sometimes confuses people here, is that keywords can produce a search result, or export, even when they have not been explicitly assigned to a photo.
Say I make a keyword "father" and I nest other keywords "son" and "daughter" inside that. I assign "son" to a particular photo. Obviously that photo will show up in a search on "son", also an exported photo will show "son". But that photo will also show up in a search on "father", as will another photo with "daughter": being rolled up into the "father" keyword implicitly. If a child keyword has the option "export containing keywords" checked, then an export will include the "father" keyword even though that was never explicitly assigned. You can see a preview of this outcome in the Keywording panel by changing its view to "Will Export". OTOH, a given parent keyword (or a child keyword) can be blocked from ever exporting, within its own settings.
There can also be synonym keywords in the mix here too, which also have their roles in searching and in exporting.
If the child keyword later gets un-nested from the parent, this implicit behaviour will of course cease. That is: unless this parent keyword has also been assigned to that photo explicitly.
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Thank you, that does explain what happened, I had a feeling it was something like this, in future when I create a Parent keyword, I will untick all the boxes, as I wouldn't want it attached to any files. So how do I resolve my problem now ? I have several hundred images with Family as a keyword, just don't know if I can fix this within Lightroom or need a third party program to sort it, then can read the metadata from the file back into Lightroom. I am told ImBatch will do what I need, i.e remove the keyword TAG Family from all my photos.
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You can filter on a keyword, without getting the subkeywords. To do that activate the Metadata filter, choose Keyword (you can change columns by clicking on the name) and then on the right of the column click on the three lines icon and choose 'Flat'. Now you can select all images that have 'Family' assigned to them directly by clicking on the 'Family' keyword. Then, in the 'Keywording' field in the metadata panel on the right, remove 'Family'. It will be removed from all these images.
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Ok I did as you said a MD filter, chose flat, but Family is not listed in the keywords, but is still in the keyword tak pane when selecting images ???
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If 'Family' is not listed, then your current selection of images does not contain any images that have 'Family' assigned to them as keyword. Select 'All Photographs' first before you do this, and use 'Photo - Stacking - Expand all stacks' to make sure none of the photos is hidden inside a collapsed stack.
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If I select individual faces, the Keyword Family shows in the top right panel, along with the other keywords associated with that image, it shows this way in collection and in folders, and in windows explorer it shows the TAG keyword Family....
I will try the stack idea this evening, but my problem is confusing me, I can't start it all again, took a week to tag all the faces...