Writing keyword hierarchy in-tact into "IPTC Keywords"

Report · Jul 04, 2019

I use LR Classic for my RAW cataloging and processing, and I export into Mac Photos for sharing.

End goal: Smart Albums in both LR and Photos based on keywords created in LR.

I would like to use hierarchical keywords in LR to do this, but so far not so great.

For example, let's say I have Holidays>2019 Halloween set up as a parent/child keyword. I would like to be able to create a smart collection in LR based on this. So far I haven't been able to get this to work. (This is similar to what is posted here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/smart-collection-filter-by-sub-keyword.24725/ ).

I would then like for that keyword relationship to somehow show up in the IPTC Keywords on export, even if it is "Holidays|2019 Halloween", so that I can then create a Smart Album in Photos based on that string. I see this show up in the "XMP Hierarchical Subject" but Photos doesn't know anything about that.

Is my best bet to just use my own pseudo-hierarchy?

Events:Jill's 5th Birthday

Events:Jill's 6th Birthday

Holidays:2019 Independence Day

Holidays:2019 Halloween

and so on. At least then they will be alphabetically sorted and close to each other in lists, and will be the same in any tool I use.

Any suggestions?

Report · Jul 05, 2019

A quick search indicates that Apple Photos doesn't support hierarchical keywords (though the old iPhoto did): https://www.google.com/search?q=%22hierarchical%22+keywords+in+Apple+Photos&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD7a739p...

Report · Jul 05, 2019

Yeah, exactly my plight.

Report · Jul 05, 2019

For example, let's say I have Holidays>2019 Halloween set up as a parent/child keyword. I would like to be able to create a smart collection in LR based on this. So far I haven't been able to get this to work. (This is similar to what is posted here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/smart-collection-filter-by-sub-keyword.24 725/ ).

None of the answers in that thread are quite right -- most people don't fully understand LR's bizarre text matching. To create a smart collection (LR's terminology) containing photos with the keyword Holidays > 2019 Halloween, the better approach is:

The operators "contains" and "contains all" are less useful and will often give false matches. "contains words" is better, but even it can sometimes give false matches:

- "contains x y z" will match a photo with keywords that contain the strings "x", "y", or "z" anywhere in any of its keywords, e.g. it will match any photo with "xray", or "Betsy", or "jazz".

- "contains all x y z" requires the matching photo to contain the strings "x", "y", and "z" somewhere in its keywords, e.g. it will match a photo with all three keywords "xray", "Betsy", and "jazz".

- "contains words x y z" requires the matching photo to contain all of the strings "x", "y", and "z" as punctuation-separated "words" somewhere in its keywords. But even this isn't exactly what most people want. "contains words 2109 Halloween" would match a photo with these two keywords: "2019 earthquakes" and "School Halloween".

Though you can add additional criterion to any one smart collection to exclude false matches, that is error-prone. In general, the only way to get exact keyword matches in LR is to use the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser with a Keywords column. That's very clumsy and fussy to use, but here's a little-known shortcut: In the Keyword List panel, scroll to the desired keyword (or search for it using the Filter Keywords search box at the top of the panel), hover the mouse over the right side of the keyword, and click the arrow:

Report · Jul 05, 2019

Thank you for the replies.

So it would seem that even Lightroom doesn't support keyword hierarchies completely.

I'm wondering if there are alternatives, such as what I suggested of just using my own separator and a hierarchy of sorts, flattening the hierarchy out myself:

Holiday::Halloween 2019

or similar. I think I'd need to avoid any separator that LR might interpret as a hierarchy separator, such as |, /, etc.

I sure wish there was a standard around this. Kudos to Adobe for trying to create one with "XMP Hierarchical Subject" but it didn't seem to catch on unfortunately.

Report · Jul 05, 2019

You could try the flattening to see how it works. Keyword entry might be painful, though.

As for separators, I think you should avoid "|", ">", and "<" -- the others should be safe.

I sure wish there was a standard around this. Kudos to Adobe for trying to create one with "XMP Hierarchical Subject" but it didn't seem to catch on unfortunately.

Adobe never advocated for XMP:HierarchicalSubject to be a standard, as far as I know. They just started using that field.

The Metadata Working Group, which included Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony, did propose a standard for representing hierarchical keywords in metadata in 2010, but I'm not aware of any company that has implemented it.