P: Ability to NOT import image keywords

[Katrin Eismann]

It would be very helpful to have the ability to NOT import keywords when importing images. For example, I was reworking my large LR catalogue with older images that I had keyworded before I really know how to do keywords and all the mistakes (all caps, no heirachy, etc) came into my LR keyword list and made my keyword list unusable. As mentioned in a previous post managing keywords in LR is an exercise in frustration and dealing with all these mistakes in a 100,000+ image Library is untenable.

[Bob Somrak]

Yes, @john beardsworth 's Bridge option looks like a great solution.  The Lightroom Classic method I posted is probaly the worst option as you have to open and close LrC twice and have potential stray, unused catalogs laying around.  My experience with Bridge consiststs mainly of using it to open ACR to create Profiles so I didn't know what was available in Bridge.

[johnrellis]

Another workaround that doesn't require Bridge: As well as having an import metadata preset that clears the keywords from imported photos, use the option Put New Keywords Inside This Keyword to put new keywords inside a separate top-level keyword. Then you can periodically clear out the newly added keywords quite easily.  

See this post for details:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/lightroom-ability-to-not-import-image-keyword...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/lightroom-ability-to-not-import-image-keyword... 

[john beardsworth]

Another workaround that doesn't require Bridge: As well as having an import metadata preset that clears the keywords from imported photos, use the option Put New Keywords Inside This Keyword to put new keywords inside a separate top-level keyword. Then you can periodically clear out the newly added keywords quite easily.  

By @johnrellis

I don't believe this works. As with my discredited one-step solution, keywords aren't applied to the photo but they are being imported into the hierarchy. That's with 11.2 on Windows.

[johnrellis]

"keywords aren't applied to the photo but they are being imported into the hierarchy."

That's right -- with that method, the keywords added by Import are added to the hierarchy but segregated under a distinguished top-level keyword, e.g. "Imported".  So it's easy to periodically remove those keywords.

[john beardsworth]

"That's right -- with that method, the keywords added by Import are added to the hierarchy but segregated under a distinguished top-level keyword, e.g. "Imported".  So it's easy to periodically remove those keywords."

Not in my tests on Windows and Mac. The imported hierarchy is being added as a separate top-level keyword.

[johnrellis]

Got it. I'll figure out which version broke this and post a bug report.

[lazmag1]

The same thing happened to me. I'm on Mac 12.1

[nixpixie]

It's August 2022 and I still haven't seen a way to do this in Lightroom. Is Adobe going to address this problem that has been around for over 10 years? It's awful to import Adobe Stock images and flood my Keywords list with 100s of useless keywords. If there is a working Lightroom solution (not using other apps) that I haven't read about, I'd love to hear it! 

[johnrellis]

"Is Adobe going to address this problem that has been around for over 10 years?"

Seems unlikely. I had thought in a previous post that keywords added by Import would obey the setting Put New Keywords Inside This Keyword, but they don't.  Just now, I tested this with LR 11.4.1, 10.4, 9.1, and 6.14, and they all behaved the same.

So if keywords added by Import used to get added to the keyword marked with Put New Keywords Inside This Keyword, it must have been prior to LR 6.14 (five years ago).  Posting a bug report, rather than an Idea, would be pointless in this case, since the Adobe product team will just declare the behavior "as designed" and move it here (in the Ideas section).

[nixpixie]

Isn't that truly ridiculous? We all pay a LOT of money to use Adobe products and this is a very straightforward catalog management issue. Sigh...

[lazmag1]

I finally gave up trying to easily delete keywords in Lightroom. I first import the photos into Bridge where they can easily be removed and them input into Lightroom. It's two steps but a lot easier than trying to fix the keyword mess in Lightroom. Hopefully Adobe will address this some day.