P: Ability to sync Lightroom Classic keywords with the Lightroom Ecosystem

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Keywords do not sync correctly: When added on the mobile app (iOS), they do not appear in LR classic and not in LR Web (I deleted the new LR CC immediately, this version does not make sense to me).
Same problem into the other direction: Keywords from LR classic do not appear on the mobile app. 
Attention: At this stage the whole keywording within the iOS app should not be used!

[Lumigraphics]

Its a terrible idea to abandon hierarchical keywords. They are just plain text, its entirely up to the image reader to parse them. Those of us who actually need hierarchical data want it supported, not cast aside.

[Uhl]

Its a terrible idea to abandon hierarchical keywords. They are just plain text, its entirely up to the image reader to parse them. Those of us who actually need hierarchical data want it supported, not cast aside.

By @Lumigraphics 

Agreed. I don't think they should ditch hierarchical keywords. I was just supporting @Ralph Lwouvie's idea that they could sync keywords for those of us who can get by with a flat list. 

Obviously, syncing hierarchical keywords between Classic and cloud would be ideal, but I doubt that'll ever happen.

[photopoeth]

Unfortunately the link to the feature request doesn't work anymore. Does this mean that theAdobe removed it because they are working on an update for this feature? Just kidding...

[johnrellis]

"Unfortunately the link to the feature request doesn't work anymore."

This thread is the feature request (Idea), with 200 upvotes. Which link are you referring to?

[photopoeth]

Sorry! I suspect that two threads on the subject have been merged here. There was a link in the original post I replied to and there weren't as many replies as there are here.

[CS Chua]

Keywording.

Its so versatile and malleable. Combine with smart collections you can spin out albums in any combination imaginable. 
It is my humble opinion Adobe is missing out on leveraging keywords and releasing it's the superpowers. Granted the choice of hierarchical structure does not fit Adobe new direction for Lightroom Desktop, I believe there is a path to have both Keywords and Syncing capability withing the Lightroom eco-system ie  "have your cake and eat it", so to speak. 

Adobe should revisit this keywords syncing problem. This can be easily resolve to enable sync (to and fro) if Adobe were to change to use of flat keywords. Consider converting say Keyword1>Keyword2>Keyword3 (hierarchical) to flat ie #keyword1#keyword2#keyword3 .. etc

I use the popular hash tag "#" and each keyword could be by itself or part of the string. 
I had converted all my previous hierarchical keywords to this flat structure because it was so difficult to maintain the branches.

I believe if Adobe were to provide a batch keyword structure conversion tool, this will provide a path to enable syncing of keywords within LrC, LrCC, LrWeb, LrMobile.

Note: Despite removing and deleting permanently synced photos in LrWeb and then resync/upload photos  to LrWeb, the old keywords reappeared on those photos. I had them renamed them in LrC before I reupload, purge old unused keywords. Those old keywords continues to repopulate to the cloud (and hence LrCC). It is very apparent Adobe systems does not completely remove all traces of photos synced to the cloud even when you permanently delete them via LrWeb. It remembers old keywords despite those keywords are no longer in LrClassic (purged all unused keywords).

In conclusion.

Adobe keywords syncing between the eco-system of LrC, LrCC, LrWeb and LrMobile as of now is broken. I do not accept the contention that it is what it is and there's no workable, implementable and scalable solution. If a feature was a designed behavior and it no longer works in the new scheme of things or direction then undesign it and offer a conversion path. 

[Lumigraphics]

Getting rid of hierarchical keywords is totally the wrong idea. Keywords are ALREADY plain text. Its completely up to the writing and viewing application how to interpret them (note that Bridge has controls for this.)

Some of us rely on hierarchical keywords and we would scream bloody murder if the standards were changed for this. The answer is to fix Lightroom Cloudy.

[CS Chua]

It's Adobe call if they could get the existing cloud based ecosystems of apps after LrC like Lr, LrWeb and LrMobile to support the arcane and the outdated hierarchical data structure.

I am still able to maintain hierarchy control of categories of photos that I need to be organise in hierarchy branches after I flatten several thousands in branches 

[Lumigraphics]

I'm not sure why you are hating on other people's use of a standard, PLAIN TEXT rendering of data.

[CS Chua]

I don't hate hierarchy data structures. However if that's what is really holding back Lightroom advancing and enabling a reverse keyword sync back to LrC and if what I propose is workable, implementable at scale then there's a path forward.

The ability to edit/modify, add & delete keywords on a tablet n a close loop keyword sync has huge upside potential particularly to pro-photographers. 

It will enable the all the existing Lightroom apps to be a close loop ecosystem.

[johnrellis]

@CS Chua, "I don't hate hierarchy data structures. However if that's what is really holding back Lightroom advancing and enabling a reverse keyword sync back to LrC..."

I don't think that's the primary impediment. Back when the LR ecosystem was announced (LR Classic 7), Adobe announced that going forward, they would focus their efforts for LR Classic on Develop and image quality, and in particular would make no more changes to the sync between the LR cloud and LR Classic. That was unusual for Adobe, since they rarely disclose future plans. Since then, they've stayed true to the word, with only very modest importments to things not related to image quality and no significant changes to cloud sync.

There was also a report from the annual Adobe conference that the LR ecosystem product manager stated publicly that he hated keywords (not hierarchical keywords, keywords in general), and in his view Sensei image search was intended to partially replace the need for keywords in the LR cloud.  However, I never found a video of those remarks, and I can't find the post from the attendee relaying them. (The post is probably lost, since Adobe deleted the old feedback forum.)

[Lumigraphics]

Nobody in the professional space would think that Sensei image search could come even close to replacing keywords. I'm a working pro for an automotive supplier. Tell me how image search can tell if a part is made in Japan or Mexico, or whether its OEM or Sport market. :sigh:

I struggle to understand why there isn't just ONE Lightroom, that could store photos locally or in the cloud, with the best capabilities of both apps. The segmentation is idiotic IMHO.

[Lumigraphics]

As for keywords, the cloud software could simply write hierarchical keywords to dc:subject and lr:hierarchicalSubject. Its plain text and Adobe has metadata-handling libraries. I don't use the cloud software because of this and other arbitrary limitations. These are NOT technical issues, but deliberate design choices.

[johnrellis]

"Nobody in the professional space would think that Sensei image search could come even close to replacing keywords."

Fully agree. At the time LR Cloud was launched, I think it's clear that the product managers were targeting casual users, not professionals or prosumers.

[CS Chua]

Your guess is as good as mine if hierarchy keywording now is really holding Adobe back or Adobe decided not to advance further in tightening the integration of the Lightroom ecosystem.

This impasse could be broken by adding a switch for users who no longer uses hierarchy keywords ie all flatten to allow a reverse sync from the cloud to LrC. This will satisfy users on both camps ie flat keyworders and hierarchy keyworders (pun intended). 

Adobe promoted syncing to the cloud heavily and for other metadata the sync is both ways. 

Keywords are excatly what they do .. they open doors to documents/photos you are looking for.  With the right set you find needles from the haystack. 

[Lumigraphics]

You don't have to flatten anything. Adobe is telling a lie when they say this. Hierarchical keywords use a delimiter, often a pipe symbol but it can be another character, and the reading/writing app decides how to interpret that delimiter. Keywords can be mixed, some with the delimiter and some without. If you want flat keywords, simply ignore the pipe. Don't read it or optionally don't write it.

Bird|Raptor|Hawk|Red-tailed Hawk. If my app simply replaces the pipe with a comma, now I have flat keywords. I don't even have to change them in the file, simply read them out flat.

Remember this is all plain text, mainly using two namespaces with a bag data structure, so its incredibly easy to read and write. EVERY app and image library out there knows how to handle dc:subject; lr:hierarchicalSubject can simply mirror dc:subject.

[isisdesign]

Thank you for that explanation. They give BS answers to perfectly reasonable requests about this. Why? Do they think professionals should use something else? 

This is why I'm writing about this. I made a gallery of my great uncle's photography, made in 1935-1949. I invited my extended family to look and comment, looking forward to working with their choices and printing some artwork and portraits for them. And they did. But getting those comments back out of Lightroom didn't work, despite the fact that the edits made in Lightroom did come back to Lightroom Classic. It said it was able to sync. Pixels but not metadata? How is that reasonable? 

[Califdan2]

I posted this before, but with over 200 posts in this thread it is hard to find, so here it is again.  the crux of the post is a way for Adobe to do this without putting hierarchical KW's in LR/Cloud.  At this time, I am considering the official "reason" for not fixing this as pure BS.  This is no where as complicated as AI in masking or super noise reduction and they were able to do that.  

Adobe says that "a hierarchical schema is not compatible for various workflows".  I don't buy it, and won't buy it unless someone from Adobe articulates exactly what those incompatibilities are and why various suggested solutions (like mine) won't work.  

Here's the idea....

Cloud / Classic keyword Sync

Requested 2017

Fully Sync keywords between Classic and Cloudy.  Add “sync” options to add/edit keyword screens

While keeping the constraint that LR Classic uses hierarchical KW's and LR Cloudy uses a linear (flat) KW structure, this problem can be solved.  There are, of course, some technical aspects but the main rationale I've heard so far for not doing this is the logical problem of how to map a hierarchical structure to a linear structure.  One solution is to convert LR Cloudy to a hierarchical structure but putting that aside, here is one possible solution to that problem:

1. In LR Classic, add 3 new check boxes in the create/edit keyword dialog for, "Sync this KW with LR Cloud", "Sync Containing KW's with LR Cloud", and "Sync Synonyms with LR Cloud (synonyms would become regular KW's in LR Cloud)
   
   
2. When a user ticks any of these new boxes, LR Classic would check to assure that it is not redundant.  For example, if you already ticked KW "Red" under "Flowers", and now you are trying to tick keyword "Red" under "Cars": it would reject the request as a duplicate.  By doing this, it will enforce a one to one correspondence between ticked KW's in LR Classic and KW's in LR Cloud - thus negating Adobe's excuse for not syncing KW's
   
   
3. If a user defined KW is added to an image in LR Cloudy it could map to either no existing KW's in LR Classic or at the most to one "ticked" KW in LR Classic.  In the former case, LR Classic would create the new KW at the root level of the Hierarchy with "Sync this KW with LR Cloudy" ticked.  If there already was one, it would just add check the tick box.  In the later case there could be only 1 ticked LR Classic Keyword with that name that would be affected.
   
   
4. If you add KW in Classic or tick one of these new boxes on an exisitng KW, after assuring that word is not similarly ticked in any other KW,  the KW would be sent and added to LR/Cloud.
     

THIS CAN BE DONE if there is a will to do so at Adobe and the more people who speak up for having KW's sync between the ecosystems, the more it will push Adobe to re-consider this.   

[FelipeRF Fotógrafo]

Hi

I can't understand that keyword sync between L. Classic and Creative Cloud is not possible. I understand the hyerarchical keywords issue, but not allowing sync at all IS NOT A SOLUTION: it's a sentence for those, like me, that have large image libraries keyworded in LC. If this doesn't change, I won't NEVER consider switching to Creative Cloud. Never. I would rather switch to Creative One (I've succeded to export my 150 thousand images library seamlessly) or any other alternative digital asset management software.

Really, this is infuriating and beyond my understanding.