P: Custom sort order of keywords (instead of alphabetic).

[leighm26990353]

Lightroom needs to stop re-ordering our keywords into an alphabetical order. People who are keywording for stock agencies and other purposes need to order their keywords most important and relevant first. Lightroom ruins this for us. I can't believe it's version 5 and Lightroom hasn't figured this out. Lightroom is single-handedly ruining our sales based on keyword searches. Thanks Adobe

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Graham, in a typical application, if reordering is required along with searching and with a sorted display of keywords, the typical way to do it is:

Save the keywords in two formats (a) a blob of text or as a “linked list” with the keyword-IDs separated by a delimiter to use during display and export and (b) add a new sort order column in the linkage table, to allow for filtering

Reordering would entail these parts:
- UI/UX for reordering (especially when dealing with multiple image selection and some keywords present only on some images)
- each time a reordering occurred for one keyword, the the sort order column for all keywords occurring after its old position or new position (whichever is smaller) have to be revised image by image when multiple images are selected
- Revising the linked list / blob of text for each image

In both cases, supporting reordering is more effort than plain “save it as I typed it”, but then we are talking about a team that has built tools like de-haze so it’s not rocket science for them.

I think reordering wont be logically possible if multiple images are selected because one image could have Tag A before Tag B and another in the selection could have the opposite.

It’s up to us users to tell Adobe if we’d be happy with a save-it-as-I-type it approach, or whether we want nothing unless there’s reordering as well.

[Lumigraphics]

There are some bugs in keyword writing and handling between Lightroom, Bridge, and Photoshop. Keywords are actually written two different places in the XMP (dc:subject and lr:hierarchicalSubject) and they don't match between programs. I have written a Bridge script to fix the problem but it doesn't preserve keyword order. Remember, keywords are text that is written to the file. A program reads that text and can process it however the programmers decide (including using parent keywords.) Just because a program shows keywords in alphabetical order does NOT mean that they are written that way in the actual file.

Keywords entered in the Basic tab of Bridge and Photoshop File Info are written to dc:subject but not lr:hierarchicalSubject, while keywords added in the Keyword panel of Bridge are written to both. If some keywords are added in Photoshop or Bridge via File Info and then others added via Bridge Keywords panel, the lr:hierarchicalSubject is not updated. So you have different sets of keywords in the two namespaces. Additionally, if keywords are assigned via Bridge Keywords panel then deleted, an empty lr:hierarchicalSubject tag is left behind. If keywords are added back in File Info->Basic, that empty tag is deleted.

And yes I have filed a bug on the problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@JeffreyTranberry

Would it be possible to get your input on this?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Just FYI, Jeff's out of the office this week and next. But for when he gets back, what kind of input are you looking for?

[CinBrandon]

This really needs to be addressed. Especially since the main reason I want this corrected is due to Adobe stock images website, that ranks the first keywords higher than subsequent keywords.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Joining all other requests for custom keywords ordering!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

All the smart people at Adobe, and no one can come up with a way to add a small preference button that says "Disable Keyword Alphabetization" 

I agree with all the frustration, sometimes I think there are to many gears working at Adobe, all with different departments that just like to do things their own way and ignore some common practicalities.

They push Adobe Stock, and specify they give weight to keyword order, but it is impossible for them to implement a function to disable keyword alphabetization.

[johnrellis]

I agree that disabling alphabetization of keywords would be very useful to those working with stock agencies -- 75 people have voted for it now, which puts it into the middle bucket of popularity of feature requests.

The necessary engineering is hardly rocket science but more involved than adding a preference: The underlying catalog database schema would need to be modified to store the keyword position within the list of keywords for an image, and all the different places in the code that update, display, and export the keywords of an image need to be modified appropriately. On the order of a man-week or two or three, involving a product manager to specify all the edge behaviors of what happens when you modify image keywords, a software engineer, a QA engineer, and a tech writer.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would prefer also a relevant order for keywords in lightroom and photoshop

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

*Franz Pfluegl 
Photoshop DOES suppport a relevancy keyword order (meaning: the keywords stay in the order you entered them), only Lightroom does not.

[Lumigraphics]

Almost every comment here shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how keywords work. They are written to the file in the order entered. Its up to the client (program reading the image) to sort, or not.

If you want them written in a particular order, you have to delete ALL keywords from all four keyword namespaces and then enter them again, using an editor that writes in the order entered. THEN you need a client that reads them in order from the image file and doesn't reorder them alphabetically.

[ArminStaudt]

@lumigraphics I think you don't understand what the issue is. The subject is, how to use LR for the work and not a different software. If you paste keywords into LR, LR will sort them and in the moment where you save your work LR will overwrite the keywords in the file. There is no way around this. Your solution is just, use a different software.... That is what all we are doing who needs keywords in a custom sort order.

[Homy2024]

The Adobe solution to its clients is to use another software?

[ArminStaudt]

yes. The funny thing is, Adobe Stock needs custom sort order and you have also a LR-Plugin for uploading your photos to Adobe Stock, but you can't use it - only if you like to manually reorder every single keyword in every single photo on Adobe Stock you could use LR and it's plugin. Funny or not? And if you do so, the status of your keywords in LR is a different one to the status on Adobe Stock.

[Homy2024]

Also interesting to notice this is a Adobe’s forum and does’t have any official response to customers needs. Let’s hope any new Ai technology can solve this issue!

[WhitcombeRD]

Its still ridiculous (and yes, the keywords are written in alphabetical order by lightroom) this is present.
Current workflow now involves exporting from lightroom then having to load bridge, select the newly exported photos, go to "File Info" and then cut and paste the same keywords BACK into the keywork field there to get them written in priority order.
Its a ridiculous extra step in the workflow for every image to upload to *their own* stock site!
And yes, its made even crazier by the fact they wrote a plugin for AdobeStock to upload but its unusable as it uploads keywords in alphabetical order!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is a very annoying problem for me too, just had a big rant on it here...
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/lightroom-keywords-and-bridge-plus-keyword-order/m-...

Before i was pointed to this thread. 

[galxcom]

The inconsistency of the requirements for uploading photos to your stock service with the capabilities of the main product for cataloging and tagging photos, which has not been fixed for such a long time - IMHO, is extremely incorrect and disrespectful towards contributors. Adobe, maybe it makes sense tho to take care of your contributors in this issue finally?

P.S.: The very fact that this issue is being delayed for so long and that there are no clear answers from the company is even more discouraging than the need to do additional work to rearrange keywords each time.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

When is Lightroom finally going to address this issue?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I want Lightroom Classic to LEAVE My Keywords ALONE, and that includes the ORDER.  I import a set of TIF files containing my existing Windows Tags ("Keywords") into Lightroom and export them as a set of JPG files.  I then view my new JPG images in Windows, where I see that Lightroom has destroyed the functionality of my personal Tagging system (sorting/grouping capabilities).   For example:

My Tags (as I specified them in Windows on my TIF files):
   2003; Spring; Apr; 3

My Tags (after Lightroom scrambles them on the exported JPG files):
   3; 2003; Apr; Spring

[Lumigraphics]

You are probably NEVER going to get custom ordering of keywords. It isn't part of the XMP standard and every app would need to be changed to preserve order.

To get custom ordering with the current standard, you would have to delete and rewrite ALL keywords from the file every time you made any change, and in multiple namespaces that already aren't necessarily in sync.

Stock agencies need to find a better way to handle this, maybe uploading a sidecar text file with ordered keywords or somesuch.

And don't scream at me because you don't like the answer. The standard isn't really compatible with what you want.

[WhitcombeRD]

You say that but ultimately you can reinsert keywords in Bridge in whatever order you want and that order is conserved throughout other changes.

So it can work and even works in other Adobe products.  Just not Lightroom.

[johnrellis]

The IPTC and XMP standards are silent on whether order of keywords should be preserved -- some apps do, some apps don't. It would be technically straightforward for LR to preserve the order of keywords in the metadata fields.  But I doubt that Adobe will implement it -- when LR Cloud was released several years ago (now called "Lightroom"), they explicitly stated they were focusing their efforts in LR Classic on Develop and photo features like Merge (things that are shared with Camera Raw and Lightroom Cloud).  And indeed, they've put little effort into Library.

[Lumigraphics]

@richard_whitcombe

Again, the standard doesn't support ordered keywords, which are physically written to the file in whatever order the app decides and READ from the file the same way.

[johnrellis]

Agreed, the IPTC, XMP, and MWG standards are silent on whether ordering should be preserved by readers and writers.