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Advance Searching

Community Beginner ,
Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

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I am using Elements Organizer 17.0.0.0; Core Version: 17.0 (20180830.m.125874) on a Windows 10 Pro Laptop.

In my organizer I have scanned images of both photos and documents.  I have created a keyword tag named "Digital Media" which i used for the documents, while most of the phots have people tags.

What I am trying to do is create a search that Excludes all of the digital media.  Using the search bar it seems like I cannot enter "- Digital Media" or "EXCLUDE Digital Media" as when I hit enter the text is removed and my results show only those items with the tag Digital Media.

If I use find for saved searches the query for a new search only allows Include.

Either there is an issue with my search feature or I cannot start a search by excluding something.

Please tell me how I can exclude a keyword from my searches.

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Actions , How to , Organizer , Performance , Windows

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

Note that for what you want to do, the normal tag panel gives you the choice:

1 - tick the checkbox for the "Digital Media" tag, then right click on tag and choose "Exlude from search"

2 - alternatively, after the normal search, click on the 'option' button in the right of the top bar and select "show results that do not match".

 

In the advanced search bar, exclude is the 'minus' sign (-), for instance I type People - family and I get the expected result (I don't use face recogniton, only detai

...

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Community Expert ,
Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

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Note that for what you want to do, the normal tag panel gives you the choice:

1 - tick the checkbox for the "Digital Media" tag, then right click on tag and choose "Exlude from search"

2 - alternatively, after the normal search, click on the 'option' button in the right of the top bar and select "show results that do not match".

 

In the advanced search bar, exclude is the 'minus' sign (-), for instance I type People - family and I get the expected result (I don't use face recogniton, only detailed categories of standard tags).

 

Edit;

The old 'detailed' search makes it akward to exclude a keyword, you would have to add a tag for NOT Digital media... It's better to use the 'option' button in the right part of the top bar in the advanced search, and to save the query as a 'saved search'. You can use it from the 'Find' menu.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

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Michel,

Thanks for the quick response!  Your first suggestion was too easy and works for me. Upsetting to me that I spent several hours researching this on line and never saw that option.

I would like to explore you second suggestion as that does not work for me.  After searching for 'digital media' I went back to the grid view and saw only my documents.  Then I went into options and selected "show results that do not match" as you stated.  That then negated my search and returned everything again.  There is no option button on the advance search so I hit the back button to return to the grid.  If I hit back on more time I would have the same results.

Originally, I was trying to use the minus sign to exclude, which is why I posted my question.  The only tag that shows up is People, but when I tried People - person's name I had no results.  The category 'keywords' does not show up either.

I would like to save this search but that does not seem possible since I can't do that from your first suggestion.  

Thanks again,

Charles

 

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Community Expert ,
Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

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Sorry,

You are right, the 'option' button is not in the search dialog, it's in the normal browsing space when you click 'back'.

Search-11.jpg

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 13, 2020 Sep 13, 2020

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So there is no "advanced searching" as documented?

it appears that I only have one option which isn't documented and you can't do text searching. 

charles

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Community Expert ,
Sep 14, 2020 Sep 14, 2020

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I am using the advanced search regularly for many criteria, and it's amazingly powerful.

My example shows that the advanced search can use the 'EXCLUDE' operator easily; you simply have to click the 'back' button to have the option to save the search query, then open the 'option' button to assign a search name for that query. The saved searches are available in the 'Find' menu.

As for text searches, just try to search text in tags, notes or captions; words in sentences or substring a single word. I just typed 'céros' and in three seconds I got 21 images of rhinocéros from different zoos. My library covers mainly the 20 last years and has about 100 media for a total size of 600 GB.
(Of course, text search does not mean analyzing images and reading panels as Google is apt to do!)

You may have to reconsider your requirements for tagging and searching.

You are free to use the people/places/events special categories, or, like me, simply use them as normal keywords with adequate category hierarchies. I heavily use the text search as well as simple combinations of keywords with the usual operators (most frequent: ADD, but also OR or EXCLUDE.

What using the text search has changed for me is that face recognition is useless for me, so I have always tagged the different persons properties, name, first name, married name, nickname, family branch. and that ONLY for people I need to tag (family history and genealogy). Most of the faces found in FR are irrelevant and a useless burden in the catalog.

The text search has led me to tag persons (not faces) differently. I prefer to include very rare persons in my library in a descriptive caption. With large groups (weddings, classes or colleagues), I enter the names in the captions or notes. That saves me a number of individual keywords.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 14, 2020 Sep 14, 2020

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Michael,

I am, and have been so frustrated by Adobe Elements for a very long time.  My biggest complaint has been that the program does not perform as advertise.  There have been so many features which I've tried to use, spending countless hours researching online only to find out it dosen't work.  This was the first time there was an easy resolution but there is no documention that shows what you first suggestion.  According to what I have read, I should be able to type in "- digital media" or "EXCLUDE digital media".  I should also be able to save that search.  

I do not see the example you are refering to, but as I said using the back button then selection option dosen't work either.  After going into Options I selected "Hide results that do not match".  The bar shows "Items Matching 'Digital Media' but my grid shows 958 images.

The reason why I am replying to your post is because people need to understand that Adobe Elements is not working as expected.  Your reply to my "So there is no "advanced searching" as documented?" tried to burry that fact by a lot of verbage.  One of the main reasons I use Adobe Elements is to organize and catalog my family ancestry.  I have both photos of my ancestors dating back to 1829 and documents which I have scanned.  Facial recognition is very important and useful for me, especially when there are more than one person in a photo.  I would suggest that, if, facial recognition worked better and was easier to manage it would not be a burdon for you.  To me, it's worth the hassle to be able identify who's who in the photo and not rely on "From Left to Righ: Mary Parker; Steve Parker; June Clever".  I created the tag "digital media" with the understanding that I would be able to easily "seperate" a baby picture of Mary Parker from a copy of Mary Parker's birth certificate.

I will just add searching to my list of features that don't work and figure out a creative way to deal with the mess that I now have.  Again, I appreciate your help but, since you don't use FR, even you must admit there is room for improvement.  It would be nice if Adobe would listen to their customers (they don't).  If you search for my posts you will see that FR did not work in 2020 which is why I am still on 2019.  Figured out why it didn't work but last I checked it still dosen't.

Charles

 

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Community Expert ,
Sep 15, 2020 Sep 15, 2020

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Charles,

Even if I don't care about FR, I did read all of your previous posts. So, I am not surprised at all with your reaction:

Your reply to my "So there is no "advanced searching" as documented?" tried to burry that fact by a lot of verbage.

I am not surprised because you did not even realize that my answer was another testimony of another user with exactly the same expectations (I work the same as you with genealogy, family history and lots of scans).

You did not even notice that I tried the process to exclude AND IT WORKED as I described.

 

So, to be clear, my post was not to hide anything and I totally agree with you that Adobe's help is greatly inadequate. That's the reason volunteers like me and Greg among others like to help in this forum.

- were you able to find the pdf manual of Elements? It is well hidden and not updated.

- The suggestions for other discussions on the same topic on the right part of this screen are not constrained to Elements.

- The useful text search in the home screen is never commented for that purpose

- This is a twenty years old program, which explains that you have three historical levels of searches: the right hierarchical tag tree, the search by detail, the advanced search.

- there are not enough video tutorials which would be useful for your question and the many Youtube ones are not reliable. The user interface is generally considered not intuitive, to say the least. Videos would be needed everywhere.

- the present forum has too many glitches, like no way to bookmark questions or answers...

- ...

However, even if we, PSE users, have very different needs and profiles, it's worth sharing our knowledge, our questions and solutions to better use the tool. Yes, I do repeat that I am very happy with the search abilities of the organizer, that I don't use FR or the new people/places/events (PSE11). I am not the typical target user seen by Adobe marketing, but so what?

 

 

 

 

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 15, 2020 Sep 15, 2020

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Michael,

I appreciate the fact that, apprently, you realize I am frustrated but not trying to be a jerk.  I literally just took a magnifying glass (MS Magnifier) and looked at the image you sent.  Originally, I thought you were just showing me the bar after hitting the back button.  I could not see the text clearly and I did not "process" that was what you meant by your example.  Because I was thinking by advanced search you meant the search and you mentioned the back button and options I thought you meant you had type "Exclude" in.  I owe you an apology, and I am sorry that I made the comment.

After reading your respectiful reply I figured I missed something so that's when I used the magnifier and now see what you are saying.  The problem is, I don't get the results  you did.  To keep everything together I insert all screenshots in one file at the end of this.  After selecting digital media from the keywords only my dital images come up.  I then hit the back button which shows me the same image as you sent me.  Next I select options with bring up the choices in the second image and I choose the fourth option "Show results that do not match".  You will see in the third image that there is no 'Exclude' in the search.  The last image shows you that I now have all my images in the grid.

searching.png

Could this be another issue related to using Windows 10 Pro?

Thanks Again

Charles

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Community Expert ,
Sep 16, 2020 Sep 16, 2020

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Charles,

I don't think the Windows update has something to do with our different results.

I am now testing the various tricks and traps of that tool. The main thing which strikes me is that you really need to be aware that many steps require some time to happen without any visible feedback. For instance, you start with a single keyword, then you enter an operator, then another keyword. There is no response for a short or rather long time before the next step starts. If you want to save the query as a 'saved search', you have to press the back button and wait until the top line with the definition and the 'options' button is shown. Many searches only require a few seconds, other ones may require one hour or more. No 'Searching..." warning. If your first search keyword is a bit longer, you have to wait for the operator entry, then to enter the second criteria, you wait for the dropdown list of known keywords while you enter the first letters... It's necessary to take the time to practice to understand the reactions of the 'beast'...

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 19, 2020 Sep 19, 2020

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Michael,

I wasn't sure if you were going to report back with results of what you had tested and I'm confused by the rest of your post.  If you look at the posts between me and Greg when it came to FR on Elements 2020 you will see that the only difference between a copy that worked and one that didn't was the OS.  I have been running Windows 10 pro while Greg was Windows 10 Home.  Fortunetly, Greg got over came my frustrated comments and we worked together to verify this by doing various steps together.  It seems that you and I are at the same impass; you can use advance searching and have flexability with searches while I can't.  What is your OS?

As to earlier comments you had made, I have never located an actuall manual for Elements but the only time it seems like I need help is when a feature dosen't work.  The fact that Elements has been around for 20 years should not matter.  I wrote a custom application for a client 17 years ago and they are still using it.  Even though I have long since retired they have contacted because of issues caused by changing technology and I have made seven major updates.  My custom application still operates "as advertised".  With each update of Adobe there are always features that worked which no longer do.  Perhaps, if I was not a programmer I would not be as frustrated as I am.  Searching may have worked in 2018 but not 2019.  It may work for a user With Windows 7, but not Windows 10.  The problem is when some one has an issue no one explores all these facts.  I beleive that your initial response was based of the fact that searching works for you, therefore I must be doing something wrong (or missing a step).  This is not meant as a derogatory comment, but think about it.  I made the assumption that you wanted to bury the fact that I was saying Elements was not a good product and look were that got us.  I made the apology because you were still willing to work on this even though we went off track.  Still want to work with you on this.

No matter what I do, how much time I wait , the fact is I cannot EXCLUDE a keyword search.  I can't search for "Digital Image" + "Charles Banks".  Fortunately, I can use the options if I right-click on a tag otherwise I would have wasted several hours of work tagging my ditigial media.  

 

Charles

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 19, 2020 Sep 19, 2020

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While type the ressponse an idea came to me.  I was able to save the search from right-clicking on the digital media tag and selecting 'exclude from search'.  What I noticed was two items (see images below): 

  1. In the search bar digital media is struck out.  The word 'EXCLUDE' or the '-' is not used.
  2. The saved query shows the criteria as 'Items Tag With.....' not excluded

 Confusing.jpg

Recalling the saved search does bring up on photots so that will work.  But using the right-click on tags still will not allow me to bring up everything for just Charles Banks.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 19, 2020 Sep 19, 2020

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Michael,

I wasn't sure if you were going to report back with results of what you had tested and I'm confused by the rest of your post.  If you look at the posts between me and Greg when it came to FR on Elements 2020 you will see that the only difference between a copy that worked and one that didn't was the OS.  I have been running Windows 10 pro while Greg was Windows 10 Home.  Fortunetly, Greg got over came my frustrated comments and we worked together to verify this by doing various steps together.  It seems that you and I are at the same impass; you can use advance searching and have flexability with searches while I can't.  What is your OS?

As to earlier comments you had made, I have never located an actuall manual for Elements but the only time it seems like I need help is when a feature dosen't work.  The fact that Elements has been around for 20 years should not matter.  I wrote a custom application for a client 17 years ago and they are still using it.  Even though I have long since retired they have contacted because of issues caused by changing technology and I have made seven major updates.  My custom application still operates "as advertised".  With each update of Adobe there are always features that worked which no longer do.  Perhaps, if I was not a programmer I would not be as frustrated as I am.  Searching may have worked in 2018 but not 2019.  It may work for a user With Windows 7, but not Windows 10.  The problem is when some one has an issue no one explores all these facts.  I beleive that your initial response was based of the fact that searching works for you, therefore I must be doing something wrong (or missing a step).  This is not meant as a derogatory comment, but think about it.  I made the assumption that you wanted to bury the fact that I was saying Elements was not a good product and look were that got us.  I made the apology because you were still willing to work on this even though we went off track.  Still want to work with you on this.

No matter what I do, how much time I wait , the fact is I cannot EXCLUDE a keyword search.  I can't search for "Digital Image" + "Charles Banks".  Fortunately, I can use the options if I right-click on a tag otherwise I would have wasted several hours of work tagging my ditigial media.  

 

Charles

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 19, 2020 Sep 19, 2020

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Michael

Michael,

I wasn't sure if you were going to report back with results of what you had tested and I'm confused by the rest of your post.  If you look at the posts between me and Greg when it came to FR on Elements 2020 you will see that the only difference between a copy that worked and one that didn't was the OS.  I have been running Windows 10 pro while Greg was Windows 10 Home.  Fortunetly, Greg got over came my frustrated comments and we worked together to verify this by doing various steps together.  It seems that you and I are at the same impass; you can use advance searching and have flexability with searches while I can't.  What is your OS?

As to earlier comments you had made, I have never located an actuall manual for Elements but the only time it seems like I need help is when a feature dosen't work.  The fact that Elements has been around for 20 years should not matter.  I wrote a custom application for a client 17 years ago and they are still using it.  Even though I have long since retired they have contacted because of issues caused by changing technology and I have made seven major updates.  My custom application still operates "as advertised".  With each update of Adobe there are always features that worked which no longer do.  Perhaps, if I was not a programmer I would not be as frustrated as I am.  Searching may have worked in 2018 but not 2019.  It may work for a user With Windows 7, but not Windows 10.  The problem is when some one has an issue no one explores all these facts.  I beleive that your initial response was based of the fact that searching works for you, therefore I must be doing something wrong (or missing a step).  This is not meant as a derogatory comment, but think about it.  I made the assumption that you wanted to bury the fact that I was saying Elements was not a good product and look were that got us.  I made the apology because you were still willing to work on this even though we went off track.  Still want to work with you on this.

No matter what I do, how much time I wait , the fact is I cannot EXCLUDE a keyword search.  I can't search for "Digital Image" + "Charles Banks".  Fortunately, I can use the options if I right-click on a tag otherwise I would have wasted several hours of work tagging my ditigial media.  

 

Charles

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