Merge Keywords

[PatrickInSeattle]

I haven't found a solution to this on any LR forums.  I have many duplicate keywords and everytime I send images out for keywording I get more duplicates.  In other words when importing newly keyworded images a word like "infant" gets a new place in the hierarchy even though "infant" is already in the LR hierarchy under "baby" and AGE.  So now I have two "infant"s.  Except that over time and imports I eventually have many "infant"s.  I don't want any more infants, in fact I got that fixed but I digress. 

I need a way to merge duplicate keywords, in the worst way.  LR3 is faster than LR2 at selecting all images tagged with "infant" and tagging the correct "infant" then deleting the "infant" that is outside the desired hierarchy but with maybe 100's or thousands of duplicates it would be much better to have a software based way of merging these keywords.  Aperture does it but then I would have to use aperture and don't want to for many reasons.

Is there even a way to do this in some other software associated with the xmp files and replacing the current xmp files when complete?  I have some 60,000 images in my library so it is no small feat to do this once and do it right. 

Thanks for any clues.

Patrick

[Tom-Rock-Indy]

This might help -- I don't really know. He has some other keyword-oriented plugins, too.

http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/jbeardsworth/findreplace/

[CStaack-JahhBA]

There seems to be a bug in the handling of keywords when writing/reading metadata to files.

I use the program Geosetter to include GPS-Information in my images.

Let's say my image has the keyword "cats" and cats is part of this hierarchy:

animals

   mammals

       cats

My usual workflow is:

1. Save metadata to file in LR

2. Write the GPS-Information to the file in Geosetter

3. Read metadate from file in LR

Result in LR2: the image has GPS-Information and nothing has changed in the keywords ("cats").

Result in LR3 full: the image has GPS-Information and it has two flat new keywords ("animals", "mammals" in addition to "cats").

[Guest]

LR6 is here... Merging keywords look still impossible...

[PatrickInSeattle]

So, eight years later I'm searching yet again for a better way to merge keywords and came across my post from 2010. Still no good way to merge them that I can find, just one at a time selecting, adding keywords to the images of the same key and combining them in a terribly slow and laborious way only to have them all duplicated again the next time I import images from a keywording service. Wow, Aperture was capable of this in 2006 but Lightroom still can't do it in 2018.

[Ian Lyons]

You might find it more productive to submit your request in forum monitored by Lr Development team Lightroom Classic CC | Photoshop Family Customer Community

[PatrickInSeattle]

Thanks, done.

[Rob_Cullen]

There is a laborious way in the Keyword List panel, but not too difficult for the mouse-click finger!

1. First- Filter for the duplicated keyword, (if easier to find in a large kw list)

2. Click the arrow to find photos with kw (A)   {my mis-spelled Kookabura}

3. Press Ctrl+A to select all

4. Click in the box of kw (B) to add (B) to all selected photos  {my correct Kookaburra)

5. Click in box of kw (A) to remove (A) from all selected photos. {removes all Kookabura}

6. Right-click on kw (A) and click to delete.

So in Summary-

(Filter), Click, Ctrl+A, Click, Click, R-Click, Click.

[PatrickInSeattle]

Yes, that's the laborious procedure I've been doing, only to have to redo it as soon as I import images from a keyword service. I'm going to try taking the hierarchy completely out and just have a list of words. The procedure alanterra describes could just work, we'll see.

Thanks for your response.

[alanterra]

Patrick

I know that this is 8 years late, but the following might help.

When you export photos from Lightroom, turn OFF "Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy". This means that if you have "Tabby" under "cats" in one hierarchy, and under "felines" in another, the photo will come match up with the new keyword on import. I do this whenever I export images and plan to re-incorporate them into my catalog. The problem is that if you have "Tabby" in two places in your hierarchy--then Lightroom will bring the photo into your catalog with a new "Tabby", at the highest level.

If the problem you are describing (merging keywords) is just "merging identically named keywords which occur multiple times in my Keyword List", I have an idea about how you could fix it, but it isn't easy.

You would do the following:

Make sure you have written the metadata for all the photos in your catalog

Create a new empty catalog from your current catalog

Go through that catalog and eliminate all duplicate keywords

Use exiftool (or, equivalently John Beardsworth's Save Capture Time Plugin) to get rid of the hierarchical keywords in all your photos

Import the photos to your new catalog. The keywords should all come in at the new place in the hierarchy.

I am not recommending this radical process. It is fraught with dangers. But if done carefully, with good backups in case of disaster, it should wipe out all the history of keywords showing up in your hierarchy multiple times.

[PatrickInSeattle]

Thanks, yes fraught with danger. I'm at the end of a rope that this just might do the trick, I'll report back on progress.

[mastix]

At the verge of 2023 and still not a solution to this problem. It is no surprise that more and more people are moving away from Adobe ecosystem. developers just DON'T listen. They deserve that people migrate to other better solutions and where the software is fixed quickly when problems like this arise and not Decades like Adobe.