Keyword peculiarities and questions

[kwhillig]

I've got about 120K photos cataloged in LR CC 2015 and a pretty extensive hierarchy of keywords to index them.

The keyword list doesn't display the count of images within any higher-level grouping - only the counts for the "leaves" of the hierarchy tree.  For example I have this (subset) of keywords (from the exported "Lightroom Keywords.txt" file):

[Fauna]

   [Insects and Arachnids]

       Odonata

           {Dragonflies and Damselflies}

           Zygoptera

               {Damselflies}

               Damselfly

               [Spreadwings]

                   Emerald Spreadwing

                       {Lestes dryas}

                   Lyre-tipped Spreadwing

                       {Lestes unguiculatus}

               Unidentified Damselfly

1) In the Keyword list, only the unbracketed "leaf" entries above have associated counts.  Is it possible to get a count of (for example) all Spreadwings without manually adding up the numbers for each species?

2) In the above subset, why are "Fauna" and "Spreadwings" bracketed while "Odonata" and "Zygoptera" are not?

3) I added "Damselfly" as a "leaf" keyword long ago thinking this might be useful; but after reorganizing things recently it's no longer needed, so to clean things up I selected all images with this keyword (clicked on the arrow to its right in the keyword lies) and unchecked that keyword.  However the list still shows a count of 404 images with this keyword, even though clicking on that arrow returns "No photos match the filter."  Likewise the keywork "Unidentified Damselfly" shoes a count of 183 images, yet when I search my entire library for the text 'Keywords' 'Contains All' "Damselfly", LR finds only 16 images having the keyword "Unidentified Damselfly".  I've exported and examined my keyword list, and the word "Damselfly" only appears in these two entries.  What's going on here?

4) Is there an easy way to bring up the list of all keywords associated with a single image other than searching through the keyword list to see what's checked?  The full list currently has about 1600 keywords including groups and aliases - only 600 "leaf" entries - so searching the list gets pretty old pretty fast...

[dj_paige]

Some answers

1. I don't know
2. The brackets indicate that the keyword is not to be exported http://www.tipsquirrel.com/a-further-look-at-keywords-within-lightroom/
3. Are you clicking on "All Photographs" and turning off Filters before selecting the keyword?
4. The Keywording panel shows the keywords associated with a photo

[kwhillig]

Ah, I hadn't thought about the Keywording panel - given the number of keywords I have, its suggestions and sets are generally too limited to be of much use so I've been ignoring this one.  Thanks!

[johnrellis]

1) In the Keyword list, only the unbracketed "leaf" entries above have associated counts.  Is it possible to get a count of (for example) all Spreadwings without manually adding up the numbers for each species?

1. In the Keyword List panel, hover the mouse over Spreadwings and click on the arrow to the right of it.

2. Do Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks.

3. Do Window > Panels > Show Filmstrip.

4. The count will be at the stop of the filmstrip:

[johnrellis]

View my last reply in your Web browser to see the embedded screenshot.

[kwhillig]

Bitten by the stack bug!  😞

I suppose the error mesage is correct, strictly speaking, but it would be nice if it instead said something like "Matching photos are all in collapsed stacks" - and maybe had a popup to expand all stacks which contain matching images.  Is there a "wish list" thread here somewhere that Adobe might pay attention to?

[johnrellis]

You could add your me-too vote and detailed opinion to this feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum: Lightroom: Filter images in a collapsed stack | Photoshop Family Customer Community . 

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

However the list still shows a count of 404 images with this keyword, even though clicking on that arrow returns "No photos match the filter."  Likewise the keywork "Unidentified Damselfly" shoes a count of 183 images, yet when I search my entire library for the text 'Keywords' 'Contains All' "Damselfly", LR finds only 16 images having the keyword "Unidentified Damselfly".  I've exported and examined my keyword list, and the word "Damselfly" only appears in these two entries.

Most likely, the photos with these keywords are buried in collapsed stacks; LR filtering doesn't show photos not at the top of collapsed stacks.  To work around this:

1. Select All Photographs in the Catalog panel on the left.

2. Make sure Library > Enable Filters is unchecked.

3. Do Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks.

4. Click on the arrow to the right of Damselfly in the Keyword List panel.