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Keywording

Lesson 4 from: Automating your Post-Processing Workflow

Daniel Gregory

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Lesson Info

4. Keywording

Next Lesson: Smart Collections

Lesson Info

Keywording

Once I get this information in the metadata, this is where I think light room gets really interesting. I'm gonna come in and activate my library filter. So I missed the backs. Last key. Kind of the fastest way to get that open. The backslash is the one under the delete key, the one that's opposite of going to Google. So these are the things I can search for. So this is one of my absolute favorite parts of light room, and I think it comes out of just like I said, being a workflow nerd so I can come in here and I can search for anything. Any caption contains any of the words all the words doesn't contain certain words. In this case, 2017 there's that image. If I search for license expired 2017 I get that image bag. So I get a really kind of interesting way of coming in and quickly looking for work there. I can also search for other things. Like a search for the file name contained certain data, my good service for certain x e x I f data. But I don't remember all that stuff. I don't remem...

ber like 44 space millimeter. So luckily, I can come over here and click on the metadata tab. What's Activate this? I get this set of filters up and over here is a number of presets, so I'm coming here looking Cameron phone. So here there's two cameras. I shot a cannon once. No, just cannon. I just borrowed one for a second. Here's the lenses that have been shot. Here's all the different focal length that have been shot, but one of things that if you click over one of those areas you can see I get that little double arrow that highlights. I can change that. So I'm coming here now and changing pivot on what I'm actually looking for from different photographs so I can come in and say, What is the copyright status? They have cooperated, Applied or not, I could come in and ask, Do they have a smart preview? Have they had a development preset applied to them and if so, which one? So there's been one with the sea Peotone. So if I click on that one, there's the image that's been had. A sepia tone applied to it. So I'm coming to start to see what's actually happening with the photographs. Now, one of my favorites to do for this is I like to look at focal length and at the same time, I looked like a focal length. My other one is I like to look at a picture. If you're gonna go by camera lens, you're gonna go by 24 to 70 That land's gonna set you back about $4400 so I can come in here and look at of the 1000 photographs. Only 59 times did I fire it 2.8. Only 59 times. 200 times I fired it F for I could probably rent a lens to shoot 59 photographs and save myself $2400. But without this information, I can't make a smart business decision because I want 24 70. You have to wait, but I don't use that. The other one is if I come over here and I'm gonna click on my 24 lens and you can see I actually shoot at 2491 times or I'm shooting at the upper range so I don't shoot in that mid range very much so. If I was gonna go to site on a fixed length lens to buy 24 might make more sense than a 35 because I've only ever has shot that at 35 millimeter 36 37 40 times. So I'm a wider angle photographer than I am the 35. So it gives me a chance to think about things like that. The other pieces I've got a 50 millimeter There's the one photograph taken with it, but I really want that 24 72 8 which lends would I sell to help offset that? Because gear that sits on the shelf that's not being used is not doing any good. So I could come in here and look at what am I actually not shooting with What am I not actually using? So when the problem of I'm trying to be efficient with my money for my business, not just finding my actual images, but I'm trying to be efficient about my business, being able to look at this metadata helps me kind of move along and help me get a sense of understanding. There so some some different ways to look. And I use this a lot. I'll come in here and look at, you know, aspect ratios another one like Have I cropped different things. Have I moved different things? I can come in here and search by that rating. Unrated rated. I could look at stars. I could look at all sorts of different elements of the images. Come back here, you get the reading. So there's the five star images. Come on, look at five Star made a shot with 24 millimeter lens. So I'm coming to start to pivot on a lot of these different points to help me start to understand. What do I actually do? Is a photographer What I'm looking at portrait work. One of things I found in doing this it was really interesting. Waas I shoot lenses completely wide open is a portrait photographer in almost every instance. And if you get me Ah, Zeiss one Olin's I'll shoot it at 10 I want that, shall it up the field Rarely do ever move up the chain and portrait photography, but it anything else I shoot, I shoot for depth of field. It comes out of my large format days. I'm shooting eight by 10 View camera of 64 who that translated into my smaller camera work. But in the portrait work that was something I learned is that I actually do seek out shallower depth. The field in the portrait work with that then allowed me to do is go look at the images that I had actually printed and had actually put into portfolio work. And where were their depths of field? What was it about those images? It became interesting, so it became a way to look at that. So I got a way to kind of come in and search. You could search on all sorts of different things, but this little pull down menu is really, really great. And again, if this is an important view that I'm look at all the time, I can't come up here and I can again save. This is a preset so I can save those four panels is a very specific preset, so I can come in and look at time to sell camera gear. Given my focal lengths, giving my lenses give my F stops, whatever I'm gonna look at. I could build those presets again to help me with the efficiency of that. The other piece it does. It does help me decide what camera here to buy. Because I can come in and look at like, Oh, my gosh, I have a whole in a certain focal length or I'm firing with the flash a lot more than it was before. So I really do need to go by a pro photo, be one or one of you could give it to if you don't use yours anymore. So filter for that. So really great way to come in and search on the data there. And I think that's a really important piece of understanding what you're doing in the business. The last piece before we jump into my collections, which is a really, I think kind of critical aspect of doing that is in the key wording. So a couple things about key wording. You either love key wording and you like, go to Maui and you sit down by the pool and you put up your laptop like key. Word is the best or your ah, everybody tells me I have to keyword, and you sit down in your likes. We look at this photograph was grabbed like something really random here. Well, that's for the next three years. I got one in the middle. This is a hallway from Fort, and you're like for Casey. It's kind of yellow bars like you don't know what to keyword, but you're supposed to keyword, or you're actually a stock photographer. If you're a stock photographer, your bread and butter's in your key wording. Because if I am looking for Polar Bear, Pink Ball Kid Blue Sweatshirt, Bronx Zoo, and you're missing one of those key words, I'm not getting your image. So in that term of key wording, it's critical of your stock photographer. Your problem is, my work isn't being found. That's a key wording problem. So what are the appropriate keywords to do for that? So coming in, applying the keywords. But if you're never looking at keywords, you never think about that way. You're not organized that way. I spent a lifetime key wording. That's not a problem you're trying to solve, so you could come back in and keep her later. I'm going to show you something adobes got, which is actually pretty cool if we jump over here. This is Ah, light room, mobile light room Web. My room whip, get bull web. There's lots of light rooms. There are pretty cool because they get integrated If you come up here under the little light room menu and if you're a subscriber to the cloud, you get this and you come down here under the technology previews, One of the options here is search. So search is actually right now. Very simple search. They're just now starting to build this. And what this is doing is it's taking smart previews uploaded to the cloud, and then you can have access to share the collections. You can comment on, um, work with third party people you can actually edit up here if you're on the road. So some really great things about it. But the search is getting more and more sophisticated cause they're able to apply high level artificial intelligence and machine intelligence to the search. So I have all these collections here. This is Stephen. The city of Langley has Bunny's. A couple years ago Easter, they thought it be fun to have kids come to the fairgrounds and get a baby duck, baby chick or baby bunny. And now Langley has these really cute bunnies that run around. I'm working on a photo book of the bunnies to sell in the bookstores. That's what. Yes, that's one of the bunnies. Eso But I want to know all of my bunny photographs. So I just type in the word bunny, appear in light room light room web, because the rest the bunny photographs if I want to come in and I want to search for the color blue images that have the color blue in it. So from a key wording standpoint for somebody like me, I'm not a sock photographer. I'm not required right now. Have that. I don't make my living doing that. I don't have that problem to solve. It would be nice. It would be pretty cool to have some of the power of that. I'm content to let Adobe finished this. They're gonna get smarter at it. They're getting corporate in the metadata into it. So eventually, Ana Bela, how my cattle accessible and do my search that way. So been looking at the problem of would be great for me. Yeah, do I am I gonna actually keyword? No, I'm not. For years I've said I'm going to do it. I apply the keywords, I try it. It just doesn't float up to the top of my workflow. But the technology is coming. That's gonna help somebody like me in that regard. So I'm really excited about something like that. So I signed up search, and every time it says was this hurts helpful. I'm all about Yes, I know down there because the faster they get to this, the less I have to worry about feeling bad about not keyboarding. We're gonna come back to this in a second. We get to collections, but from a search standpoint, key wording. Lots of options there. If you're going to be efficient with that, one of things you can do is they build these keywords sets, which will give you nine numbers. Nine words to get repeated over and over again so you can come in and build your own. But what they do is like, here's wedding photography. Here's nine words. So I'm gonna put a bright in there. So now the word brides attached to that is a key word, But I can come in and actually edit the set and build my own set. So I created a set for Seattle, their space needle market, black and white. This is for a family reception side coming. Apply the spacing of word there again from an efficiency standpoint, if I'm shooting the same stuff over and over again, I have a set of keywords that mostly gets applied, but not always. So I have a keyword set, that Seattle skyline and 1/3 of the photographs. They're gonna have the space shuttle there. I've got it right there, and I can just click on it and quickly click through that. I could also use the painter and some other things, but from a keyword, said Aiken, build those in here automatically again by building a pre defined, preset.

Ratings and Reviews

user-01901f
 

I would consider myself an advanced Lightroom user, but this class challenged me to rethink the way I use it in my workflow. Daniel is a great instructor with an incredible wealth of knowledge!

Beatriz Stollnitz
 

Great class if you're a beginner Lightroom user or if you're looking for ways to improve your workflow.

user-2866a3
 

Daniel Gregory talks fast. Real fast. But he has really good ideas about workflow with Lightroom. What to do? While watching "Automating", have your copy of LR open in another window. When Gregory triggers an idea that works for you, pause the class, switch over to LR and try out what he said, make the changes that work for you. I learned a lot from Gregory in this class and highly recommend it. His structure (Commercial photography) isn't applicable to me but I saw things that I needed to do.

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