Lightroom Secrets

Just Add a Touch of Synonym!

Keywords in Lightroom are at the very foundation of organizing your images. If you ever want to find those images again you had better add some keywords now!

Of course, as your collection of images grows, so does your list of keywords. In a previous article I talked about using hierarchies in your keyword list. This helps bring order to your collection and unclutter your list so you can find things. To further help you organize and unclutter, Lightroom supports synonyms. Let’s take a look at this powerful feature.

When you click on the + at the top of the Keyword List panel you are presented with the following dialog:

Here we are adding the keyword dog. But we can also refer to a dog as canine, puppy, or pet. We could add all three of these as keywords in their own right but that would clutter up the list and make it more difficult to find things. So far so good. But what is the advantage we’ve gained?

The advantage is that we can filter/search our collection for canine and all images keyworded with dog will be found! But wait! It get’s better!

Now all you cat-lovers out there are saying, “Hey! Cats are pets too!” And you are correct. No problem with synonyms! When I create the keyword cat I can make pet a synonym. Now that both dog and cat have the synonym pet I can filter/search on pet and all my images keyworded with either dog or cat will show up! Now I only have to add one keyword to an image but can search on two! This can save you time.

If you export your keywords (or are working on them outside Lightroom) your synonyms show up indented under their keyword and enclosed in braces { }.

So for that added Lightroom taste just add a touch of synonym!

Related posts:

1. Keywording in Loupe View

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Tags: keyword, Lightroom

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 5:36 am and is filed under Library, Lightroom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.