# sorting keywords for complete names



## rNeil (Jan 3, 2011)

I've tried to make collections and smart collections based on names that have been entered as keywords. I can't make it work.

Names include more than one word ... and no matter how I enter them into the criteria boxes, it seems to mix and match individual words. If one sets a criteria for "Anna Haugen", one also gets "Anna Marie Butler". Strangely, it doesn't seem to give me all the Haugen's in the list ... but it will give me all the Anna's.

And yes, I can go to the keyword panel and get it to list all the photos with Anna Haugen, and then make a dumb collection of those photos. But when I add more of Anna Haugen, they aren't automatically included. I'd love to be able to have a smart collection of all photos of Anna Haugen or anyone else, for that matter. Or even mutliple-word place names, for another instance.

Is there a way I haven't found yet?


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## Winston (Jan 3, 2011)

Try "contains all" or "contains words".


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## rccoleman (Jan 3, 2011)

Winston said:


> Try "contains all" or "contains words".


 
That ought to work for what the OP was looking for (and what I do), but it's not an optimal solution. Despite Lightroom's apparent understanding of multi-word keywords, there's no option to match only a specific multi-word keyword. The granularity is at a word level in the filter tool, and what I'd like to see is an option to look for specific keywords, whether they're single or multi-word, without the possibility of matching something that I don't expect.  In the OP's example, what if some pics have a keyword of just 'Anna'?  I can't set up a filter or smart collection to pick just them up without also getting 'Anna xxx' and 'Anna yyy' pics. I either have to change 'Anna' to something unique or add more unique words to search for.

With the current interface, this could be solved by allowing one to quote multi-word strings (to group the words together) and to allow the comma to delimit separate keywords.  It seems like the keyword support was originally designed without support for multi-word entries, and they hacked it in with only the smallest amount of effort and forethought.  It needs work.


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## harringg (Jan 3, 2011)

Smart Collection>Match [All] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna Haugen

This will return only images tagged with Anna Haugen

Hope this helps

The bracketed words above indicate they are options from a drop down menu.


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## erro (Jan 3, 2011)

Or, skip the spaces in keywords and use underscore instead. That way Anna Haugen will become Anna_Haugen and is treated as a keyword with one specific word.

It's a big mystery to me why LR allows multi-worded keywords separated by space, but in it's search and smart collection have no concept of mutli-worded keywords...


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## harringg (Jan 4, 2011)

With the search criteria I listed in Post #4, there is no reason to use underscores.  All of the examples below work to find Anna Smith or Smith > Anna

Starts With works as an absolute.

People
-Anna Smith
-Anna Jones
-Jones
--Anna
-Smith
--Anna

Smart Collection>Match [All] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna Smith 
shows Anna Smith

Smart Collection>Match [Any] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna Smith
>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna Jones
shows Anna Smith AND Anna Jones

I'm using LR 3.2, and this may not work in v2 (I've never used it, so can't test)


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## rccoleman (Jan 4, 2011)

harringg said:


> With the search criteria I listed in Post #4, there is no reason to use underscores.  All of the examples below work to find Anna Smith or Smith > Anna
> 
> Starts With works as an absolute.
> 
> ...



I suspect that it will work for the OP, but only if there isn't another model who's just "Anna" (think "Madonna").  In other words, it won't work for a keyword that's a subset of another keyword.  "Starts with" doesn't mean "is the entire keyword, without anything else after it", and may need to be paired with another unique term if the name, itself, isn't unique.

Rob


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## harringg (Jan 4, 2011)

Then use the Not modifier, which is ! (shift+1)

Anna Smith
Anna Jones
Anna

Smart Collection>Match [All] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna !Smith !Jones
shows only Anna

Keep in mind, once a Smart Collection is initially setup, it's very easy to edit. Control Click the Smart Collection and choose Edit Smart Collection....

If you add:
Anna Smith
Anna Jones
Anna Wilson
Anna

Update your Smart Collection to:
Smart Collection>Match [All] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna !Smith !Jones !Wilson
and it will now exclude Anna Wilson as well with little to no effort.  Does it get tedious if you have hundreds of people named Anna (some last name), and only want "Anna", yes, but again, once it's setup, it's done.

However, I think I provided an answer to the OP as it was asked.


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## rccoleman (Jan 4, 2011)

Yes, thanks for pointing out that useful feature.  I looked into the metacharacters a little more and saw that you can include a "+" at the beginning to indicate "Starts with" and "+" at the end to indicate "Ends with" for a particular word.  I was hoping that you could do something like "+Anna+" or "+Anna, Anna+" to solve this, but that doesn't seem to work.  Anyway, I'd prefer that Lightroom filters and collections were actually designed to handle multi-word keywords rather than requiring these workarounds, but you're right that there are workarounds.

Incidentally, this annoyance is mentioned several times in the comments on Adobe's help web page: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WSAB7B303E-081D-4617-BF47-B4B8D3D49CC3.html

Rob


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## rNeil (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks for ALL the replies, this was a most useful discussion, and I think I've learned more about sorting by keywords here than any place I've ever looked! And yes, "starts with" ... oddly enough ... returns 'Anna Haugen' but doesn't bring up 'Anna Marie Butler' ... so task completed. And now I know how to handle it if someone ELSE pops up there sometime or in some other collection!


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## johnbeardy (Jan 4, 2011)

Remember that Lightroom and the IPTC Standard now have a field "Person Shown". Rather than making keywords suit all potential uses, Adobe should focus on making this field more usable - searchable for a start.

John


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## rccoleman (Jan 4, 2011)

johnbeardy said:


> Remember that Lightroom and the IPTC Standard now have a field "Person Shown". Rather than making keywords suit all potential uses, Adobe should focus on making this field more usable - searchable for a start.
> 
> John


 
I suspect that we'll run into exactly the same issue when searching in another field, though. I don't see this as a keyword-only issue, but a matter of the granularity of a search term. We need to be able to match specific, multi-word terms without unnecessarily matching longer strings that are a superset.


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## erro (Jan 4, 2011)

johnbeardy said:


> Remember that Lightroom and the IPTC Standard now have a field "Person Shown". Rather than making keywords suit all potential uses, Adobe should focus on making this field more usable - searchable for a start.
> 
> John


 
And hierarchical, otherwise it's useless as far as I'm concerned


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## johnbeardy (Jan 4, 2011)

Yes, but what family tree to follow? What you thought it was last year? Or how it now looks after the shenanigans over Christmas when Auntie Elisabeth divorced Uncle Phil, Cousin Charlie had the op and became Cousin Charlotte, and young William's parentage  suddenly appeared much more confused than one ever imagined with half of the rugby club claiming to be his father. Family trees can be messy! But I take your point.

John


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## erro (Jan 4, 2011)

True, aunts and cousins can never be fully relied upon...  But maybe there are so many people keywords that one start to sub-categorise them based on letters or something... anyway, hierarchies everywhere FTW.


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## MarkNicholas (Jan 5, 2011)

Interesting thread. There is a whole lot to learn on creating specific smart collections. Is there a site that sets it all out in nice simple terms ?


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## andrel (Jan 8, 2011)

harringg said:


> Smart Collection>Match [All] of the following rules:>[Keywords]>[Starts With]>Anna Haugen
> 
> This will return only images tagged with Anna Haugen
> 
> ...


 
I had a similar question and your tip gave me an answer.
Thanks


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