# Merging Keywords



## Tical (Aug 24, 2018)

Dear All

In order to clean up large database, i want to remove duplicates, but before (or while doing it) i need an extra feature : merging keywords of duplicate files.
Real case :

Original : i have some pictures in a folder / collection, tagged with keywords such as “ Project, Hotel, Marrakech, 00306”
Copy 1 : i have some of these pictures (sometime same or different name, but exact copy) in another folder / collection tagged with keywords such as “ Light, Ribbon, Led, WRGB”
Copy 2 : i have also some of these pictures (sometime same or different name, but exact copy) in another folder / collection tagged with keywords such as “ Room, Suite, Dressing”

I would love to be able to merge all those keywords on a single file, when searching and deleting duplicates.
Remaining with a single of anyone of these 3 files with all keywords : “Project, Hotel, Marrakech, 00306, Light, Ribbon, Led, WRGB, Room, Suite, Dressing”

I tried PhotoSweeper as a separate program, (which is good, but no such option it seems) and plugin Teekesselchen, which does not do the job at all.

Does anybody faced the same problem ? Is there a software (Mac preferred) to do this job ?

Best regards to all.
Alexandre


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## Birdbrain186 (Sep 16, 2018)

I guess you are looking for a way to automate the keyword merging for which unfortunately I have no suggestions.

But if you have software to enable the identification of duplicates, then once you have found all the duplicates for any particular picture, then to merge the keywords for any given picture you would need to:-

(1) Identify which folder each copy comes from by setting a different colour label for all pictures within each folder​​(2) Put all the folders together into a collection, then ... ...​​(3) Highlight all copies of that particular picture. _*The Keywording box will now show all  of the keywords from the aggregated copies, and will show asterisks after those keywords NOT present on ALL the copies.*_​​(4) Then delete all the asterisks in the Keywording box. You will  then end up with all copies of the photo having all of the keywords.​​(5) Delete unwanted duplicates so leaving the remaining one copy with all keywords in it's EXIF data.​

N.B.
I realise that you may be aware of all of the above actions, but that they may be impractical for you to do for the number of duplicated photos you have.
_* (In which case - sorry - as my response will be of little assistance)*_

Anyway good luck with the merging and deleting!​
                                                                                                        Mike


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## Rob_Cullen (Sep 16, 2018)

I find the easiest way to add extra keywords (or merge) is to simply click the box in the Keyword List panel to show a 'tick'
So select all the photos to merge keywords, tick the boxes.

An 'empty' box = No selected photos use this keyword
A [-] in the box = Some of the selected photos have this keyword
A [tick]  = All the selected photos have this keyword.

My example- 'Merge' Egret + Egret White:  Place a tick in the empty box.


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## Birdbrain186 (Sep 17, 2018)

Great. Yes this is better for step (4) than my method of deleting the asterisks (and is I'm sure the intended method!)
Mike


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 18, 2018)

A long shot, but you might be able to use the syncomatic plug-in to copy the keywords to all copies of the photos (something like this) and then use a duplicate plug-in like Teekesselchen to clear out the duplicates, safe in the knowledge your keywords are preserved. @johnbeardy might be able to give us a better idea of whether Syncomatic might be able to help here.


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## Stephanie Booth (Sep 19, 2018)

I have the same problem, largely. Thread here: "merging" metadata and photographs

The problem with syncomatic is that it seems to require target and source photos to have different extensions. If my three copies of each photo are jpg, will it circularly merge keywords between those three copies?


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 20, 2018)

Another possibility (John would have to answer that question) would be writing the metadata out to a CSV file and then importing it back using LR/Transporter LR/Transporter - Import, Export and Manipulate your Metadata from Adobe Lightroom


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