simple keywording tool: the Holy Grail

[stockastic]

Every few months I go off on a search for a simple, direct, IPTC/keyword editing tool.  I've probably tried 20 over the years. All were overcomplicated, requring me to drill down through various menus and dialogs to get to the keywords, then typically presenting them in some clunky way, maybe a single long line with quotes around each word, that made it a pain to edit them.  Some only showed the keywords, wouldn't modify them.  None were suitable for quickly titling/captioning/keywording a bunch photos.  Total overkill.

My search always fails and I fall back to Windows Explorer - right click the file, Properties, Details, click on Tags, edit, then move to next photo.

I never lose faith that somewhere, there's a streamlined, lightweight tool for this purpose.  But I can't find it.

[aspp]

Why not just do it in Lightroom or Photo Mechanic like 99% of everyone else ? Or in SQL if you are a code geek.

[leaf]

or bridge?

[stockastic]

I don't own Lightroom, or Photoshop.  I do have Elements but it does not seem well suited to this task.

[Poncke]

I just copy keywords from images on SS similar to mine, copy keywords from a few most popular photos to lightroom in the keyword field for the image. Lightroom will remove the duplicates, I will remove a few that dont apply, add a few that are missing. Copy them over in MS Word to check for spelling mistakes and to see if its not more than 50 words. Then copy it back to lightroom, done. Sounds tedious, but its not. Its quite quick. And when I have done one image, I just synchronize the series and bam, all images are keyworded, not over 50 and spell checked, works best for me. I now use SS keyword tool to get the keywords.

[Pauws99]

...

[incarno]

Xn view?

only free for private use afaik this is clearly a commercial use and should be paid.

[Poncke]

Can the people who minused me let me know what is wrong with that work flow? Would be interesting to see what other people think. Since it got 4 minuses, its seems I got it all wrong. I just dont see how using a keyword helper is any quicker. That's also exactly what I told SS in a Skype call and the from the few options they presented me with, the one I thought would work the best is the one that's now actually in use as BETA on the site. What SS does is take keywords of the images you select from a search you do, and then you can add and remove keywords, check if you are not exceeding 50 and they are spell checked. Then you copy them on a clipboard and you have to copy them into your image. You then still need to add your own keywords and submit. Same idea as my workflow, and I think my workflow is as fast if not faster.

[niserin]

Poncke I did not minus you but I think that your method is indeed a bit of a roundabout way of dealing with keywording. So much copying and pasting and wandering from one window to another.
One word: Prostockmaster

[Poncke]

Poncke I did not minus you but I think that your method is indeed a bit of a roundabout way of dealing with keywording. So much copying and pasting.
One word: Prostockmaster

Thanks, but I havent found a better faster way yet. Mind you, as soon as I submit an image there is no keyword maintenance needed. Its a finished product. I will check out your suggestion.

[aspp]

Can the people who minused me let me know what is wrong with that work flow?

I have not minused you. But you know that it is almost certainly because you are using other people's keywords, piggybacking off their work instead of thinking it through for yourself. Which is bad form and also perpetuates spam, gradually eroding the quality of key wording in general.

[Poncke]

Can the people who minused me let me know what is wrong with that work flow?

I have not minused you. But you know that it is almost certainly because you are using other people's keywords, piggybacking off their work instead of thinking it through for yourself. Which is bad form and also perpetuates spam, gradually eroding the quality of key wording in general.

SS is doing the same with their keywording tool, they offer you keywords from images you need to select yourself. Yuris keyword helper does exactly the same. So when you use software thats doing the piggybacking for you its ok, when I do it manually its not?

Double standards.

Your argument about spamming and eroding doesnt hold water either. A word is a word, and if it describes my image, I will use it. Copied or not, it doesnt change a thing.

[stockastic]

I'm not interested in finding, or copying, keywords - I do my own.  I want a simpler tool for editing IPTC, one that doesn't require numerous clicks and menu choices just to get down to the IPTC. And I want the keywords presented in a way that's easy to see and edit - in a list box of some sort, not a long line with commans or semicolons as delimiters.   And the ability to copy the IPTC data from one photo to another.  That's it.  Nothing but that.

Ideally:  in Windows Explorer, right-click on thumbnail, select "edit IPTC", get a window with edit fields for title and description, a list of existing keywords, an edit box to enter a new keyword and add it to the list, and a 'delete' button  to remove a keyword from the list.

If I were still an active software developer, I'd create this as a shell extension.  But editing the IPTC in a JPG isn't dead simple; at one time I searched for open-source code to do this but didn't find any that looked solid and well documented.

[Poncke]

Its been mentioned before, Adobe Bridge, comes with Photoshop.

[stockastic]

Its been mentioned before, Adobe Bridge, comes with Photoshop.

Like I said - no Photoshop for me.  Waaaay too costly.   I do everything I need to do with Nikon Capture NX and PS Elements. 

[Poncke]

Its been mentioned before, Adobe Bridge, comes with Photoshop.

Like I said - no Photoshop for me.  Waaaay too costly.   I do everything I need to do with Nikon Capture NX and PS Elements.

Fair enough, but Bridge does exactly what you want. Its part of the Adobe Creative Suite, beginning with CS2, which you might get cheaply.

[niserin]

Again, Prostockmaster. It is simple, effective and free.

[fotografer]

I use IrfanView which is a free programme.

[cthoman]

Fair enough, but Bridge does exactly what you want. Its part of the Adobe Creative Suite, beginning with CS2, which you might get cheaply.

Some of the old versions of Bridge have import problems. I used to get a pretty high import failure rate, but with CS6 it is basically 100% success. You can get the old CS2 for free now though.

As far as SS keywords, I'd say a problem is you don't get compound keywords. Since, they are all one word, so you would have some unnecessary cleanup.

[stockastic]

Again, Prostockmaster. It is simple, effective and free.

Oh I tried that one too - for quite a while actually.  It had problems - sometimes it would completely clobber the IPTC and I wouldn't realize it until later.   I also disliked the tweaky editing dialogs and the tiny little font on my big monitors.

[aspp]

Your argument about spamming and eroding doesnt hold water either. A word is a word, and if it describes my image, I will use it. Copied or not, it doesnt change a thing.

No, keyword copying leads to looser, poorer metadata as people replicate each other's mistakes, omissions and irrelevancies. There is a tendency towards the subconscious mutual validation of irrelevant or marginal spamming.

If you care about your work and know what it is about then you will know in advance which keywords and phrases are significant.

It makes no difference what Yuri or Shutterstock do. There is lots to like about Shutterstock but spam is a big issue there, at all of the sites and agencies where people do their own keywording.

[Poncke]

Your argument about spamming and eroding doesnt hold water either. A word is a word, and if it describes my image, I will use it. Copied or not, it doesnt change a thing.

No, keyword copying leads to looser, poorer metadata as people replicate each other's mistakes, omissions and irrelevancies. There is a tendency towards the subconscious mutual validation of irrelevant or marginal spamming.

If you care about your work and know what it is about then you will know in advance which keywords and phrases are significant.

It makes no difference what Yuri or Shutterstock do. There is lots to like about Shutterstock but spam is a big issue there, at all of the sites and agencies where people do their own keywording.

You obviously missed parts from my comments.

A book is a book, there is no other way of calling a book. So if I have a photo of a book, I copy the keywords of another image of a book.

I also said, I remove keywords that are not relevant and add my own. But if I can copy 30 keywords out of 50 it saves me a hell of a lot of time.

So for you using a keyword tool is plain wrong. Sorry but you are the exception to the rule.

[stockastic]

The argument about copying others' keywords isn't completely OT.  If you copy keywords from someone else's photo, then carefully edit that list, it's ok.  But I think we want to be keyword-clean because agencies will (and should) be policing that better in the future.  We want them to just read and accept our IPTC data, and won't bother with new agencies that don't; but unless they want to end up with outrageous spamming they'll have to inspect, or limit, those keywords somehow.

And that leads back to my complaint about editing tools that show the keywords in a tiny window or list where you can't easily see more than a few.   That makes it hard to see what you already have and what you could add or subtract.

Some of these image tools are now quite old and haven't kept up with monitor resolution, and as a result the fonts are extremely small on high-res displays.