As part of my adventures of moving to a Lightroom world, I've started to look at Keywording. Now the Lightroom Hierachical keywords, seem like a really good thing and although I can easily build up a big set of keywords thanks to The Controlled Vocabulary what I really want is to pull in the hierachy of Catalog Sets I spent ages creating in iView.



As far as I can see the only real way to get this list would be to recreate this in Lightroom manually. As I didn't fancy all that typing I came up with This Script (which is heavily based on John Beardsworths script I used previously)

To use it all you need to do is change one or two lines in the file:

Change this to the name of the catalog set you wish to export:

Const ivKeywordSetName = "Places"


If you should wish to change the name or location of the file of hierachical keywords you create then this is the line to change.

const filePath = "C:\iViewCategories.txt"


Once you have edited the file, save it in your iview scripts folder. The Open iview with the catalog containing the sets you wish to export. Run the script from the script folder and after a few seconds you should get a "Done" message.

Open lightroom and select the Library module. Select Metadata>Import Keywords and brows to the file you have created C:\iViewCategories.txt and your Keywords should apear as if by magic:

Labels: iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow

My long term archive of images is indexed in iview media pro. I still haven't bothered to move to Microsoft Expressions Media yet as there don't seem to be any killer reasons to do the upgrade.
I generate my web galleries from iview using my own custom template, everything is automated and life is good.

I noticed the other day that although I use the (iview:keywords) tag to put all my keywords as metadata into the generated HTML pages, a fair bit of the information I am recording is not being inserted in the files because it is held in catalog sets.



Catalog sets are the iview way of providing a hermetical structure to your metadata. My main use of catalog sets is for locations, for example the image above would be in the Horsey Mill set,which automatically infers that it is also in the Horsey, Norfolk Broads, Norfolk, England and UK sets.


So what I really need is a way to collapse the catalog sets into the keywords field before I create my web galleries. I figured this would need a script to work out which catalog sets apply to an image and then to put them into the keywords metadata for the image.

Searching around the web found a lot of rumours of such a thing but none lead to the code, until finally I came accross this post by John Beardsworth. I simply took Johns code and edited the line:

Const ivKeywordSetName = "Keywords"

and replaced the word "Keywords" with the name of the top level catalog set I want to flattern into the keywords i.e.

Const ivKeywordSetName = "Places"

then run it on the selected images. It worked perfectly..hurrah!

Labels: iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow

No sooner had I blogged that the new version of Lightroom works with the Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue then David Riecks of ControlledVocabulary.com has produced a new version for Lightroom and documented it too!

CVKC for Lightroom

CVKC for Lightroom help

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Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

Well Adobe Lightroom 1.1 as just been released and in amongst a whole host of improvements the Lightroom team have improved the performance of the database and keywords.

I have just tested using The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue in Lightroom and the performance has really improved beyond all recognition. So it now seems to be a workable option for those of us who really want to control their keywording.

Update:
About the same time as I was testing, Mr Controlled Vocabulary himself David Riecks (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent) was testing 1.1 and the CVKC and here are his observations:

Well, I have to give Kudos to the Lightroom engineers. I imported the PhotoMechanic version of the CVKC in less than 9 seconds (I used a stopwatch). This was on a new MacBook Pro, so it's a different machine than before. I did have to change the file from the ".utf8" extension to a text file. Just to be safe I opened the file in TextWrangler and resaved as with Mac line breaks, and unicode UTF-8
no BOM encoding first.

I imported a 4 gig card with about 2.29 gigs of images (from my recent trip to Italy) and it took about 5:46 minutes to import.
The new Lightroom is able to distinguish between regular keywords, (solid white triangle to left if there are subcategories), excluded category headers (triangle to left is a series of dots, ie not solid), and synonyms.

It took virtually no time at all to actually assign the keywords, even within the 11,000 terms in the current CVKC. However, I'm either confusing LightRoom with another application, or they have changed how you locate the keywords within the tags. The only way I could find within the left side Keywords tag panel was to reveal the lower levels by clicking on the arrow to the left of the term.

I thought there used to be a search function at the top, but if so it's now gone.

There is a new tool (or at least I think it's new) called the "spraycan" which can be used to apply keywords. When you choose this tool, there is a pull down that allows you to select keywords (or labels, flags, ratings, rotations, or other forms of metadata... none of which I tested at this time). If you choose Keywords, then you CAN type in a word here and it seems to find it within the hierarchy.

I found this much easier than having to remember which region Rome is located within (it's Lazio BTW), or where another keyword is located within the hierarchy.

I'll make the converted file part of a new Lightroom download and get that up on the download page in the next day, after I write up instructions for how to install and apply keywords.

I've not had time to test any of the other improvements, and/or possible addition of DAM features, so that will have to wait for a more thorough review. However, the Adobe Lightroom engineers do seem to have listened and made some remarkable improvements in a very short time.

So it really looks like it will works...hurrah!

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Related Posts

How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

The final part of my workflow is to archive the files so that they are protected from disaster and so that I can find pictures when I need to. So once a month I archive off the previous months working directory to my archiving system.

First I go through the months images using the Breezebrowser Pro slideshow facility and delete out any images I don't want to keep. Sometimes I also find images that missed my attention first time around and they get processed in the usual way.

Next I load the images in to a temporary iView Media Pro catalogue and do some fine level keywording classification. During the load process images already receive a lot of keywording so this process covers things like the names of people in the shot and descriptive words like emotions and colours.

Once the keywording is complete the keywords are written back to the files using the synchronise command in iView.

The months files are copied and created as a new directory on my heard of buffalo. Finally these files are imported into an iView database covering the entire archive.

My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: Breezebrowser Pro, Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

"What’s that you are reading?"

"The DAM Book"
"Charming! I only asked!"

Be prepared for this conversation if you read the highly recommended "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh, but it's worth it.

So what is DAM?

DAM stands for Digital Asset Management, which means managing your images so that you can find your images easily and they are backed up properly, which will ensure you won't loose them in event of a hardware, software or user error. In order to achieve this you need to have a well thought out workflow that you stick to consistently.

A workflow is the series of processes you go through to handle your images. A comprehensive workflow covers everything from downloading from the cards, through sorting, indexing and classifying, raw conversion, Photoshop work, archiving and backup.

The DAM Book provides a complete working and proven workflow based on the Adobe Bridge product (which comes as part of Photoshop CS2), Adobe DNG and iView Media Pro plus some other bits and pieces downloadable from its own website. Even if you don't use the flow described in the book it is a great tool for reassessing how you handle your images.

Reading the book made me decide to re-plan and document my own workflow. So I thought I would share it with my readers. This article describes the very first part of the workflow – Capture and download.

Capture

I shoot on a canon 20D using the raw file format. There are many reasons for using raw which have been detailed in articles such as this one. Two reasons draw me to this way of shooting,: the first is being able to deal with white balance problems easily and the second is that using a good raw processor like Capture 1 allows you to replicate the traditional processes of printing an image, minimising the amount of correction required in Photoshop. For me, the more I get an image right in the camera (and the raw processor) the more I like it.

I use 512Mb Compact flash cards, which seem incredibly small and cheap in these days of 8GB cards. There are a couple of reasons for using smaller cards:

• A 512mb card fits neatly on to a CD which makes backing them up a doodle, by the time I buy my next camera I expect sensors to be up to 20+ megapixel sizes at which point 4GB cards and DVDs might be a good pairing.
• I get 50ish raw files onto one card, which is about the maximum number of images I could bear to lose in one go should I drop it in the sea, a lake, a washing machine, a volcano, etc, etc.

I store the cards in Jessops media cases, which hold 4 cards at a time and provide them with a degree of shock proofing. I know it's not the most original system in the world but I keep track of which ones have been used, by keeping empty cards face up & shot cards face down. I always reformat cards every time I put them into the camera in an effort to reduce the possibility of file system problems on the card.

Numbering the cards helps to identify if there are any recurring problems with a particular card or not.

On returning from the shoot my workflow depends on if I am back at base or not.

Normal workflow

On returning from a shoot, I use a card reader to download the images to my laptop using Downloader Pro. See this Blog for more details on setting up Downloader pro and the Controlled Vocabulary. I have this, deceptively easy to use bit of software setup to completely automate the download part of my workflow:

• Files are copied into a directory within my working area which is named based on the year and month. i.e.: C:\Working\200611_Nov\04Nov06\Raw - where:
• "C:\Working" is my working directory
• "200611_Nov" is a directory for nov 2006-11-04
• "04Nov06" this is the actual date of the shoot
• "Raw" indicates that these are the raw files.


• Files are renamed based on the original name, job code and date i.e.: CS20061104-IMG_0123_Epping Forest.cr2 - where:
• "CS" are my initials
• "20061104" is the date in YYYYMMDD format
• "IMG_0123" is the original file name
  
  
• 2 directories are created at the same level as the "RAW" directory. These are:
  • "Tiff" - for files converted from raw
  • "WebReady" - for files converted too web proofing size.
    
    
• IPTC/XMP data is added to each file automatically adding creator, copyright, contact info, keywords & location etc to every file.
  
  
• Files are automatically copied, across the network, to a second PC (my file server) to ensure I have a backup of every image.
  
• When the download is complete the card is completely erased ready for reuse.

Amazingly it does all this automatically when I insert a card in to the card reader. At some point in the future I may take advantage of downloader pros ability to automatically generate DNG files, but at the moment I don't feel DNG fits into my workflow very well.

Now the images are ready for rating and raw conversion as detailed in part 2.

On-Location Workflow

The normal workflow relies on a network file server to provide a backup of all the images downloaded. This is not possible when I am away from base and simply download all the files to my laptop is not a secure option because the laptop could crash or be stolen and I would lose an entire expeditions work.

Instead I use a digimagic CD writer to duplicate each card to CD. Spindles of CD-Rs are very cheap these days and provide an ideal backup medium. I then load from the CD into the laptop using Downloader Pro which does all the renaming/directory creation as detailed in the normal process. This way I can be sure that not only do I have a backup but that backup works!

On returning I use the Microsoft Sync-toy to duplicate the working directory back to the file server.

In part 2, I will detail the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff and converting raw files into a usable format.

If you are getting a sense of Deja-vue that is because this blog was originally in the Articles section of the site...but I'm having a tidy up!


My Workflow

• Capture
• Processing
• Output
• Archiving

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

In Part 1 I discussed how to set-up Downloader Pro and The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue to enable easy file management and downloading. So now we have set it up, how do we go about using it.

Insert a Card in your Cardreader.

Once Downloader Pro has been setup to detect card events, inserting a card with images on will automatically fire you into Downloader Pro. If you have the option to prompt for job-code set then the first dialogue will prompt for job-code:


Enter a descriptive job-code or select a previously used one from the dropdown and click OK. Next you will be prompted for the metadata and the dialogue will appear, prefilled with the entries you added during the setup.


Click on the Keywords tab, here you can enter keywords separated by commas. To use the Controlled Vocabulary click on the catalogue button.

You can either browse the catalogue using the tree view or just enter a search string and click find. For example entering "beach" returns two possible results:


Select the ones you want and click OK. Repeat this process bringing in all the keywords that apply to your set of images.

Note: that some terms or phrases are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and may not make much sense as keywords by themselves. These terms are needed in order to create a branch under which other terms may be grouped. However, once you have pulled them into the BreezeBrowser list, they have served their purpose and can be removed from the list.

Once you have added all the keywords you need then clicking OK will bring you to the automation dialogue.
Click Yes and everything happens by magic! Files are downloaded, renamed, keyworded, backed-up , metadata added, directories created and the card deleted..all in one little measure - marvellous!

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

I am still investigating using the controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files and now the new version of Downloader Pro integrates with the controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue. This blog is the first part of a 2 part blog showing how to use downloader pro and Controlled Vocalbulary to manage your images. This first blog covers the set-up of the programs which you should only have to do once and the second covers day to day usage.

Downloader Pro is a great tool for downloading images from a memory card - the main benefits I get out of using it are:

• Intelligent File Renaming based on attributes in the file.
• Intelligent directory creation based attributes in the files.
• Supporting directory creation (../Tiffs,../Webready) to improve workflow
• Immediate backup of every document to a different drive
• Bulk keywording and metadata.

Of these keywording and metadata are one of the most neglected areas for most photographers. The download process is one of the most useful times to apply metadata to your images as this bulk information will usually apply to a whole shoot and stay with the images throughout your workflow.


Installing the CVKC

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2.Download the breezebrowser zip file: cvkcv3_0-BBpro16.zip
3. Unzip cvkcv3_0-BBpro16.zip
4. From the downloaded files copy cvkcv3_0.txt into the Downloader Pro program directory (usually C:\Program Files\BreezeSys\Downloader Pro), replacing the Keywords.txt file that is there already.


Set up your Downloader Pro configuration

Run Downloader Pro and Select File>Preferences and on the Download Path tab you can use the {tags} to allow files to be renamed in whatever way you like and placed in named directories according to your preferred naming scheme. if you use the {J tag and select "Prompt for Job code every time Downloader Pro is run, the system will request a name/code for each batch of pictures you download and build them into the naming of the files.

On the general tab make sure you check "Add ITPC/XMP data to downloaded images" and "prompt for ITPC/XMP data every time Downloader pro is run. The first means that your standard metadata will be written to the files as you download. The second means that you can change this each time you download.

On Automation tab it is best to check all the options so that downloading is completely automated.
Setup the custom button for your preferred software for browsing the downloaded images, In my case I use Breezebrowser which makes things quite simple:


On the plug-in screen I have 2 plug-ins enabled , director maker and Backup.Backup is configured to automatically copy every downloaded image to a second disk drive whilst the directory maker is set to create the directories that support my workflow.



Setup your default metadata

One of the clever things with Downloader pro is that the {tags} can be used all over the program and they really come in handy when configuring your standard metadata. On the Origin Tab I use {tags} to set the date & time correctly and enter the standard origin information I want to write to every file:


My contact information stays the same from one day to the next , so again this is set for all images: The Caption information can be defaulted as well - here I have used the {J} tag to render the job-code into every image.
Now we are all set-up and ready to go. In part 2 I will take you through the actual download process I use on a daily basis.

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, Downloader Pro, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP

Strangely (for me) this is the fourth consecutive blog on the same subject, normal service will soon be resumed and I will go off at a tangent soon This keywording thing has a lot going on, and the joys of Lightroom are still a bit of an enigma but its an interesting adventure.

Having loaded The Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue in to Lightroom, you may find that things seem to slow down quite a lot. Well I say a lot, but really we are talking response times that are measured by the time-scales usually reserved for geologists. Hopefully the clever people at Adobe can fix the problems in the next version or service pack.

Until The Lightroom team can fix the problem it may be more usable to delete blocks of keywords that you don't use to reduce the load on the system.

To use the keyword hierarchy you can enter keywords in the "keyword Tags" panel:


As you type in keywords, separated by commas the system prompts you with keywords that are available in the list. Once you have entered a few base keywords then pressing enter will cause a bit of a wait if you have a large keyword list. Actually unless you are running Lightroom on a Cray super-computer now would be a good time to put the kettle on.

Eventually all of the parent categories in the vocabulary will appear in the implied keywords box, this is the real power of using a Controlled Vocabulary, simple keywords generate a lot of information.



Finding by Keywords

To search the Keywords you have entered, you can use the the Keywords tag tree on the left. To search for a particular tag, open the find panel on the left or select Library>Find (ctrl+F) on the menu. Select Keywords from the dropdown and enter the tag you are searching for.


As you type your library is instantly filtered:


If Adobe can deal with the performance issues then I think using CV with Lightroom will be a seriously useful combination.

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Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary for Adobe Lightroom 1.1 released!

Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 1)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

Now that I am tryling Lightroom and I thought I would try out if it is possible using a controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files.

It turns out its not to difficult to get the Control Vocabulary file into Lightroom, all it requires a simple bit of Excel work to convert it. This is what you do:

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2. Have Excel installed on your PC
3.Open Excel
4. Select File>Open. Change the file type to text and select the CV text file:

5.The text import wizard appears. Select Delimited:

6.Click Next and make sure only "tab" is checked:


7. Click Next and Finish.
8. The CV file is now loaded in Excel.
9. Select File>Save As and give the file a new name - make sure the file type is set to Text - Tab Delimited.
10. A warning message may appear:


click Yes.
11.Start Lightroom.
12.In the Library module, select Metadata>import Keywords and select the file you have just created.
13.Lightroom will grind to a hault for a few minutes but eventually the CV keywords will appear in the Keyword Panel


Within Lightroom selecting a keyword will cause keywords higher up the hierarchy to be allocated as implied keywords.

Be warned that keywording does seem to slow down a lot when using this number of keywords - lets hope Adobe manage to sort out the performance issues.

Update 22 Feb 2007
People have asked why import a file in a tab separated format only to immediately output it in the same format...which is a fair question. The reason is that CV file currently available seems to have an end of line character that Lightroom does not recognise and this process removes it.

David Riecks tells me that the next version of the Controlled Vocabulary Catalogue should not have the problem with the end of line characters in which case you should be able to start from step 11.

I have had a lot of people tell me that this is causing them performance issues in Lightroom, I have yet to do a thorough investigation but it seems that every time you access a keyword Lightroom is calculating on the fly how many images in your catalogue are using it.

Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)



Update 26 March 2007
It seems my experience with the number of keywords severely impacting performance
is not unusual - Anne Gall has created a thread in the Adobe forum covering the problems in quite some detail.l

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Related Posts
Controlled Vocabulary for Adobe Lightroom 1.1 released!

Controlled Vocabulary and Adobe Lightroom 1.1
How to use Controlled Vocabulary in Adobe Lightroom (part 2)

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, Keywording, Keywords, Lightroom, Workflow, XMP

A while back I became interested in using a controlled vocabulary when keywording images. David Riecks at www.controlledvocabulary.com has produced a controlled vocabulary keyword catalogue, which is a great basis for a structured keywording of files.

The only problem with the system was that it didn't work with iView Media Pro, but a bit of research and some excel coding and I came up with a way to do it. If you would like to do it yourself then you need to:

1. Order the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue.
2. Have Excel installed on your PC
3. Download this Excel file.

I am hugely grateful to David Riecks for writing the following user guide to the using the Excel File:

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When you first open the ProcessCV file it appears to be deceptively
simple. There are two fields

The first labelled the "Controlled Vocabulary filename" is the path to
the location where you stored the text version of the CVKC (or
another file using the same format and saved as a tab delimited text file).

In the Target Keywords File Name: use something like the following.

C:\Documents and Settings\[username like your name or
Administrator]\Application Data\iView\Plug-ins\Vocabulary\Default\keywords.txt

When you click on the "Create Keywords file" one of three things will
happen. Either it will start processing your file, or you will get
one of two warnings.

If you get one that says "Run Time error 1004" this means that the
source file you indicated in the first field is incorrect. The other
indicates that the ability to run Macros is disabled. It will look
like the following:

-----
Macros in this workbook are disabled because the security level is
high, and the macros have not been digitally signed or verified as
safe. To run the macros, you can either have them signed or change
your security level. Click Help for more information.

OK or Help
-----

In order to enable these in Excel go to:

Tools >> Options >> Security tab, and look for the "Macro Security"
button in the lower right.

In the subsequent dialog, change the radio button from "High" to
"Medium" which states, "Medium, You can choose whether or not to run
potentially unsafe macros."

Click OK in the "Security" dialog, and then OK in the "Options" dialog.

You will need to close the file and reopen it (or perhaps even restart Excel).

When you reopen the ProcessCV.xls file, you'll probably see something like:

---
"A file named "c:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My
Documents\[foldername]\ProcessCV.xls contains macros.

Macros may contain viruses. It is always safe to disable macros, but
if the macros are legitimate, you might lose some functionality.

Disable Macros Enable Macros More Info"
--

Click on the "Enable Macros" button and insure that you have set the
location of the source and destination files in the ProcessCV file.
Then click on the "Create Keywords file" and you'll see in the lower
left corner information about "processing row XX of XX" as the macro
does it's work.

At the end you may also receive a warning like:

"A file named "c:\Documents and Settings\Adminstrator\Application
Data\iView\Plug-ins\Vocabulary\Default\keywords.txt already exists in
this location. Do you want to replace it?
Yes No Cancel"

If you wish you can copy the file, before you run the ProcessCV.xls file.

If there is no Keywords.txt file then the process will simply stop
when completed.

Start iView, then choose Edit >> Preferences >> Vocabulary Editor

Make sure that "Default" is chosen in the Vocabulary pull down, and
that the "keywords" field is selected in the "Field" pull down.

Then check, OK

If you start typing a particular word, such as "dog" into the
Keywords field in the Info Panel, then you can click on the downward
pointing arrow and see all the strings which contain that word, and
you can pick the most appropriate line. Since it's a comma-separated
string when you press the return/enter key, each term in the line is
entered as a separate keyword.

In the example above you might get "animals, pets, dog, puppy" or
"animals, wildlife, mammals, canine, dog" depending on where you
intend to place the images.

If you just click the downward pointing arrow and don't enter a word
in the keyword field the drop-down list will be very long. All of the
terms, however, are organized hierarchically so it's not that
difficult to find what you want with scrolling. Once you are familiar
with the list, entering a high level category word narrows down the
set considerably.

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David has stated that future versions of the Keyword Catalogue will come with the iView format supplied. So hopefully things will be even simpler in the future.

Update 5 April 2007
Version 3 of The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalogue has just been release. As promised this provides native support for iView Media Pro, installation instructions can be found here.

Labels: Controlled Vocabulary, IPTC, iView Media Pro, Keywording, Keywords, Workflow, XMP