TeachMeToShoot blog

Call them Keywords, Tags, Categories, whatever you like. Just use them for cataloging your images. Keywords are probably the most important bits of Metadata available to you.

Create your own personal Keyword list

Look through your old photos. Thinks about the types of pictures you take. Think about how you would go about describing and finding photos you’ve taken. Start writing.

Think about Keyword Groups. Lightroom uses this principle. I have a group called Flowers and it includes keywords like rose, tulip, orchid, etc. Make one for family members. Another for Birds or Trees. Whatever suits your needs.

Short and sweet

Keep your keywords to no more than a 2 word phrase. Christmas party Ed’s house 2007 is a Caption. Break it down to party, Christmas, ed’s house. Don’t worry about the year since it’s in the EXIF data or the filename if you include it there.

Being able to search by the word Christmas means you’ll get all the photos from previous years. If you’re looking for that "great shot of the snowman we built a few years ago" you’ll find it.

Print your Keyword list and put it next to your computer if that helps. You don’t want to misspell anything, although some software pops up a list of currently used keyword as you type. (Thanks Lightroom for making my life easier)

A couple days ago I wrote about Using Metadata for Photo Organization and the importance of adding IPTC data and Keywords. The current versions of Adobe Bridge and Lightroom simplify the process of adding IPTC data when importing your digital images. Many other photo organizers also support this feature.

Set up IPTC Templates

Both Bridge and Lightroom allow you to fill out a template with Copyright info, your website URL, captions, location data, and more. You can save these templates for future use. The next time you Import images you can call up one of your templates and apply that info to all the images. (If you include the year in your Copyright info be sure to change it at the beginning of the New Year)

Add Keywords Too

You can also add Keywords to all the Imported files. (PS Elements calls them Tags, and you have to add them after the import) Depending on what you’ve shot this may not be practical. If you have photos of birds, waterfalls, and flowers you’re better off assigning Keywords after the import is done. You can select a group of images and assign the same Keyword to them all.

Get in the habit of adding IPTC data and Keywords every time you Import a group of images. You’ll get the satisfaction of knowing it’s done and you’ll be able to easily find photos next month or next year.

As you start amassing thousands of digital images you’ll want a way to find particular images. Having a sensible folder structure and file naming method can only go so far. Digital image Metadata takes you to the next level of organization.

2 Flavors of Metadata - EXIF and IPTC

EXIF data is all the camera specific info. White balance, exposure and flash info, date and time the shot was taken, and various camera settings like saturation and sharpening.

IPTC data is entered by you. Copyright info, captions, location and GPS data, and Keywords are among the many IPTC fields available.

Keywords give you Search Power

Every digital image can have multiple Keywords assigned to it. That beautiful photo of a rose in your backyard could contain all of these Keywords: flower, rose, red, morning, dew. Use single words or 2 word phrases at the most. You’re not writing a Caption, you’re assigning categories.

Most photo organizers let you search for multiple Keywords. Finding all your images containing "red", "rose" and "dew" is an easy task.

Organizing is Time Consuming

Granted, it will take some extra time to assign Keywords and other IPTC data. It will pay off in the long term. Being able to find images quickly makes the effort worthwhile.

My next post will discuss ways to quickly add IPTC data and Keywords. Stay tuned!

The lighting gurus over at Strobist have posted another great article. David shows you how to use your flash as the main light for outdoor portraits.

Bright midday sun is a terrible time for photographing people. Harsh light, heavy shadows, "raccoon eyes", and the heat all make for bad pictures. The secret to success is to find some shade.

The overhang of a building or a spot under a tree are great places to start. Meter for the ambient light and underexpose by 2 stops. Set your flash for proper exposure at your new aperture and start shooting.

He even uses a second flash (snooted) on the background to show texture and give some separation from the model. Read the entire article on Controlling Daylight over at Strobist.

Simple.  Effective.  Beautiful!

We photographers are well aware that this isn’t a cheap hobby. Many of us have spent thousands of dollars on cameras, lenses, flashes, workshops, books, and computers and software. It all adds up quickly.

If you’ve still got a decent balance in your bank account, perhaps some of these pieces of photo equipment can be added to your personal inventory. Check out these extreme pieces of photo equipment.

My personal faves are the 160 Megapixel (you read that right!) digital panorama camera. How cool is that!

For the nostalgic film folks, the Pinhole truck may be your choice. Kinda makes you want to go out shopping for a panel truck, huh?

Adobe has just released the latest updates to Lightroom and Camera RAW. Besides fixing the problems created in the last update (LR 1.4 and CR 4.4), they’ve added support for a few more cameras.

If you kept Lightroom 1.4 (hoping for a new update from Adobe) and converted files to DNG you’ll need to run that process again. DNG files created under v1.4 can’t be read using LR 1.4.1 due to an error in the processing. Do a search by date for DNG files to identify those you need to redo.

Lightroom users also need to pay attention to the instructions on the download page. Adobe suggests doing a backup of your catalog prior to the update. They have further instructions on what to do if the backup fails the Integrity check. (Fortunately, all my catalogs went fine)

You can get Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera RAW 4.4.1 from Adobes Updates Download website. Mac and Windows versions are there.