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Website: Lightroom Queen Blog - Follow me on Twitter as @LightroomQueen - Find me on Facebook Is there any way for me to uncheck the "export containing keywords" box for multiple keywords at a time, or would I have to go into every single keyword and uncheck that box? Unfortunately not (at least not without using a database tool to directly modify the catalog database.) It's beena feature request for at least 10 years. Adobe doesn't even provide the API that would allow plugins to do this.
Alternatively, is there a way to specify at the time of a given export that one does not want to have containing keywords exported? Do you have Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy checked in the export dialog? Checking that option will avoid the unwanted re-importing of the ancestor keywords. With that option checked, LR writes an additional metadata field XMP:HierarchicalSubject containing the hierarchical form of the keywords (e.g. the keyword Animal > Dog gets written into that field as Animal|Dog). When XMP:HierarchicalSubject is present in an imported photo, LR will read keywords from there, rather than from the industry standard fields (which will contain the ancestor keywords as separate keywords).

[XMP] Hierarchical Subject: 2-WHAT|PLANTS|flowers|lilacs, 4-WHERE|USA|Washington|Tacoma|Antique Sandwich Company

But when you mark 2-WHAT and 4-WHERE to be excluded from export, they are omitted from XMP:HierarchicalSubject:

[XMP] Hierarchical Subject: PLANTS|flowers|lilacs, USA|Washington|Tacoma|Antique Sandwich Company

So when you reimport that exported photo, you get PLANTS and USA as new top-level keywords.
The only solution I can think of is to mark the top-level keywords for export. I have no idea how the rhody keyword get there, but that's for another day... Very likely "rhody" has been entered as a synonym for "lilacs". Synonyms get exported as top-level keywords unless you uncheck Export Synonyms. Is there a way to filter on/search for photos that have both a keyword and one or more containing keywords explicitly assigned? As it happens, Any Filter has a special operator just for that:
The criterion Explicit Keywords contains ancestors has a unique purpose, to identify a photo that has both a keyword and its ancestor explicitly applied, for example, People and People > Family > John . This can be handy when you’re adding more levels of detail to your keyword hierarchy and want to find photos where you’ve accidentally applied both a keyword and its ancestor. The criterion Explicit Keywords contains ancestors has a unique purpose, to identify a photo that has both a keyword and its ancestor explicitly applied, for example, People and People > Family > John . This can be handy when you’re adding more levels of detail to your keyword hierarchy and want to find photos where you’ve accidentally applied both a keyword and its ancestor. So it does! There are so many things your plug-ins can do that is a challenge to understand them all!
Now that I have found for 3092 photos that have explicit containing keywords assigned, the challenge becomes how to delete those containing keywords without having to go through each of the 3092 images in turn. Now that I have found for 3092 photos that have explicit containing keywords assigned, the challenge becomes how to delete those containing keywords without having to go through each of the 3092 images in turn. You could speed up the manual process somewhat:
1. Run Any Filter with the option Save Results As A Collection; select the most recent result collection under the collection set Any Filter Results.
2. Open two keyword columns in the Library Filter bar and change them from Hierarchical to Flat:
3. Select the first photo and look in the Keywording panel to determine a likely pair of ancestor/descendant keywords.
4. Select the ancestor keyword in the left Keyword column and the descendant keyword in the right Keyword column.
5. Select all the displayed photos and remove the ancestor keyword from the Keywording box.
6. Periodically rerun Any Filter. Thanks to both John and Victoria for their suggestion there's suggestion to check the box for Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy . Unfortunately, that did not work.
The screenshot below shows the keyword panel for a test image with just three keywords. The 2nd and 3rd keywords are part of a hierarchy.
View attachment 19855
The second screenshot shows the keyword panel for the exported photo after it was imported (by the settings in the export dialog box) into Lightroom. As one can see, the hierarchy is being displayed.
View attachment 19860
(I have no idea how the rhody keyword get there, but that's for another day...)
It took me a while to puzzle this out, but I believe that a good clue into what is going on can be discerned from the screenshot below, which is the keyword panel of the original photo after the exported photo has been imported into Lightroom.
View attachment 19859
It seems that what has happened is that when Lightroom imported the exported photo, it created new keywords. And sure enough, if you look at the screenshot below of the keyword list, you can see that Lightroom created two new keyword hierarchies (PLANTS and USA).
View attachment 19858
Now, it took me even longer to understand why Lightroom was behaving this way. I think the answer lies in how I set up my keyword hierarchy. I have 6 highest level keywords (see screenshot below).
View attachment 19857
All other keywords are descendants of one of these six highest level keywords. Each of these six highest level keywords has the following keyword tag options, while all of the descendant keywords have the first three boxes checked.
View attachment 19856
What I think is happening is that when Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy is checked, Lightroom is NOT exporting any of the highest level keywords, because I told it not to. But it IS exporting all of the appropriate descendants. When Lightroom imports the exported image, since the highest level keyword is not included, Lightroom is creating new keywords that are not part of my hierarchy scheme.
I haven't been able to puzzle through what is a good way of handling this situation. One option would be to check the top three boxes of the highest level keywords. I did not do that initially when I created the hierarchy because I couldn't imagine that the highest level keywords would be of interest, since their only purpose is to serve as an organization method. Is there another way I might attack this? The keyword tag options (shown immediately above) are provided for every keyword in a keyword list. (Right-click on any keyword). If left unchecked (as above) that keyword will not be included in the image export. The keyword can still be searched upon in LrC, but it will not export with any images exported from the LrC catalogue. Any keywords below it in a hierarchical order that have the "Include on Export" box checked will export with the images they are assigned to, but I believe the hierarchical order might be lost. Some keyword tags might end up in the "other Keywords" section on another external viewer with the same keyword list imported—such as Adobe Bridge. I am not sure if "Export Containing Keywords" refers to synonyms of the keyword, or all other keywords under it in a hierarchical structure. Anybody know that answer? If left unchecked (as above) that keyword will not be included in the image export. The keyword can still be searched upon in LrC, but it will not export with any images exported from the LrC catalogue. Any keywords below it in a hierarchical order that have the "Include on Export" box checked will export with the images they are assigned to, but I believe the hierarchical order might be lost. That's right. If you have keywords A > B > C, and A is not marked Include On Export, then the exported order will be B > C, with no mention of A.
I am not sure if "Export Containing Keywords" refers to synonyms of the keyword, or all other keywords under it in a hierarchical structure. Anybody know that answer? For the keyword A > B > C, Export Containing Keywords refers to the keywords A and B -- they "contain" C. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
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