Lessons

Lesson Info

Tips for Identifying Favorite Photos & Using Keywords

All right, so then once we've got some basics in terms of that folder structure, we've given a lot of thought to how we're going to approach at organizational structure. We've hopefully taken some time and gone back and cleaned up our older folders. Things were already starting to get better and better in terms of our organizational structure, but then we want to identify our best images. Now we have three basic approaches here inside of life room. There are pick flags, their star ratings and their color labels. A few interesting little tidbits that you'll want to be aware of as you're making your decision here in terms of pick flags. This is great for those who like to make a yes or no decision about their photos. I'm not one of those people not good with the yes or no. I like toe have, you know, variety. Well, maybe it's a three star to star five star four star. I like to be able to have different rankings, as it were rather than just a yes, no. The real reason, though, that I don't ...

use pick flags is that pick flags are a light room Onley feature the pick flag and the reject flag are not standard metadata fields. And so if I save my information, I'm edited out to my images. I'm still not gonna be able to see that information with other applications with Adobe Bridge. Even I'm not able to see those pick flags, and that means in the future, if I for any reason stop using light room to manage my images, I can't really migrate very easily with a feature that doesn't exist in whatever other software I might use. And so I like to use standard metadata values. Plus, I don't like the yes or no option that's available with pick and reject flags, so I just simply don't use those. Pick and reject likes. Instead, I tend to use star ratings. We do also have color labels. Let me show you a little interesting tidbit as it relates to color labels. If we go to the metadata menu and shoes color label set, you notice we have bridge default that refers to Adobe Bridge, and we have light room default, which, of course, refers to adobe light room. Wait a minute. We have two images for managing photos made by the same company. Why would we need different presets for color labels for two different pieces of software from the same company? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me at all. Well, color labels aren't really colored. I mean, they look colored, but they're not colored. A color label really is a word. Color label is just a field in metadata, and it's just a word in meditator. Which word? Let's take a look. I'm gonna choose the edit option from the metadata color label set menu, and we can see the light room defaults. So when we add a red color label in light room, what word gets added to that color label field in metadata red. When we assign a yellow color label the word yellow when we assign a green? Yes, you get the idea. We're just using the word of the color. The name of the color gets added the metadata and then light room. When it looks at the meditate and sees the word green, it shows us a green color label. What could be simpler except bridge? There we look at what bridge uses for the definitions of, for example, the red color label. That would be the word select and yellow is second and green is approved. I mean, obviously, this makes perfect sense, right? I mean, why would you use the name of the color for the color label? I'd love to talk to the person who defined these values a long time ago in Adobe Bridge, and so, of course, they stick with these settings. So there's this potential for a mismatch. If you had assigned color labels and bridge, and you bring those images in the light from the color, labels don't match. So you see a white to color label instead. Not very colorful. Little fortunately, you can pick and choose. You can change from like, room to bridge defaults, for example, if you have a lot of existing images but more, it causes me to be a little bit cautious about how I use color labels based on this issue, and so I'll just click. Cancel, because I don't want to change the definition of color labels. So instead of using color labels, is a primary tool in my workflow. I just use them as a secondary tool, and so if I have an image that I want to share with somebody that I may be. I was out photographing with somebody else. All had a green color label. If I have images that were part of a composite panorama, I used yellow. Why? I have no idea. That's just the color I picked a long time ago when I started using the system. No logical reason. It's just the color that I settled on for whatever reason. But what that really translates to is that star ratings are my key approach for identifying my favorite and not so favorite images. And I take a little bit of a different approach than most when it comes to assigning those star rating. So submitted for your consideration is that approach. We're all familiar with star ratings. We all know what a one star rating means. It means don't need at that restaurant, right, And a five star rating means I probably can't afford that restaurant, but we know that it's kind of relative quality, right, the good and the bad. To me, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to assign a one star a bad rating to an image. Why waste the time if there's no sense to me and adding a star rating, saying, Don't use this photo I could just leave the star rating off of the image altogether. That does require that I actually review every image so that I know that I've either said yes, this one gets a star or no, this one's not that great. But I plan to do that, and I aim to do that. And hopefully I actually follow through on that because I do want to review every single image. Ideally, yes, it could take some extra time, but fortunately, the approach that I use provides a handful of benefits, and part of that is the ability to work pretty quickly, in part because of the approach I take. I don't have to worry so much about getting my star bidding absolutely perfect. I also get the separate emotion from the process. So, for example, let's take a look at this picture. It's just amazing, isn't it? I mean, it's the Space Needle. And who would ever think to view the space needle from directly below on an overcast day? I mean, five stars, right? Maybe not, or let me give you an even better example in my mind. Guess how many stars this deserved at the time I took it. Why doesn't it go up to six starts or 10 stars? This was so amazing. Now we have the benefit of a live studio audience. You could be honest with me, right? If we use the assumption now, you can be honest. You'll lie, but be gentle about it. So if we use one star is bad. Three stars is it's you know, it's fine and five stars is It's amazing. What star rating would you give this image? Wow. I mean, I did say to be honest, and now we get a delete. It could have. She could have said one star, but no, she just said, Delete. It's things a little admit. Does anybody else have a star rating? They would assign three starts. See, now you're being generous to make up for the delete thing. So on balance, maybe that averages out to like 1.5 to 2 stars. Point being is not a great image. Not a great image, not an image that I'm going to print and hang on the wall. So when I was there What was my experience? Are you kidding me? Can you see that amazing turquoise water? This is in the Adriatic. This is the coast of Croatia. Can you see the way that the light hitting the waves, the little ripples on the top of the water is casting. Creating this like tortoiseshell image across the foreground rocks that water. When you jump right there, it's like, you know, up to your ankles, and then you jump in and it's like 10 feet deep. And there are fish swimming in the water and you can see them looking out crystal clear. This water is this was a phenomenal, amazing experience, and it is not a five star image. It's like a one star image. If that right, it's just not a good image. I mean, maybe you would use this as, Oh, by the way, here's what it looked like being on the coast of the Adriatic. You know, this might be kind of a filler image just to give you a sense of a place, but I'm not going to use this image anywhere. But at the time, I thought it was so amazing because the experience was amazing and I hope you have these amazing photographic experiences that sort of trick you into thinking that the image is going to be better than it really is. But in this case, not so amazing. It fooled me basically, right. The experience was better than the photo. And because of that, that's part of the reason that I take a multiple pass approach to assigning my star ratings the first time I go through. It's just a yes, no decision. You know, the one. I'm not very good at the reason I don't use pick blacks, but I'm only going to assign a one star rating because to me, one star doesn't equal bat one star I've defined as this my threshold. If I might use this, this might be useful. Maybe I like it. I don't even know, but I'm feeling pretty good about this photo, at least for now. But I'm gonna have more opportunities to review the images later. And so that first passed. Very, very simple. So we assign a one star if we like it. If we don't like it, we just move past. So for example, this image I think we're all pretty well established that this is not going to get a star rating. No stars for this image. We just move on this 10 I don't know. You know, it's not fabulous, but it shows the boats. It's, you know, kind of skip. We've got some Roman ruins and Croatia, this could be interesting. And I like the kind of angles area will give that a one star because based on this approach, I'm going to air on the side of giving it a star. I could be a little bit loose with those stars because I'm going to have another review pass later. The roofs. This kind of interesting got only satellite dishes. This mix of roofs is kind of chaos. I kind of like that. So, you know, one star you've got, like, purple, you know, hanging out of the This is how could you not love that? Oh, my goodness. The symmetry in the blue and the Yeah, of course, that's getting a start. Oh, and now we've got some even better shutters And what look brown shutters. But now it's two windows side by side. This just keeps getting better and better Do we give this one a star rating. I mean, it's a really cute dog. I'm really sorry, doggy, but this just this image isn't really doing anything for me. We're moving on. Oh, but that was nice. I might even be able to remember how to spell the name of that place. Probably not. I don't like the vertical as much. This one's not so interesting. It's OK. Coasts interesting. Oh, yes, that she's gotta love that. Oh, well, look at the green water. But again, I can move pretty quickly because I'm just a signing that one star. It's just a yes or no. Does it get a star number one on my keyboard? Does it not get a star right arrow? Just move onto the next one and I can move pretty quickly, because again, if there's any doubt at all all the sign of star rating to the image because I'm gonna come back and review those images a little bit later. How much later? Well, that all depends. And I on deadline Or am I not on deadline? You do. I have enough time toe. Wait a few days until I get somewhere else where I get back home from the trip. That's ideal to me, because again, this multiple pass approaches partly aimed at separating out that emotion. And so I get to decide, you know, with a little bit more, a little less emotion. Is this really one of my better images? Or was I just feeling good about the Clearwater and the warm water? And, you know, the fund that I had And so I try to wait at least a few days, ideally about a week ideal even more ideal, the after I get home. And you know, the travel has changed my mood just a little bit. And so then I'll take a second pass. And at this point, generally, what I'll do is filter the images. So on the filmstrip, I'm just gonna turn on the filter and set that filter Option 21 star or greater. So now I'm looking at only the images that I decided we're my keepers. What about those zero start images? In theory, I might never look at him again because, generally speaking, when I come to a folder, I'm really interested first and foremost in seeing the images that I like the best. Now might I have made a mistake and neglected to give a star rating to an image that deserved it. I doubt it. Except that it happens all the time for me every now and then, you know? Oh, yeah, that was so great. And then I zoom in and find out that it was out of focus. Or, you know, there was some other mistake that I made. I didn't realize something else going on in the frame. That's okay, because I can always turn off the filter and see the adjoining images So I could say, Oh, you know, I think maybe the vertical was better in this case, for example, just to use the example, I can decide if I did. I make any mistakes. I can always come back and see the images that don't have a star rating if I need to. I don't personally tend to delete my images, in part for exactly that reason. Mostly, it's because I'm paranoid about deleting something and wishing I hadn't later. Mostly, it's just me having that problem, but I don't generally delete images. Instead, I just filter based on star ratings. And so, for my second pass, I usually just filter based on those one star ratings. And then I come back through the images and review again, this time on my second pass again, hopefully happening a few days later. Then I'm going to a sign up to a three star rating. So two or three stars. And this is where I'm really starting to fill throughout my favorites from a trip. So we'll go through the images here and which ones? Well, actually, this one's cool, but I think I like the horizontal better. They're going to take that up to a two star rating, for example, and kind of cool, but not that fabulous statues kind of cool. I do like this one. I like that green water. It's like super crystal clear and yet greens me. I'll take that up to a two star rating as well, you know, maybe even just to be generous with myself. I'll give that one a three star rating, but I don't go above a three star rating at this point during my second pass because I'm just trying to find my favorites. I haven't done anything to these images yet, at least in concept. Theoretically, I've not touched the develop module yet because I've just captured these images I'm going through and organizing them. So for that second past, so I probably have not touched any of the images. Maybe a few here and there just cause, you know, I couldn't resist, and I wanted to play a little bit. But by and large, I haven't been supercritical about evaluating tonality and color and sharpness and all those things. I'm just really going, mostly based on compositional considerations. So then when do I sign four and five star ratings to the images will. Generally, I say that for after I've worked with the image after, I've had a chance to live with the image just a little bit. And so maybe that means working in the develop module and getting a better sense. And sometimes the more you work on an image in the develop module, the more you love it. And sometimes the more you try to save it in the develop module, the worst it looks, and you just decide. Nope, this image is not working, but point being is I save those four and five star ratings for a little bit later, after I've had a chance to live with the image just a little bit. And after I've really gotten a feel for that image, maybe gotten some feedback from others, whether that means sharing online or showing to a friend or entering into a photo contest that my camera club, whatever it might be, I'm trying to get a better feel for that image to live with the image a little bit before I upgrade, so that ultimately within a given folder, I'm gonna have a fair number of two and three star images that represent my best images from that trip. And then periodically I might have a four or five star image where I could go toe all photographs filter by five stars, and that's my portfolio. Those are my favorite images of all time, essentially, and I like for those to be a relatively small number of images, all things considered and my opinion changes over time. This image maybe I end up loving, but then after a while, you know, compared to some of my other work, it's just not that great. You know, I think that one down to a three star four star rating, and so I really want my five star rated images to be my best of the best. So if someone says, Show me your best work five stars There you go. I don't have to talk anymore. You can just look at them and hopefully it's a manageable number of photos. So, of course, once I've identified my favorites, now I want to think about key wording and how to assign those keywords. And really, by and large, when I'm thinking about key wording, it's about two basic things. Number one is being able to find an image later, and number two being able to remind myself of what that subject waas. And so when I find this image, where was this? A good question? Uh, this image where would know? No, I don't remember. Don't remember. Don't. I'm pretty sure this he might be revenge. Me, But I'm not totally sure I know this is open area or it's open. Tia, I forget how to pronounce it. Um, this one is definitely on the island off of our It is amazing to May that I have remembered, like basically three locations for all of these photos, most of which I'm drawn a complete blank row. Vinnie, do you know what the last letter of the word row Vinny is? I only remember because it caught me as being really odd. It's a J. Would I really remember that today if it wasn't such an odd spelling that stuck with me? No, boy, I wish two things right now. Number one. I wish that I had actually assigned keywords to these images virtually as soon as they were captured, too. I wish I had not gone to the Croatia folder to show you examples of image management, because now I'm embarrassing myself by not being able to remember the names of these places. But again, that's half the point of keywords is being able to remember, because years later are you really going to remember the name of individual towns that you visited in a foreign country, for example? So let's go assign keywords with something that's way simpler. We'll go back to Seattle because this I can remember the names of the locations etcetera, and I'm gonna show you a trick that, you know, we're talking about advanced techniques, and again, what I think of is really just adding a degree of sophistication to your workflow, he wording is one of those interesting things where there are several different methods, and everybody has their opinion about what method works best inside of light room. We could, for example, just used the key wording section will just say, You know, space Neil. I've just added a keyword to a single image. Space Needle is the key word. I've done it in the key wording, but we could also add keywords in other ways. Well, I have a tendency to use two basic approaches, one of which some people might laugh. But it's, I think, very useful if you can get past the silliness of it. One is what I've just done. All select multiple images. I'll switch to the grid view so that I'm actually working with multiple images. I will go into the key wording section and where it says click here to add keywords. I will click here and add keywords. So let's call this also Space Needle. So I added the keywords in this case, a keyword space needle that counts is one word, so to speak. Oh, and actually, all three of those images were captured at Kerry Park in Seattle the queen and neighborhood so I could select all those images. I'm in the grid view and I'm going to add a key works. I just click into the field and I type c A R r Y Park. All right, so multiple images at Kerry Park is a key word. Very, very simple. C A r y. Which the studio audience is trying to be super polite, whereas the audience at home watching on their computers is screaming and yelling and probably throwing wads of paper at their computer monitors because Carrie Park has been spelled wrong. But I appreciate your politeness and not calling me out on it here live creativelive. But I did in fact spell the keyword wrong. As with all scenarios where I misspelled keyword, it was totally on purpose. Any misspelling is always totally on purpose. But check this out. This is totally amazing. I'm gonna go to all photographs and I'm gonna go look at a picture of a leaf against a blue sky just to distract you from my spelling error. No, just to show you how flexible this is. Now if we go to the key wording list over on the right panel. There's carry Park spelled the wrong way. How ever am I going to fix this? And you might say, Well, we can filter the images based on carry. Park is a key word in select all and change the key word. Delete a key. We could just change the key word. One of the other beautiful things about light room in the fact that it's using a catalogue is the basis of all of our image management. Carry Park is spelled wrong, right Click Edit keyword tag. How do we really spell? Carry parquet? Err, why park am I right about that? Let's be sure before we fix it so we correct or spelling error and save. Now we have images with the carry park. Did we fix them in the images themselves? Let's click the right pointing arrow to the right of the key word on the keyword list so we can filter the images based on that keyword list. And if we take a look at key wording over on the right hand panel for each and every single one of those images that had the wrong spelling for Carrie Park, we now have the right spelling the correct spelling for Kerry Park. Is that amazing or what? You know its most amazing about that is Aiken, fix my mistakes really super fast. I'm not admitting that I would actually ever make a mistake except on purpose. But hypothetically speaking, if I did, I could fix it instantly. It's amazing, wonderful.