We’ve been having such fun with our Photoshop Friday posts here on the blog that we decided we should give Lightroom some love, too! Fortunately, we have our own Lightroom guru on hand, the always amazing Lynne Rigby. Lynne is the instructor of our widely popular Processing 101: Lightroom Start-to-Finish workshop. Registration for this workshop is currently open and seats are selling fast. Stay tuned to the end of the tutorial for your chance to win a coveted spot in this workshop!
get organized | keywording tips for lightroom
by Lynne Rigby
I was the world’s worst offender in the image organizational department. I take about 25,000 shots a year of my family and when I need an image, I have to go through the folders that I think it might be in. Heaven forbid, I use all those handy dandy features that I teach about in LR101 My new year’s resolution was to get my stuff organized this year and so far, every picture I’ve taken has been keyworded. I’ve figured out a few shortcuts to make it as painless and quick as possible.
Paint Can
I like using the paint can for keywords if I have a smattering of different images in the folder. For instance, if I’m taking pictures of all 5 of my kids at the park and they’re all mixed together. A few here of Lylah on the swing, then a couple of Jackson on the slide, then Carson crossing the monkey bars, then more of Lylah now with Jackson pushing her, then Paxton on the baseball field, etc.
First of all, you need to be in grid mode (shortcut: G) in library module. I make my thumbnails small so I can see as many images as possible and still make out what is in the picture (control the size with the slider in the blue box). Click your paint can (circled and red) and select ‘keywords.’ Type your keywords into the box and then click each picture (not just the gray box) with the paint can. If your paint can isn’t showing, press that little arrow circled in green and that will let you specify which tools you want in your tool bar.
Click/Shift-Click
If you have a bunch of images together in your grid that will have the same keywords, click the first picture of the bunch and then shift-click the last image. That will highlight both pictures and every picture in between. Now just type in your keywords in the keyword box and every highlighted image will now have those keywords.
You will see that I also added an orange label to those images. I use the color labels for them. Five colors and five kids….Perfect! Carson = orange.
Keyword Sets
Because pushing a button is much quicker than actually typing the full words. Sure, you have the suggested keywords set, but Lightroom isn’t quite that smart to know what is really in your images *yet* (I have my fingers crossed for future versions ;)) A word of warning, if you click a keyword in the suggested keyword box, and the image is labeled with that word, the words shift around in the set, so if you start going quickly, you might not get the words you want.
You can create your own custom sets so that you can add keywords with a click of the mouse. Click edit set from the drop-down menu:
Type in keywords that go together to make your keywording life easier:
Save as a new preset and name it:
You can create multiple sets. This year, I’ll make a football set, a beach set, a pool set, a baseball set, etc. Because I’m on an organizing mission; 2012 is my year to get organized. Who’s with me??!
Want more? Here’s your chance to win a spot in the next run of Processing 101: Lightroom Start-to-Finish that starts March 19th. Leave us a comment telling us WHY you need this class. Make sure to bookmark this blog post as it will be updated with the winner (chosen by random number) next Friday, February 24th. Already registered? Don’t worry – you can still enter. If you win your registration fees will be refunded. Good luck to all!!
UPDATE:
Thank you to all of you for your entries! The winner of the spot in Lightroom Start-to-Finish is:
Lucky comment #9 which is Kimberlee Southard! Congratulations, Kimberlee! Please contact me at Kathryn@clickinmoms.com so that I can get you added to the class.
Lynne Rigby
CM Mentor | Workshop Instructor
Website | Blog | Pinterest | Mentoring
Lynne is a lifestyle photographer residing in Orlando, Florida with her husband and their 5 children. “Living in Florida” she says, “has shaped the way I shoot. I either had to learn to embrace the sun with my images or stay inside. I chose the former.” Her original goal was to take better pictures of her sons’ football games and get good Christmas card pictures but Lynne has presently joined her former career as a teacher with her passion for photography and is the instructor of several CM workshops including Shooting 101: The Best Darn Beginner Course Ever, Shooting 201: Beyond the Basics, Vision 301: Finding Your Style and Processing 101: Lightroom Start-to-Finish. Lynne can’t live without her Diet Coke with lime, AdvantEdge Caramel protein shakes, Mellow Mushroom pizza, Tijuana Flats, and ice. She also loves the gym, shopping, the beach and hanging out with her beautiful kids. Her camera bag is loaded with the Canon 5d mark ii, multiple prime lenses and the 70-200L.
Oh man, I need this so bad, I just got lightroom and I don’t know anything about it. I need lots of help and I have heard this class is amazing!
Thank you for the paint can tip!!! I took RYC a few years ago and hope to take LR with you soon!
Why do I need it? Quite simply: This is (currently) my weakest area. (Besides, even if this was an area I didn’t need that much work on I always learn new things from Lynne.)
I would love to learn more about Lightroom.
I would love to win this for so many reasons! 1 – to take full advantage of the investment I’ve made in Lightroom. 2 – to help my workflow, 3 – to organize my work flow, 4 – to Rock at Lightroom!
I’ve just started shooting DSLR last September and I love to shoot in RAW and editing in Lightroom. I only know some of the basic functions and would love to learn more about Lightroom so that my post-processed photos look nicer. Lightroom is such a great software and there are so much that I haven’t utilized yet.
Thanks– I really need to get busy doing this! I know LR can do way more than import and do basic exposure/wb adjustments, but at the moment I have no idea how and just use it like acr before pulling into cs5, so I need serious help making LR work for me!
I have no idea how to post process any of my photos and would love to learn something to help me edit some of my SOOC shots. I would love the chance to help me on my journey to better sharper clearer images!
Thank you so much for this great article! I signed up for the class yesterday as Lightroom and I are really working on becoming friends but we could DEFINITELY use some help with that!!!
I am so sad that picnik is shutting down. Time to tackle *real* photo editing. :)
I have LR3 sitting on my desk waiting to be installed. I have thousands of images that need to get organized. I missed out on your class last time. Now I am going to force myself to just do it! Would love to win a spot in your class!!
I would LOVE to win a spot in the class! My short sad story is that if I don’t win, I wouldn’t be able to pay for a class until my kids are out of school. I can’t justify paying for “me” things when the kids need so much for school and activities. I was lucky enough to get a great deal on a camera and save up for LR3, but now the learning is on my own, and as inexpensively as possible for the next 5 years!
Wining a spot in this class would really bump up my learning and push me towards making my “after school hobby” become a possible dream job someday!
What an awesome gift, I would love to win a spot in the class. I purchased Lightroom 3 on Black Friday and can only guess how to use it .
I so need this class. I have been wanting to take it so I can learn how to make a clean edit and organize my photo’s better. Pick me please!
I signed up for this class before, forget I had signed up, went out of town and well….you know the rest. So I would LOVE to win a seat in this go ’round!
Great suggestions! I need to get on organizing all my images before it’s too overwhelming! I would love to win a spot in the workshop as I’m new to Lightroom and currently unable to afford to enroll in additional courses at this time although this one certainly seems like it would be worth it!
I NEED this class because I want to improve my pictures, which I know really very little in post processing. Thanks for the chance to win!
Thanks for the chance to win!!! I really need to take this class so I can learn how to edit in my own style without relying on presets!
I need to take this class so that I can edit my pics, blow them up and hang them on my blank walls. Saving time would be great too.
I would love to understand what more I can do in lr.
Oh, how I wish wish wish I could win this seat! I need to win this seat so that I can finally organize the millions of photos I have of my babies! And I would love to learn how to properly edit too.
Thank you!
Thank you for the chance to win! I need this class bc I JUST got lightroom over the weekend and I want to learn as much as I can to grow my style and business! Thank you for a great giveaway!
I would LOVE to win this class! I need this class because processing my images is the most intimidating part of photography for me, for sure! I don’t even know where to start. I have also heard that Lynne is an amazing teacher. Thanks for giving us this opportunity!!
Thanks for the opp! I need this bc I’ve had LR for about 2 years and still can’t figure out what the heck I’m doing and really want to!! Would love to be taught by Lynne – I’ve taken the RYC 101 and was amazed at how easy she made it to learn! Would love to learn from her again!
I just bought Lightroom a few weeks ago and I am so excited to learn how to use it!
I would really love to do this workshop!! I just had a baby girl (who still seems to think day is night and night is day), she is 3 weeks new today and I had seriously forgotten how much time everything takes with a newborn – let alone a toddler too!!! So I really really need a good efficient workflow so I would LOVE this workshop!!! :) That and I LOVE LIGHTROOM :)
I would love to do this workshop! I really want to learn how to organize and edit my pictures in lightroom.
Oh holy moly do I need this class! I use lightroom almost exclusively for my editing and had no idea about the paint cans, or keyword sets! It just goes to show you that once you do something one way for awhile you can really get stuck in a rut. This class would help me so much with my workflow that my business and my personal life would be better for it!
I would love to win a seat in lightroom 101. I need to speed up my workflow and really organize my pictures. Unfortunately the hubby said I can’t sign up for more workshops for awhile :( I’ve taken 2 in the last 3 months. It would be great to speed though editing photos not to mention it would enable my CM addiction :)
I sometimes make my purchases impulsively and then end up selling them at a loss because I don’t use them. I have done this in the past with digital cameras that collect dust because I am too intimidated by them and am not able to master them. With the advise of a friend, I joined CM last month with a lifetime membership, just got my Canon 60D Monday, a 50mm 1.8 lens, saw this contest yesterday, bought Lightroom 3 today (hoping to win a workshop spot) and don’t want to see this all end up collecting dust again. On a good note, I did sign up for a full working spot in the “Shooting 101: The Best Darn Beginner Course Ever” but ran out of $$$ for the Lightroom 3 workshop and want to learn how to process them so I can keep shooting photos. Here’s hoping like I do for the Lottery!!!
I would love to learn how to use Lightroom! I have do not have any post processing software, but have been researching it a lot lately and it seems that LR is the one for me. I am afraid to get started on my own and would love the support and feedback from a class. Keeping my fingers crossed!
I would love to learn more about all the things lightroom has to offer! All I use it for now is a place to import photos to :( I also need to learn how to speed up my workflow!
Thanks for the tip about the paint can! I have been using LR for about 6 months and had no clue about this. I would love to take this class and learn more about how to get organized plus how to process my images in LR the right way! :)
You might also like to try http://www.mykeyworder.com