Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Colllections or Keywords, which to use?  (Read 2210 times)

Peter F

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 26
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« on: September 30, 2008, 08:14:14 pm »

I started using collections because it seemed most similar to what I had been using, Photoshop Album.  But it seems that you can do the same thing with keywords by also adding sub-keywords in a hierarchy just like with collections.  It also seems faster to search with key words.

I am looking for the opinions of others as to when to use collections and when to use keywords, to organize you images.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Peter F.
Logged

Nat Coalson

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 195
    • http://www.NatCoalson.com/
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2008, 09:09:58 pm »

Collections are one of Lightroom's greatest strengths but unfortunately are often underutilized. Keywords and Collections serve different purposes in the workflow.

Use Collections for more permanent compilations of images of related categories: client projects, portfolio groups, works in progress, etc. This is the fastest way to access pre-determined groups of photos.

Use keywords to quickly generate an image source for photos containing a common keyword... it may then be a good idea to put them into a collection (or not) depending on the task at hand.

Here's a screen shot of my current Collections list, which changes frequently. Note that most of the Collection Sets have numerous Collections underneath.

[attachment=8612:attachment]
« Last Edit: September 30, 2008, 09:10:16 pm by Nat Coalson »
Logged
Nathaniel Coalson
Author of [url=http://

Peter F

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 26
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2008, 06:57:47 am »

Nat... Thanks for your reply and an explanation of how you are using these features.  Not sure how to apply your system to my needs ... I need to think more about it... but the more I learn about how others use various features (after all, there is not one right way to do most anything) the more helpful it is to me.

Also, I have both Kelby's book and Evening's LR2 book to provide thoughts.  I have reread their respective chapters on this and still don't know what is best for me.

Peter F.
Logged

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2008, 07:27:32 am »

Peter

A couple of ways to think of it are "keywords are external, collections are internal", and "keywords describe, collections organize".

What I mean by this is that one uses keywords purely to describe what's in an image, using keywords which are meaningful to other people (or to you months or years later), and reading them would allow a complete stranger to understand what the image contains and looks like, or find it via (say) a stock library search.

Meanwhile collections are for you to organize your images however you want or need, so you might include workflow information (eg proposed family slideshow, current project) which means nothing to anyone unfamiliar with your needs. They may also have descriptions such as a collection of wedding pics which is broken down into sub-collections of brides, kids, formals, candids etc. These collections might not mean anything outside of your needs, but help you group and find pictures.

John
« Last Edit: October 01, 2008, 07:28:17 am by johnbeardy »
Logged

picnic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 574
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2008, 08:59:06 am »

Quote
Peter

A couple of ways to think of it are "keywords are external, collections are internal", and "keywords describe, collections organize".

What I mean by this is that one uses keywords purely to describe what's in an image, using keywords which are meaningful to other people (or to you months or years later), and reading them would allow a complete stranger to understand what the image contains and looks like, or find it via (say) a stock library search.

Meanwhile collections are for you to organize your images however you want or need, so you might include workflow information (eg proposed family slideshow, current project) which means nothing to anyone unfamiliar with your needs. They may also have descriptions such as a collection of wedding pics which is broken down into sub-collections of brides, kids, formals, candids etc. These collections might not mean anything outside of your needs, but help you group and find pictures.

John
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=225989\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

John, your explanation of keywords and collections is really helpful.  I didn't use collections at first but someone on this forum (perhaps even you) suggested how they were using collections awhile ago and now I'm finding them extremely helpful.  Keywords allow me to find photos I've forgotten about back a number of years ago archived on externals, but collections allow me to work  with those files that work together for particular reasons.  Sometimes, even with subgroups in my keywords, they can become overwhelming but collections allow me to pull the ones that work best and group them with files from other keyword groupings.

Thanks, Diane
Logged

Nat Coalson

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 195
    • http://www.NatCoalson.com/
Colllections or Keywords, which to use?
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2008, 10:21:59 am »

I agree, John's explanation is really good.

Maybe an extension to this is that collections are useful to create meaningful relationships between sets of images; whereas keywords simply describe a photo's content.

Since collections are infinitely variable - you can make a collection for anything you want - at first it's hard to grasp an effective structure for one person's particular situation. For this reason it's a hard thing to teach; the specific use of collections is definitely very personal.

I'd recommend that you just start using collections for any groups of images you think might be useful (and change them as often as needed)... before long their utility will become more apparent.
Logged
Nathaniel Coalson
Author of [url=http://
Pages: [1]   Go Up