[posthumous]

OK folks... Let me describe what I'm trying to do. I was excited about using the new keyword feature in conjunction with the fast find "search" at the bottom of iPhoto. However, it doesn't seem to work quite like I expected. I can add keywords to pics and when I use the keyword browser, I can highlight a keyword and have only the pics with a certain keyword attached to it display in the iPhoto browse view.

I can also use the search function and just type in a keyword and have only those pics with the attached keywords appear. However, this doesn't always work. Sometimes, other unmarked pics show up for no apparent reason. These pics do not contain the keyword in either the title or comment field and I can't figure out why they are showing up.

What I'm trying to do is tag photos based on place, category, and people. For example, any pics that contain a pic of my cousin Sam anywhere in the photo have had the keyword "Sam" added to them. My cousin Leila may also be in the pic as well and a keyword for her could be added as well. If I type in the search window "Sam" then pics of just Sam should show as well as pics of Sam and Leila, but not Leila by herself. Again, this isn't always working.

I've used the comment field and can achieve very good results using this method or by changing the title of the photo to something sane like "Sam in DC" or "Leila in Central Park" instead of img_0045.jpg or dscn0032.jpg respectively. Some may ask, why not just do this instead? Well, it's a hell of a lot easier to select a bunch of pics and check a keyword than it is to type comments or change those cryptic filenames.

So... my question to other macnn iphoto gurus is this:

How do you organize your photos so that they can be easily searched? What methods do you use? How do you plan to use the new keyword feature? Let's put our heads together and find the most efficient way to catalogue our pics.

[beno]

First off, check out http://homepage.mac.com/kenferry/software.html if you aren't already using it.

Secondly, I thought I was having the same problem as you. I searched keywords and the results seemed to contain photos that I thought didn't contain the keyword. But then I realised that any searching includes album names. So if you search for word used in an album name, all photos within that album will be displayed in the search results.

I hope this helps.

Ben

[posthumous]

Originally posted by beno:
First off, check out http://homepage.mac.com/kenferry/software.html if you aren't already using it.

Secondly, I thought I was having the same problem as you. I searched keywords and the results seemed to contain photos that I thought didn't contain the keyword. But then I realised that any searching includes album names. So if you search for word used in an album name, all photos within that album will be displayed in the search results.

I hope this helps.

Ben

Thanks for the link. This will definitely come in handy. Also, I did check to see if the pics were in an album of the name I was searching and they were not. I cannot for the life of me figure out why those pics keep coming up. Those pics are not in any way affiliated with the search I'm doing and contain no titles or comments that would bring them up in the search.

On another note, I would love to see some sort of advanced boolean search, AND OR XOR NOT etc, built in to the next iPhoto. As of now if I type in "Sam and Leila" I get pics of Sam, Leila, and Leila and Sam together. What I would like is the ability to have just pics of "Sam and Leila" and not individual pics come up. I know I'm being picky, but I would love to see some serious metadata search capabilities built in. This would definitely be the next killer feature for the next version of iPhoto.

Posthumous

[beno]

Originally posted by posthumous:
On another note, I would love to see some sort of advanced boolean search, AND OR XOR NOT etc, built in to the next iPhoto. As of now if I type in "Sam and Leila" I get pics of Sam, Leila, and Leila and Sam together. What I would like is the ability to have just pics of "Sam and Leila" and not individual pics come up. I know I'm being picky, but I would love to see some serious metadata search capabilities built in. This would definitely be the next killer feature for the next version of iPhoto.

Me too.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
I just sent a request.

But you know the keyword browser is might work much better for what you are trying to do. Open the browser by clicking on the key icon at the bottom. Then (from iPhoto help) do the following:

To display photos that contain a specific keyword, click the keyword in the Keywords list. You can select more than one keyword to narrow your search.

To hide photos that contain a specific keyword, click the keyword in the Keywords list while pressing the Option key. You can select more than one keyword to narrow your search.

Hope this helps.

Ben

[Toyin]

Originally posted by posthumous:
Thanks for the link. This will definitely come in handy. Also, I did check to see if the pics were in an album of the name I was searching and they were not. I cannot for the life of me figure out why those pics keep coming up. Those pics are not in any way affiliated with the search I'm doing and contain no titles or comments that would bring them up in the search.

On another note, I would love to see some sort of advanced boolean search, AND OR XOR NOT etc, built in to the next iPhoto. As of now if I type in "Sam and Leila" I get pics of Sam, Leila, and Leila and Sam together. What I would like is the ability to have just pics of "Sam and Leila" and not individual pics come up. I know I'm being picky, but I would love to see some serious metadata search capabilities built in. This would definitely be the next killer feature for the next version of iPhoto.

Posthumous

I agree that the search window in iPhoto is problematic. The default in most applications for OSX is using the AND statement between search criteria. iTunes, Finder, Preview definitely work this way. I find it annoying that when I type two names in iPhoto's search field it uses OR. Seems counterintuitive. (Yes I know you can use the keyword panel to create AND statements, it's just not as fast.)

[JKT]

FWIW, the Keyword feature isn't new to iPhoto 5 - it was added in iPhoto '04.

Rather than running Keyword searches as you are currently doing, an alternative is to create Smart Albums that use Keyword(s) as the criteria (and any others that you may want) for populating them. Simply hold option down as you press the "+" button (it will appear as a gear icon when you hold down option) to create a new Album and choose Keyword as the criteria in the leftmost pop-up list. Enter your keyword in the text field - add more criteria if you wish - and then the Album created will automatically populate with any images to which you have assigned that Keyword. The advantage of doing this is that this album will auto-update as you add new images to your Library and assign the same keyword to them, so you won't have to continually run the same search.

[beno]

Originally posted by JKT:
FWIW, the Keyword feature isn't new to iPhoto 5 - it was added in iPhoto '04.

Yes but it has been updated/changed/improved for iPhoto 5.

Ben

[Toyin]

Originally posted by JKT:
FWIW, the Keyword feature isn't new to iPhoto 5 - it was added in iPhoto '04.

Rather than running Keyword searches as you are currently doing, an alternative is to create Smart Albums that use Keyword(s) as the criteria (and any others that you may want) for populating them. Simply hold option down as you press the "+" button (it will appear as a gear icon when you hold down option) to create a new Album and choose Keyword as the criteria in the leftmost pop-up list. Enter your keyword in the text field - add more criteria if you wish - and then the Album created will automatically populate with any images to which you have assigned that Keyword. The advantage of doing this is that this album will auto-update as you add new images to your Library and assign the same keyword to them, so you won't have to continually run the same search.

Smart Albums are nothing new, you could create smart albums in iPhoto '04. In fact, with iPhoto '05 this is the only way to create a search with 2 strings and the AND statement (command clicking keywords creates the OR statement). This is a mistake IMHO. For example, there are times when I'm in the library and I quickly want to scan all pictures of 'Ann' and 'John'. Typing Ann<space>John in the search criteria should produce only those pictures with Ann and John.