Tutorial: Using Filter Keywords in Lightroom

The functionality of Filtering keywords in Adobe Lightroom is not new, and constantly right under my nose, but today I discovered a great use for it:

• Search for keywords and duplicates
• Remove duplicates

Search for keywords
I have a pretty huge keyword list (2300+ and still growing) and lots of keywords are kind of hidden in the keyword hierarchy and hard to find. So for instance if I want to add a synonym to a specific keyword, I sometimes get lost and can not find the keyword I'm looking for.


Fortunatly, this is very simple: type in the keyword in the search box called Filter Keywords. Lightroom searches the tree and shows all root levels containing keywords that matches or contains the filter words. When you open up all the levels you see something like this:





Now I can add my synonym, or do ever I want to change my keyword. Duplicates are now easy to recognize (in this example Monument).


Remove Duplicates
I don't like duplicate keywords in my Keyword list and I always struggled to find duplicates and remove them. As we saw in the description of searching keywords I get easy access to my duplicate keywords. Let's take a look how to remove the keyword 'monument' with the small caps. I can select all images with the keyword monument assigned to it, by clicking the small arrow next to the keyword. (see image below)





Now make sure you are in grid view mode (CTRL+G for PC, or Cmd+G for Mac) and select all the images (CTRL+A for PC, or Cmd+A for Mac). Check the box next to the right keyword, in this example 'Monument' and all images will have the new keyword assigned.




Last step is to remove the duplicate keyword by right clicking the monument keyword and delete it from the keyword list.



Now we removed the duplicate and are able to assign keywords more specific and better.