Really stupid question about Categories

[david mantripp]

I've been using PSU for quite some years and I feel a bit ashamed about having to ask this, but...

Categories essentially implement hierarchical keywords, correct? So I have a Category "Nowhereland", and many locations in Nowhereland under that. Say one of these is "Dullsville". So, I see "Dullsville" in the label browser and can apply it to an item. But what about if I don't have a specific location? So I just want to apply "Nowhereland"? It seems I can't do that. BUT ... if an export the item, it receives keywords "Nowhereland" and "Dullsville". So, are Category names not also essentially labels?

Also if I import an image which has a structure like this (exported from CaptureOne):
...
<dc:subject>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li>Nowhereland</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</dc:subject>
<lightroom:hierarchicalSubject>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li>Nowhereland</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</lightroom:hierarchicalSubject>
...

then no labels are read. Is this because PSU interprets "lightroom:hierarchicalSubject" as Category, looks for Nowhereland:Nowhereland and can't find it?

I'm a little puzzled

[G8DHE]

Being hierarchal you can apply the label you desire, normally the lowest level that applies i.e. Dullsville , but there is nothing to stop you just applying Nowhereland alone if you don't know where in Nowhereland it was located.

[snowman1]

Apologies if you already know all this as a long-time user, but in case you don't: Categories are internal to PSU and its database (catalog). They are indeed hierarchical (as you can see from the categories panel on the left of the screen). As Geoff says you can apply any level to an image. Be aware that every category can have its own properties - right click on it then click "details" - and these include, for example, whether the parent category will also be applied, which may be relevant to what you want to do. PSU has a lot of functionality.

How categories are applied to, translated to, labels (labels being the metadata held within an image file or sidecar file) depends on a number of PSU settings. In general, as default, categories are applied to the image as labels. The help files (PDF) accessible from PSU go into much more detail but if you stick to the defaults you should be fine. But I do recommend reading the introductory help PDF which explains the fundamentals.

[david mantripp]

I honestly thought I understood it and I've even gone back and reread the manual (which has improved considerably, by the way) but just now I tried adding a new label to a category, and setting "Also assign its parents" to YES (actually I'd expect that to be the default but never mind). I then assign the label to an asset, and .. the asset label counter shows "1" and the Parent (Category) is not applied. Of course the database knows what the relationship is, but having set all that I'd expect the asset to have a count of 2, and the Category to be shown as an assigned label in the labels panel.

Clearly there is something I haven't my head around yet.

[G8DHE]

On the image below there 4 images on the left, (and one folder) the selected image has 3 Labels and the three labels are shown on the right panel.

Screenshot 2023-03-31 220043.JPG (29.01 KiB) Viewed 7969 times

[snowman1]

I tried adding a new label to a category, and setting "Also assign its parents" to YES (actually I'd expect that to be the default but never mind). I then assign the label to an asset, and .. the asset label counter shows "1" and the Parent (Category) is not applied. Of course the database knows what the relationship is, but having set all that I'd expect the asset to have a count of 2, and the Category to be shown as an assigned label in the labels panel.

Without testing it my understanding is this means the parent label is applied to the image (or sidecar) file, ie when the image is synced. It's not a shortcut to assigning the parent label to the image within the PSU catalog, which is what you are expecting. Hope that makes sense. So your image file will end up with both labels as one would expect. (The only issue I can see is that this may have implications if you wished to pick up that image via a search on the parent label, as I'm guessing PSU would not include the image in such a search unless that parent label was itself explicitly assigned to the image within PSU.)

Edit to add that the count for the parent label will include all images assigned to that parent label plus all the images assigned to child labels of it (but without any being double counted IIRC). To display all those images simply click on the parent label count box. To only display the images assigned explicitly to the parent, click on the parent label anywhere outside of the label count box.

[Mke]

I tried adding a new label to a category, and setting "Also assign its parents" to YES (actually I'd expect that to be the default but never mind).

If "Dullsville" is a child of "Nowhereland" in the hierarchy, normally you'd just need to apply "Dullsville" as the label. If your sync settings are set to 'write hierarchical keywords' - which is the case for most people - then the hierarchical keyword "Nowhereland|Dullsville" will be written to the image / sidecar.

If you set "Dullsville" to 'also assign its parents', the hierarchical keyword "Nowhereland|Dullsville" and "Nowhereland" will both be written. Which doesn't add anything useful - it just duplicates Nowhereland.

On the other hand, if you aren't writing hierarchical keywords, in the first case the keyword written would be "Dullsville". But if the label is set to 'also assign its parents', then the keywords written would be "Nowhereland" and "Dullsville" - which does add something useful. However sticking to hierarchical keywords and not assigning parents is normally the best solution - unless you have a specific reason for not doing so.

[Mke]

Being hierarchal you can apply the label you desire, normally the lowest level that applies i.e. Dullsville , but there is nothing to stop you just applying Nowhereland alone if you don't know where in Nowhereland it was located.

Alternatively, if it helps, you could create additional children below Nowhereland - for example Nowhereland|location uncertain or Nowhereland|location to be identified.

[david mantripp]

Thanks everybody - I'm afraid I can't quite make out the detail in the image you posted, G8DHE, but it _seems_ that your parent is still 1 below category level.

Perhaps what I need to do is have:

Places > Nowhereland, rather than Nowhereland as a category.... As it stands, PSU does not give me the option to apply "Nowhereland" as a label.

snowman1 "The only issue I can see is that this may have implications if you wished to pick up that image via a search on the parent label". - exactly. That is closely associated with my issue. Say I want to label 1000 images I just took on a trip. On first import, all I know for sure is they are from "Nowhereland". I'll add the detail later, from notes, maps, etc. But if "Nowhereland" is a top level category, I _cannot_ assign it. So then I need to build up my label hierarchy before I can start tagging, which to my mind at least is back to front. I can see it makes sense to a more methodological person than me... but not to my rather non-modal way of working.

[Mke]

Perhaps what I need to do is have:

Places > Nowhereland, rather than Nowhereland as a category.... As it stands, PSU does not give me the option to apply "Nowhereland" as a label.

Yes that is what you need to do - I had assumed that Nowhereland was already under Places. You are correct that the category headings, such as Places, can't be assigned; they're not intended to be.

Note that some of those preset top level categories hold special properties that are assigned to their children - for example the children of Places will automatically apply specific geographical metadata to the images. If Nowhereland isn't under Places, that won't happen.

Say I want to label 1000 images I just took on a trip. On first import, all I know for sure is they are from "Nowhereland". I'll add the detail later, from notes, maps, etc. But if "Nowhereland" is a top level category, I _cannot_ assign it. So then I need to build up my label hierarchy before I can start tagging, which to my mind at least is back to front.

...as you may now have gathered, all you need to do is create Nowhereland under Places. You don't need to create an entire hierarchy.

[david mantripp]

... yes, that works.

I've actually realised what I've been doing wrong, conceptually: I've been misusing Categories as Portfolios or Collections. Having got that finally sorted out in my head now, I'm in the right place to start a major cleanup

[Mke]

... yes, that works.

I've actually realised what I've been doing wrong, conceptually: I've been misusing Categories as Portfolios or Collections.

Then it was worth asking the question

[david mantripp]

... yes, that works.

I've actually realised what I've been doing wrong, conceptually: I've been misusing Categories as Portfolios or Collections.

Then it was worth asking the question

Absolutely. The lights have suddenly turned on, and I'm FINALLY enjoying using PSU rather than fighting with it. My "MediaPro" mental model can at long last be laid to rest