How to purge labels from database?

[Mike Buckley]

Folks,

There are at least four ways to create catalog labels that never become keywords:

1. In the catalog label's Details dialog, enable Do not create keyword for this catalog label.
2. Create the catalog label in the hierarchy of any catalog category that is configured with Private enabled.
3. In the Preferences Synchronize Write settings, enable Do not modify keywords.
4. Never synch the catalog files with the image files/sidecar files.

There may be other ways that I have not thought of off the top of my head.

[PhilBurton]

Folks,

There are at least four ways to create catalog labels that never become keywords:

1. In the catalog label's Details dialog, enable Do not create keyword for this catalog label.
2. Create the catalog label in the hierarchy of any catalog category that is configured with Private enabled.
3. In the Preferences Synchronize Write settings, enable Do not modify keywords.
4. Never synch the catalog files with the image files/sidecar files.

There may be other ways that I have not thought of off the top of my head.

So what do I do with labels that aren't keywords?

Phil

[Mike Buckley]

So what do I do with labels that aren't keywords?

The most important issue is to first determine whether the labels are assigned to images. That leads to a fifth way to create catalog labels that never become keywords: don't assign the label to any images. As an example, I have so many catalog labels in my catalog (more than 11,000) that most of them are not assigned to images. Thus, most of my catalog labels are also not embedded as keywords in the image/sidecar files.

It doesn't matter what you do with catalog labels that are not keywords so long as what you do or don't do meets your needs. If you have a question about that, please clarify.

[snowman1]

I *think* what Phil is actually asking is what is the difference between a label and a keyword? Phil, you can refer to my post with the diagram, and many other forum threads cover this topic. But essentially labels are a heirarchically-structured set of, well, labels, they are what you see when you look at the catalog explorer on the left hand side of PSU. A label can be assigned to an image via the label assign panel. This means that PSU keeps a record, in its database, of what labels are assigned to an image. Keywords are a capability of the metadata inside an image file (where supported by the file format) or sidecar, and PSU uses the labels you've assigned to an image to populate the keywords when it syncs. Whether this happens or not, exactly how it maps, and whether parent labels are also written, are dictated by the sync settings. And other settings as mentioned by Mike in the preceding posts. And whether you've actually synced or not.

This conceptual understanding seems to be something many new users are tripping up on.

[tstoddard]

I feel a little responsible for taking this conversation slightly away from the original topic and would like to try to bring it back. Stephen's issue was that he wanted to remove labels and couldn't understand why they were still there after he removed their associated keywords. My point in trying to differentiate labels from keywords was to help Stephen understand that while labels and keywords are closely related, you can't necessarily affect one by modifying the other.

In other words, removing a keyword won't have any impact on a label and removing a label may or may not have an impact on keywords. I realize that, in most cases, removing a label will affect the keywords but I wanted him to realize that it is possible for labels not to have anything to do with keywords. I really just wanted to impress upon him the difference between labels and keywords. I hope this point has gotten across to him and that all of the related discussion has not confused the issue too much.

[Mike Buckley]

Stephen's issue was that he wanted to remove labels and couldn't understand why they were still there after he removed their associated keywords.

To clarify that, he explained two issues. One of them is the issue you mentioned about removing labels from the catalog. The other issue is that after having removed the catalog label from the Miscellaneous category of the catalog, he noticed that the same catalog label was again not only present but also assigned to the same image. I believe my second post in the thread addresses that. However, I won't know how effectively any of the posts address his issues until he has a chance to reappear in the thread.

[Mike Buckley]

As mentioned initially, I do delete the bad keywords from the misc list. I don't have the privilege of being able to delete all labels in that list though because they have not all yet been assigned.

Apologies for not noticing that statement earlier. I am inferring that once you have assigned all labels in the hierarchy of the Miscellaneous category, you would then feel comfortable removing them from the catalog. If I am right about that, why would you ever want to remove a catalog label from the catalog that is assigned to an image?

[tstoddard]

Mike,

You're right about Stephen saying that he did remove the labels from the Misc category. This is a little confusing because we don't know exactly what steps were taken and in what order by Stephen and we don't know how all of his preferences are set. Here are the things Stephen said that he did in the order he stated them:

• I remove the "write to keyword" designation if it is incorrect.
• I then proceed to write the description of the image in the Details view and verify the keywords, deleting the incorrect ones.
• When I switch back to the Assign view, the deleted keywords have been reassigned as labels.

Then is his second post, Stephen stated:

• This is AFTER having located them in misc and deleted them there AND naturally, having synced everything.

Stephen is unclear about when he actually deleted the labels. Since he said that he had modified them by removing the "write to keyword" then when he deleted them, it's hard to say exactly what would get changed and whether or not the keyword should have been removed. He also didn't make clear if he deleted the keyword before deleting the label. I don't know if that would make a difference of not. Additionally, there could possibly have still been hierarchical keywords left behind in the lightroom field. I don't know if that could have somehow resulted in the labels being recreated or not deleted from the catalog but I believe it could have happened when he applied the changes he made using the details panel. If I remember correctly, when you apply changes in the details panel, PSU reads all of the details and syncs them with the catalog. If so, then the hierarchical keywords may have caused PSU to recreate those labels.

In short, it's hard to know what may have caused Stephen's labels to not go away.

[Mike Buckley]

Tom,

In addition to Stephen's lack of clarity regarding everything you mentioned, we also don't know whether auto synch was enabled on his system. Rather than being critical of Stephen, I'm merely making observations.

To properly understand the situation and to provide effective help, we need to know this information and it needs to be explained using precise terminology. I'm specifically referring to the need to make important distinctions between the following:

removing a label from the catalog,
unassigning a label from an image, and
removing a keyword from the metadata of an image/sidecar file.

Similarly, all of us need to use precise terminology to make those distinctions when we reply to Stephen. Otherwise, confusion will continue to abound.

[Stephen]

Thanks for all the thoughts about this.

Before others surmise about what I understand and what I don't understand about this process, let me just outline the steps that I am taking.

* Recently I set labels in the Assign panel and revoked the bad ones.
* Now looking at an image in the Assign panel. All labels OK and set to create or not create (the exception) a keyword).
* Save metadata to file.
* Switch to Details panel and find a misspelt keyword.
* Go to Catalog and search for that misspelt keyword. Found in misc, which is strange because I deleted it from there just 2 days ago.
* Delete it again from the catalog.
* Return to Assign Panel and save metadata to file again.
* Back to Details panel and the keyword is still there. Try to delete it and it only disappears momentarily and then re-appears.
* Return to Assign panel and it is showing there too.
* Go to Catalog and search for that misspelt keyword. Found it again!

Footnotes:
- I have just recently started using the Assign panel and now ONLY select labels there. At that time, I discovered that by default, Places are NOT written as keywords. I therefore now verify all labels to ensure that they are writing keywords, which I mostly want.

- I guess it makes sense having some labels NOT written as keywords. You can then change the initial tag from "ugly woman" which you wrote during import, to something else once you discover that she is the client's wife.

- My auto syncing is NOT enabled, but I do this manually after every step.

- I rarely use the Info panel as the Details panel is much more useful (set in Advanced mode of course). Clearly the Details panel is intended to be the main interface (except perhaps as Frank notes that the Assign panel should used for designating labels). Why? Because "Apply import detail to profile" is offered as an option during import. I always use this to add pertinent details, but never keywords (unless they were in the original files).

- An important point was made somewhere about adding images which already have keywords and whether this has any influence.

SO the problem is unsolved. I DO need to know which keywords are written to the files and I rely (currently on the Details panel) to confirm that, provided that I have previously saved to file. Using an external application is out of the question for this task.

[tstoddard]

Stephen,

I'm going to take a wild guess here. Do you have your preferences set to read and write hierarchical keywords? If so, try changing your preferences, at least temporarily, to NOT read hierarchical keywords and then repeat the steps you just described.

My theory is that you are removing the flat keywords from the dc:subject field but leaving the hierarchical keywords in the lr:hierarchicalsubject field. I believe that when you delete the misspelled keyword from the dc:subject field using the details panel and then click apply that PSU is reading the data that is currently in all of your metadata fields and synchronizing accordingly. If it is set to read hierarchical keywords and your misspelled keyword is still found in the lr:hierarchicalsubject field, it could be repopulating the dc:subject field and recreating the label. I could be wrong but it's worth a try. I'm not at home right now so I can't test it myself.

You could also just look at the lr:hierarchicalsubject field in the details panel to see if it is there. You'll find it in the xmp section. My theory could be baseless but I can't think of any other reason why the keyword and label would come back.

One other thought; Is the file you are working on in the details panel is a member of a version set? I'm not sure how that would play out but it hasn't been mentioned so I thought I'd throw that out there.

[Stephen]

Tom,

Thanks. I can wait - if you are willing - until you have checked this. Having 'tested' many suggestions immediately I have become very cautious. As we know, there is no undo button for PSu and some 'quick' changes can easily affect 10,000 of my images!

BTW, I don't use version sets.

[Mike Buckley]

Stephen,

It would help if you would provide screenshots of your Read and Write settings. I have an idea about what might be causing the problem but I would prefer to see those settings before mentioning it.

[tstoddard]

Stephen,

It wasn't easy but I did manage to reproduce what you are describing with one exception. First I had to create the conditions that I thought would cause this. To do so, I started by creating a label that did write a keyword and I had to set my preferences to both read and write hierarchical keywords and not to "Automatically write out Metadata changes to the image file". Then I assigned the label and checked to see that the keyword was written to both the dc:subject field and the lr:hierarchicalsubject field. Then I changed my preferences to NOT write hierarchical keywords but still to read hierarchical keywords.

At this point, I had what I wanted. I had a file that contained a keyword that matched my label and it was written to the dc:subject field and to the lr:hierarchicalsubject field. Then I went back to the label and changed it to NOT write a keyword. If I had set my preferences to "Automatically write out Catalog changes to the image file", the keywords would have been removed, but I didn't have that set. Then, BEFORE SYNCHING, I deleted the label. Because it was configured not to write keywords at that point, deleting it did not remove the keyword in the dc:subject or lr:hierarchicalsubject field when I did write the metadata to the file.

So now I had a file with a keyword in both fields but no label by the same name. Next, I manually deleted the keyword in the dc:subject field using the details panel. I clicked OK to apply that change. Unlike you, the keyword did not return right away but the label that I had deleted came back and as soon as I wrote metadata to the file, the keyword came back to the dc:subject field as well.

I believe this confirms my theory about PSU creating a label based on keywords in the lr:hierarchicalsuject field. This still doesn't convince me that it is what has happened to you but I still think that you need to look at the lr:hierarchicalsubject field when you are deleting labels from the dc:subject field.

Better yet, just leave the label set to write a keyword and delete it. Then when you sync your file the keywords should be removed unless your preferences prevent that from happening. Like Mike said, posting your read/write settings would help.

[vlad]

Tom,

Then I changed my preferences to NOT write hierarchical keywords but still to read hierarchical keywords.

Why did you change your preferences to NOT write hierarchical keywords? Did that make any difference? (Anyway, I somehow doubt that Stephen turned off the writing of hierarchical keywords.)

At this point, I had what I wanted. I had a file that contained a keyword that matched my label and it was written to the dc:subject field and to the lr:hierarchicalsubject field. Then I went back to the label and changed it to NOT write a keyword. If I had set my preferences to "Automatically write out Catalog changes to the image file", the keywords would have been removed, but I didn't have that set. Then, BEFORE SYNCHING, I deleted the label. Because it was configured not to write keywords at that point, deleting it did not remove the keyword in the dc:subject or lr:hierarchicalsubject field when I did write the metadata to the file.

How did you configure Keyword processing in the global preferences for writing? My guess is that you specified: "Merge Catalog labels with Keywords". If you had "Replace keywords with Catalog labels" (my preference), I expect that the keyword would have been removed. (Furthermore: why would there be any difference between manual and automatic saving of metadata, regardless of the write preference?)

I believe this confirms my theory about PSU creating a label based on keywords in the lr:hierarchicalsuject field.

Sure, but the labels created from hierarchical info should not be created under Miscellaneous. Was your label created under that category, Tom?

Stephen,

I too believe it's hard to receive targeted info and advice until you post your read/write settings. As a wild guess, I am wondering if your re-emerging labels correspond to location fields.