UPDATE: This post has been updated over on the PhotoGP website.
Frequently Asked Question: How do you keyword so many images on a race weekend?
When someone emails with this question, I know that person has really been there, not just for the enjoyment of shooting the cars or bikes on track, but for the bloody aftermath of trying to manage thousands of images on Monday morning.
When I first started photographing racing again, I, too, finished the weekend with no way of finding all the shots of a given rider or team without scrolling through a seemingly endless number of images. If someone asked for a good shot of Nicky Hayden, it took way too long to find those I wanted to chose from, and I never knew which I was overlooking because I simply missed them as I scrolled along.
What I needed was a method to add keywords, quickly and efficiently, to the thousands of images I created on a race weekend. But my first attempts to do this were terrific failures. Some of the images would have some of the keywords they needed, and huge groups of images would have no keywords whatsoever.
Because catalogs are opened and searched over and over again as the years go by, this problem continues until you fix it once and for all. To be able to find the images you want when you want them, complete keywording is essential! Each time you search through a catalog that has NOT been keyworded correctly and completely, you’re wasting time and probably missing images you need to find. So having an efficient system and applying the discipline to get those keywords attached to each image as early as possible saves time and money over the years: Each time you to a properly keyworded catalog you benefit from the initial time investment.
After years of refinement, I now have a keywording workflow that allows me to drive away from a race on Sunday with all of my keywording DONE! And that’s what I’d like to share with you in this FAQ.
I use Adobe Lightroom to catalog my images and I rely on several of its features to get my keywords applied quickly. The main features in my keywording workflow are Keyword Sets and Quick Collection. With these two great features and a strategy I’ve refined after much trial and error, I can keyword up to a thousand images in 30-40 minutes.
Keyword Sets are collections of keywords, up to 9 of them, that show up in a panel when the Keyword Set is selected in the Library Module of Lightroom. Quick Collection is just what it sounds like, a group of images temporarily added to the QC space by selecting the images and pressing B, which toggles inclusion in the Quick Collection. It’s really the Quick Collection that makes the difference time-wise, as you’ll see below.
Preparation
A fair bit of work goes into setting up the workflow elements before I start doing any keywording. But once done at the beginning of the season, most of this work applies to every race, with a few additions and changes that pop up along the way.
The first step is creating Keyword Sets for each rider and one for the event itself, which I call Race Keywords: This is the set I use in the process below to make sure that the keywords related to the event are applied consistently to all images in the catalog. (In fact, if you go back through the older catalogs at PHOTO.GP and look at the keywords, you can see mistakes in that consistency due to the fact that in 2009 and 2010 I’d not refined my workflow to its current state. Now and then I reopen those catalogs and redo and then apply the Race Keyword set to remove those errors in the naming conventions I’ve settled on.)
For example, when I get to Qatar in a few weeks I will update the set I used in November at Valencia to reflect the new location and other info. This set will contain the keywords: MotoGP, Round 01, Losail, Qatar, Moto2, Moto3, 1000s (more of this below).
The rider Keyword Sets are based at the beginning of a new season on the previous year’s collection of Sets and edited to reflect team and sponsor changes. This saves me having to recreate sets for each rider.
Some change very little, such as Dani Pedrosa’s since I started keywording this way, he has been on one team with the same main sponsors), while others change a fair bit, like Andrea Dovizioso’s. New riders require the creation of a new Keyword Set, but in fact this only takes a minute to do from scratch. I usually hold off on new riders to Moto3 and Moto2 and let that rider’s performance over the season determine if he or she deserves a unique Keyword Set. I do not keyword all of my Moto2 and Moto3 images, only those of the main riders in each class.
As a side note, each season also has its own collection of Keyword Sets, because my archive goes back several years, and because riders change teams, and teams change sponsors, etc. I keep each season’s collection of Keyword Sets in its own folder on Dropbox. This way, if I go back to 2009 and find, as I often do, that some images from that event are not completely keyworded, I can in moments supply keyword sets that fit the rider-team-sponsor combinations from that period. It’s as easy as swapping the currently used collection with the correct one from the Dropbox folder. This is also how I switch series, as each season of WSBK has its own folder with Keyword Sets from that season’s riders.
To switch from one collections of Keyword Sets to another on a Mac, simply replace the current collection with the desired one by swapping folders at this location: User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Keyword Sets
The .lrtemplate files can be loose in the Keyword Sets folder or contained in their own folder, which I prefer for moving different collections between LR to their Dropbox folder. Renamed set files will be written into the Keyword Sets folder so keep an eye out here to make sure everything that belongs in the season’s folder is included before you swap it out.
But back to the future, Marty, and the 2013 season’s keyword sets. I started this collection at the Valencia test, as soon as riders appeared with their new teams. The 46 Rossi set swapped Team Marlboro Ducati for Team Factory Yamaha, because at that time the Monster sponsorship had not yet been announced. For Losail, it’s an easy thing to update the team Keyword and from then on all Rossi images will bear the Team Monster Yamaha keyword.
At Losail, I will see what other changes need to be reflected in the rider Keyword Sets and make those changes before I do any keywording with the workflow below. Now, for the workflow itself:
Make it Happen, Cap’n!
Here is the process, with explanations as needed below.
- Import session’s images
- Apply keywords from Race Keywords Set to all images in this Import.
- Apply Class keywords as needed.
- Apply situation keywords such as ‘pit lane’ or ‘grid’
- Now that keyword ‘1000s’ has been applied to all images of premiere class subjects, use this keyword to filter the Import and find all premiere class images.
- Select all and press B to add to Quick Collection.
- Beginning with any rider who has many images in Import, select as many images as show in Grid View and apply all keywords from that rider’s Keyword Set to those images.
- With just-keyworded images still selected, press B to remove those images from Quick Collection.
- Scroll down and find more images of current rider and repeat (apply images from Keyword Set, press B to remove from Quick Collection.)
- Once all of this rider’s images have been keyworded and removed from Quick Collection, return to top and repeat with another rider until all images have been keyworded.
- BACK UP IMAGES AND CATALOG
Depending on how many images are in the Import, this can be done in 30-40 minutes and BAM! all of my premiere class images are keyworded and done. I can now find all images of Rossi or Lorenzo or Karel Abraham or all Yamaha images or all images of MotoGP riders who wear AGV helmets in a matter of seconds.
Some remarks on the steps in the above process
1. After each session, I return to the media center and move images from my CF cards onto a SSD attached to my laptop. I do this by copying files in the Finder rather than importing via LR because I copy data from multiple CF cards at once. I import files into a folder named with the day’s date, 2013-03-10, inside a folder named for the event, MotoGP 2012 Round 18 Valencia. Once all files have been copied, I Import them into the LR catalog.
2. I select all images and apply keywords for the round, series, location.
3. If I have multiple classes included in the Import, I select all the Moto2 images, for example, and apply ‘Moto2’ keyword to those, then do the same for Moto3 if needed. Because ‘MotoGP’ applies to all images, I use the keyword ‘1000s’ to the premiere class images. This step only takes a minute because all the Moto2 images will be together as long as I’ve sorted the View by Capture Time AND my cameras are all set to the correct and identical (or nearly so) local time.
4. Similar to classes, shots from pit lane or the grid will often be grouped together by Capture Time. I like to be able to find all pit lane shots, so I add this keyword to all images made in this location.
5-6. I use the keyword ‘1000s’ to collect all premiere class images, select them, and add to Quick Collection. I now have all images to be keyworded first in the oh-so-useful Quick Collection mode. The reason this is so vitally important is this: as keywords are applied and those keyworded images are removed from the QC, the number of images that must be scrolled through decreases. The first passes through the Quick Collection take the longest, but as each rider is keyworded and removed, the next pass is faster, as is the next and the next. This is also why I do riders with the most images in the Quick Collection first.
7-10. For example, I always shot Casey Stoner when he passed by, so any Import had lots of Stoner images in it. He showed up frequently, which meant that each time I scrolled down I was likely to see images of him that required application of his Keyword Set. It also meant that by the time I’d reached the end of the Import and removed all Stoner images, the Quick Collection was noticeably smaller, often by several hundred images.
After Stoner, Rossi, Pedrosa, Lorenzo, and Hayden had been keyworded and removed, the Quick Collection would be MUCH smaller. That makes it easier to find riders of whom I have fewer images, apply their Keyword Sets, return to the top and start again.
11. After all of this work, you sure don’t want to have to do it again, so before I leave to shoot the next session, I start a back up to my laptop’s internal HDD. Back at the hotel, I will set a third back up to process while I’m sleeping.
Secret Weapon: QuicKeys
Applying keywords from a Keyword Set can be done several ways. The slowest is by clicking on each individual word in the set. Faster is by holding Option (ALT for PC-users) and typing the number that corresponds to the keyword you want to apply. This works well, though at the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome when processing many images at one sitting.
The best way I’ve found is to use QuicKeys to apply all keywords in a Keyword Set with a single key stroke. I use Control-R to make QuicKeys type Option-1, Option-2, Option-3 — Option-9, and thus add of a Set’s keywords to the selected images.
If you already use QuicKeys, you’re no doubt preparing to comment that Lion and Mountain Lion OSs have played havoc with its functionality. Fortunately for us, this is one type of Shortcut that still works just fine. This is fortunate, as I’ve seen no sign that this useful program will ever be updated to work with new Apple operating systems. I don’t know if you can even still buy it!
Exceptions
Sometimes you have images with more than one rider that you want to contain keywords from multiple sets.
Here’s how I handle this situation. I decide which of the riders is the true subject and apply all keywords from his Set. I then add number, name and team from the secondary rider(s). When processing the Import, I simply don’t remove images like this from the Quick Collection after adding the primary rider’s Keyword Set. Then when I make a later pass through the Import and encounter the secondary rider, I add the smaller set of keywords for that rider. If it’s only one more rider, I then press B and consider that image completely keyworded. If there’s another rider to include, I wait until that rider’s pass through, and so on.
For group shots, I prefer not to over-keyword by adding too many for the entire group of riders. I simply use my judgment for which keywords to include based on what I think viewers will be looking for in order to want to show them this image.
Customize Your Own System
I organize the Keyword Sets by rider number, but there’s nothing that says you have to do the same. If last name makes more sense to you, that’s fine, too. You can use any method of organizing that speeds up your ability to get the appropriate keywords to the selected images.
I include Moto2 and Moto3 in each season’s collection, but because of rider number duplication here and there, I add the prefix of the class, such as ‘Moto3 11 Cortese’ so that 11 Spies is a safe distance away on the list. This also groups all Moto2 sets together on the list, so that when I’m keywording a class, the sets for those riders are grouped together. I don’t keyword all Moto2 or Moto3 images, but if I did, I’d probably have a separate folder for each class as they contain so many more riders–the Keyword Sets list would be too long if it included each rider from all three classes.
A few more tips
I keep all of my collections (MotoGP, WSBK, ALMS etc) in a DropBox folder when not active in Lightroom so that they backup automatically and are available anywhere I land. When I need to switch from one collection of Keyword Sets to another, I move a copy of the folder from its Dropbox location to the LR Keyword Sets folder as explained above. When I’m done editing, if I’ve made any changes to any of the keyword sets, I just copy the entire folder back to the Dropbox location so that the latest version will be backed up.
For easy access to User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Keyword Sets, I have an alias of this folder on the desktop of both my laptop and my desktop machines. Then I just double-click that alias and there’s the folder I need to access to swap Keyword Sets.
Finally, the PHOTO.GP collection is hosted via SmugMug, for which there is a LightRoom plug-in that allows me to upload images directly to the appropriate gallery from within LightRoom. All of this keywording goes along with each image as its uploaded, so that folks can search PHOTO.GP for all images of any rider, team, and many sponsors if that’s what they are looking for. This makes the time spent on race weekends applying the above workflow to my images that much more useful.
But I’m always looking for ways to refine this system, so if you have any ideas about how to improve it, or wish to share your own system, please do so in a comment below!
