- iPhoto's Information Pane
- What Is Exif?
- Changing Your Photo's Date and Time
- Changing Your Photo's Name
- Adding a Description to Your Photos
- Batch Changing Titles, Dates, and Descriptions
- Adding Keywords to Your Photos
- Working with the Keyword Manager
- Flagging Your Photos
- Rating Your Photos
- Hiding Your Photos
- Deleting Your Photos
- Using the Contextual Menu
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Working with the Keyword Manager
Sometimes it’s easy to go a bit overboard while adding keywords. For example, if you have a photo of a dog, it’s easy to start tagging it with every dog reference you know: “dog,” “puppy,” “hound,” “mutt,” and so on. If you ever want to see all the keywords you’ve created and have the option of editing them, you can find them all in the Keyword Manager.
In the Keyword Manager, you’ll see all the keywords you have already added to your photos. You’ll also notice some existing keywords Apple has added, such as “Kids” and “Birthday.” From this Keyword Manager, you can create, edit, delete, and assign shortcut keys to your keywords.
Create, Edit, and Delete Keywords
Each time you label a photo with the steps in the “Adding Keywords to Your Photos” task, that keyword is added to your keyword store automatically. In other words, you’ve created a keyword. Another way to create keywords without having to apply them to photos at the time is through the Keyword Manager.
Select Window, Manage My Keywords. Alternatively, you can open the Keyword Manager using the Command+K shortcut key.
Select Edit Keywords.
- Click the + button and enter the new keyword in the field that appears.
Select a keyword from the list and click the – button to delete that keyword. A window displays to ask, “Are you sure you want to remove the selected keyword?” Below this message, you see how many photos will be affected if you remove the keyword. Deleting a keyword removes that keyword from all the photos that contain it in your iPhoto Library. Click OK to delete the keyword.
- Click the Rename button and enter an edit in the text field. Editing a keyword is handy if you’ve labeled hundreds of photographs with a misspelled keyword. Deleting that misspelled keyword would remove it from all the photos, which means you’d have to go back and retag them with a newly created (and properly spelled) keyword. Editing a keyword enables you to fix spelling mistakes and have the changes automatically apply to all the photos that contain the existing keyword.
Click OK when you are done editing keywords.
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Add Keyboard Shortcut Keys to Keywords
Keywords are terrific tools; however, adding them to many, many photographs can get rather tedious if you have to repeatedly go through the steps outlined previously. An easier way to quickly add keywords to your photographs is by assigning keyboard shortcuts to your keywords.
In the Keyword Manager, click Edit Keywords.
- Select a keyword you want to create a shortcut for, and click the Shortcut button.
- Enter a letter representing that keyword in the shortcut field. Usually it’s a good idea to use the first letter of the keyword. If a letter is already taken by another keyword, you have the option of choosing which keyword you want to use the letter with. You can also use upper- and lowercase letters for separate keywords—for example, B for birthday, and b for something else.
Click OK when you are done adding shortcuts.
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>>>Go Further: Working with Keywords in the Quick Group
When you click OK and return to the Keyword Manager, notice that any keywords that have shortcut keys applied to them show up under the Quick Group heading. Next to the keyword, you see its shortcut key enclosed in a gray circle.
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From the Keyword Manager, you can drag and drop keywords between the Quick Group and Keywords headings. Placing a keyword from the Quick Group heading into the Keywords heading group removes its shortcut key.
Placing a keyword from the Keywords heading into the Quick Group heading group automatically adds a shortcut key to the keyword. The automatically added shortcut key is the first letter of the word. If that letter is already taken, the second letter of the keyword is used, and so on.
Apply Keywords Using Keyboard Shortcut Keys
After you have your keyboard shortcuts assigned to keywords, you can quickly assign keywords to your photos.
- Move the Keyword Manager window aside so you can see your photograph in iPhoto.
Select your photographs and click the appropriate shortcut key to assign that specific keyword to the photo or group of photos.
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