Hi!
I'm not much into keywording, so I'm a bit confused here. I need to quickly add a keyword to photos of my mom so that I can gather them into a Smart Album to help me choose which ones to use in a 90th b'day photo book I'm making for her. But, I'm having trouble with some of the photos accepting the keyword when I drag it to them. Are there instances when a photo won't accept a keyword? I'm vaguely remembering something in the keywording video, but don't have time to watch it again right now.
Also, not all of the photos I've keyworded already are appearing in the Smart Album I created even though they contain the same keyword. This is getting frustrating!
I'm thinking I may need to switch to a color label instead of a keyword. Now I know why I haven't gotten into keywording. ;)
Any ideas? TIA!
Debbie
Debbie,
The only reason I can think of for a photo to not accept a keyword is because it already has it. You can add a keyword by drag-and-drop as you’re doing, or by using the Keyword Buttons under menu Window > Show Keyword Controls, which also have keyboard shortcuts so are usually the fastest way to add keywords. Finally you can also select a bunch and go to menu Metadata > Batch Change and add keywords through there.
As far as the Smart Album not showing the results, I can think of two reasons that might be happening.
First, if the images are in a stack, make sure that “stack picks only” isn’t selected. Second, check the Smart Album to see what’s actually being searched. See this [screenshot] for both of these things.
Also be sure there aren’t any other conflicting criteria in the Smart Album, such as that they also have to be 3-star or better, or something like that.
Color Labels don’t work any differently, so I don’t think that’d help you.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, none of the things you suggested were the problem. I had checked all of that except I hadn’t been using the Keyword Controls. I was using the HUD. What’s weird is when I opened the Keyword Controls all of the keywords are the default ones that came with A3. None of them are my personal keywords that I added in the HUD. So that was useless to me. I had also checked the metadata of my photos and the keywords I wanted to add weren’t already assigned.
Also, I checked my Smart Album and I had everything set up correctly. I don’t get why it’s hit and miss what it’s picking up. Oh well. I switched to using a color label. I didn’t want to spend anymore time on something that wasn’t working thoroughly. Eventually I’ll watch your video again to see if I can figure it all out.
Thanks again!
~Debbie
Debbie,
Thoroughly confusing. If your new keywords aren’t showing up in the HUD, there’s something truly odd going on. It’s not possible for a keyword to be on an image in Aperture, and NOT be in the HUD… at least, that’s the idea ;-)
Is your HUD by chance locked? [screenshot]
You may want to trash preferences and there are bigger caches you can clear as well. Let’s start with the lock though.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
My kws are showing fine in the HUB, they’re not in the Keyword Controls box when I open it. It’s just the default A3 kws there. Sorry if I confused you.
Debbie
~Debbie
Debbie,
Oh ok… the Keyword Controls are customizable. See here: [screenshot].
@PhotoJoseph
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