In the keywording box of Lightroom, set the drop down menu to "Will Export" to view which keywords will be embedded into the IPTC info of the exported image.

There are very few things in this world more painful or necessary for me than keywording my images.  I realized this fact in 2005 after joining Aurora Photos as a contributing photographer and almost immediately saw that poorly keyworded images did not sell well on the internet. In 2005 I was keywording my images with a wonderful little program called iView Media Pro, but eventually migrated the process to Lightroom in late 2009 due to LR’s unified image processing and metadata capabilities.

Sadly, I soon discovered that many of the embedded keywords from iView Media Pro would not export properly from Lightroom due to the apps ability to let the user control each keywords behaviors, and much to my chagrin the behaviors Lightroom assigned to my iView Media Pro keywords were to NOT EXPORT.

This only became an issue recently as I began constructing a stock photography site and uploading some of my older images to it.  The images uploaded with zero of their keywords intact, making their commercial value zero as no one would be able to find them.

Lightroom allows keyword level control on which keywords will be exported and which ones will not. If you want the keyword to export, you must check the box to "Include on Export" when creating the keyword.

The thought of having to go through my keyword list of nearly 11,000 words and hand check each keyword tag to make sure it was set to “Include on Export” in Lightroom nearly broke my spirit with the thought of many hours of mind numbing repetitive computer work. Thankfully due to this post here, I found a workaround that I will share with anyone in a similar boat.

THE FIX

I downloaded a program called SQLiteManager from the Apple App store and did the following.

1. Backed up my Lightroom Catalog

2. Closed Lightroom

3. Launched SQLiteManager

4. Directed SQLite to open my master .lrcat file

5. In SQLiteManager, I clicked on the SQL button and entered the following command:

update aglibrarykeyword
set includeOnExport = 1, includeParents = 1, includeSynonyms = 1
where parent is not null

What SQLiteManager app looks like after I opened my .lrcat file in it and entered the command.

6. Quit SQLite

7. Opened up my master .lrcat file and BINGO! 100% of the keywords in my catalog were now set to “include on export”.  I love technology!

NOTE – This worked for me.  It may not work for you.  ATTEMPT THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, and be sure to BACKUP everything before you attempt this.

As a professional photographer, one of the parts of my job that I dread the most is keywording.  Send me on a 50 mile hike with 90 pounds of gear, just don’t make me keyword!   Sadly, if I choose to forgo this loath activity, the odds of my images ever being found in an online database are slim to none.  This equals no sales and one very unhappy photographer.  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, keywording is something that you use on a daily basis without knowing it.  Every time you search Google or another major search engine, you are searching key terms or keywords that describe what you are looking for.   To find specific images on the internet, or within a stock photo library like Aurora Photos, the problem is compounded.  The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is quite true, however, as a photographer I have to boil down those thousand possible descriptive terms to about twenty five key words that capture the essence of the image.  Once boiled down, I then type these words into the metadata of the file, embed the metadata into the image and get the images online.

Before yesterday, my keywording process would often involve me staring at the computer screen for a few hours with my mind a complete blank.  I would then rally into procrastination mode and read the news, answer all my emails, and daydream about being anywhere but in front of the computer screen keywording. Finally, when I realized I had just wasted a few hours of my life,  I would begin the arduous process of convincing my girlfriend to do my keywording for me.  On a good day, I (she) could get about 30 done. 

This week, a lifeline appeared on the keywording front when Cradoc Software, makers of the much loved FotoBiz, released a product called fotoKeyword Harvester.  I purchased it yesterday, learned the program in about 15 minutes, and in less than an hour had 12 images keyworded and ready for upload.  Now, for me, that is some sort of all time speed record — not even my girlfriend could get it done that fast.  The brilliant idea behind the software is you begin, as the name implies, by harvesting keywords from similar images already online.  You then cull the unnecessary keywords out of this list, fine tune the existing keywords from a brilliantly implemented list of controlled vocabulary built into the program, and export the keywords to your clipboard.  Once the keywords are in your clipboard they can be pasted into whatever program you are embedding the keywords with.  Thank you Cradoc — my girlfriend thanks you too!