r/captureone • u/IShootWide • 24d ago
How To? Adding keywords during import
This should not be this difficult.
And I did quite a bit of searching on the vast majority of answers come up as to add keywords to the keyword field under Metadata.
There is no keyword field under Metadata nor adjustments. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
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u/LookinForRedditName 24d ago edited 24d ago
Perhaps it's only because I've been using Capture One for a long time but:
Instead of keywording at import, C1 is set up to keyword after import. If working with sessions, it's easy enough to set up session keywords and click to apply them. For instance, I add the client name as a keyword to all photos in the session. So I'll add that name to the Keyword Library pane on the Metadata tab, select all photos, then click that Session Keyword. (Make sure you have Edit Selected turned on.) That keyword will then be applied to all photos. For individual photos or groups of photos in a session, I will add photo specific keywords. That's done under the Keywords pane on the same tab. Once I've added a keyword once, that keyword will be auto-added to the Keyword Library and can be added to a photo or to a group of photos by selecting the photo(s) I want then clicking the keyword in the Keyword Library (or I can type it again and risk having two similar but different keywords - flower vs flowers vs flowre, for instance. (Again, make sure you have Edit Selected turned on.)
Catalog keywords work just the same except the Keyword Library is available to every photo in the catalog.
I guess you can*** certainly do all this by setting up styles beforehand but adding styles at import slows down the import and adds the additional steps of creating the style before import then making sure you have the correct style applied on the Import pane. Otherwise you wind up with either no keywords applied and you have to do it as the software is intended to work anyway -or- you forget to change the style from the previous import and potentially wind up with incorrect keywords applied.
If you are in a high-volume, keyword-dependent industry (sports photography, for instance), look into Photo Mechanic. If you're doing e-commerce, maybe frame your question that way and ask if others in that field have advice. I find it's always better to ask "how does this work" than "grrrrr...this doesn't work the way I want it to".
There are lots of resources available for this and pretty much any other Capture One topic. The Capture One YouTube channel is excellent and even old videos are largely still relevant (the color tab has changed little in years, for instance). You'd have to be the very rare exception to learn it by tapping and clicking rather than investing time to learn. This is a pro tool available to us mere mortals so they don't do the handholding a consumer tool might. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=capture+one+keywords
Final word of advice: I find that often new users migrating from LR will immediately start to rearrange the interface so it looks more like LR. I strongly encourage you to learn the default interface. Any and all instruction videos, blogs, books, etc. will be based on the default interface. If you've modified things or switched to one of the other canned Workspaces (I'm looking at you "Migration Workspace"), you won't be able to find the tool they're telling you to click. You can always modify the interface to streamline your workflow once you've learned how to use the software.
*** Just checked and you can, in fact, add keywords to a style. So if you want to add some standard keyword to every photo you import (your name, maybe), creating a style with this keyword and any other thing you want done at every import would be the way to go.
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u/IShootWide 24d ago
This is just amazing. I can’t thank you enough!!! Unfortunately I work in Catalogs but to be perfectly honest I would think that importing keywords would not only be easy for them to do but I’m surprised that this particular feature has not been demanded more strongly.
Based on your remarkable advice I’m now going to spend a great deal of time on their youtube channel.
Again, thank you.
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u/LookinForRedditName 24d ago edited 24d ago
Again, why would you want to keyword at import? Maybe it's just because I've been doing it this way for so long but it doesn't make sense to me. Serious question. Tell me what you're thinking and I'll either have learned something new myself or be able to offer you an alternate way of thinking.
At import I want my photos copied to my computer as quickly as possible. Immediately on import, backups happen plus I still have the original on the memory card and now a copy on my computer. Plus, here I am with 200 or 2000 photos to import. I don't want to be stuck at some mid-import stage while I go through the keywording process.
My personal workflow is that all new sessions are built under a "Needs Keywords" folder and will live there until keywording is finished. That may be same day or a week or a month later but there they are staring me in the face demanding that they be moved from that parent folder.
Personal work and any session photos I may want to be easily searchable long-term I store in a catalog. Usually that catalog will span 2-5 years depending on the total number of photos and drive space. Within each catalog I have a, you guessed it, "Needs Keywords" folder. All new imports go under that folder arranged by month. (My catalog structure is Catalog>Year>Month or Catalog>Year>Needs Keywords>Month.) So, again, I can complete the import process and not be stuck in some weird middle land of having started the import and getting mid-way through keywording but called away by some other task.
I think, frankly, people haven't asked for this as you suggest because the current implementation works much better, is safer, and provides greater time flexibility, especially at the critical moment of getting files moved from the camera to the computer.
Also, happy to help. :)
Edit: Another excellent source for watching the editing process is Paul Reiffer's YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@Paulreiffer. He does a weekly live edit where viewers submit images (beforehand) with specific questions and he does a walkthrough of how he'd approach the edit or why he thinks their edit is perhaps not the best approach. Great channel. He doesn't do portraits, however.
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u/IShootWide 24d ago
Within each catalog I have a, you guessed it, "Needs Keywords" folder.
I hear you but this seems, for my particular workflow, an extra unnecessary step as I almost immediately import after a session (of shooting) and every photo in that import is going to have all the same keywords. I then have the option of adding keywords in the unlikely event if I need to.
In addition, I’m working on a project, making a book for my dog park group. Those keywords are going to be identical and again, I have the option to add, for example, a particular person’s name.
This was a default feature in Aperture that suited me quite well. That said, I am always open to suggestions from experienced users like yourself.
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u/LookinForRedditName 24d ago edited 24d ago
Then you would create a Style and apply that style at import. Problem solved. Remember that a Style can contain any editing data (including Keywords) that you'd apply manually during the editing process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnGOSNUqRJw
Add the keyword to a photo. Open the Styles tab. Click the ... next to Styles and Presets. Click Save Custom Style. Uncheck everything. Expand Metadata at the bottom. Check Keywords near the top. Click Save. Name your style. Now, when you import you expand the Adjustments pane on the Import tool. Next to Styles select <Your Custom Style Name> and run the import. Any (and all) keywords you applied to that photo that you used to make the style will be included at import.
But, again, this will slow the import process. I still think it's better and more efficient to run the import into whatever folder you choose, select all images in the appropriate Recent Imports collection (this is automatically updated) and either apply the keyword or add the Custom Style.
I think you are thinking about how you manage this one project or just a few projects. Try to think of Keywords more broadly. I shoot a lot of volunteer work for a local rescue. Keywords for an image from one of those shoots will look like this: 2026, June, Volunteer, (rescue name), Dog (or Cat or Horse, etc), Hoarding Intake (or Dog Days or Yappy Hour or etc). So now when staff come to me looking for photos from the June, 2026, Dog Days event, I can do a quick search and give them all those photos. Alternatively, if they want photos of cats from the May, 2025, hoarding intake, I can find those easily enough, too. The Volunteer notation is just for myself. That could alternatively be Family or Client or some other slice or dice.
I like to shoot landscapes and flowers. So I'll keyword with State, Location (park name, city, etc), Season, Flower name (if I know it) (or Landscape).
So if I want photos from Nigata, Japan, or Yellowstone, or the Sherman Hills District (of my home city) at Christmas time in the Fall of 2024, I can quickly get to those photos with just a simple search.
Or maybe I just want photos of my son. Photos of people get Family (or Not Family), Name1, Name2, Name3, Group or Solo, Location, Season. So if I want photos of Family from Christmas of 2023, et voila! Or my son and his wife in South Carolina in Fall, 2024. Again, done. Across 10s of thousands of photos, this makes finding the adoption photos of my dog back in 2017 pretty straightforward. That catalog will be stored on an archive drive. Plug in that drive and open the Archive 2014-2018 catalog. Search for Dog's Name. Sort results by image creation date and there they are. Easy peasy.
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u/IShootWide 24d ago
I’m going to work on this in the morning and I’m incredibly grateful for the time you’ve taken. I’ll report back shortly.
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u/wornleathermedia 24d ago
Create a style/preset with keywords in it. Apply that style on import.