Keyword vs. Category

[RichB]

The DAM Book shows that Category and Supplemental Categories are depracated, but iView Media Pro, CS2, and Aperture, among others appear to support at least Category.  I'm not sure about Supplemental Categories.

As a hobbiest, can or should I try to leverage Category/Supplemental Categories or should I stuff everything in Keywords?  I believe Peter stated he does not use a large volume of keywords for his personal work, so perhaps it is a moot point anyway.  I was thinking that perhaps using Category, etc. might make using a 'template' more flexible.  But I haven't given it much thought, since Peter mentions only Keywords.

[peterkrogh]

Rich,
Check out http://www.iptc.org/pages/index.php to see how these are supposed to be used.

Do you have information that is inappropriate for keywords?
Peter

[RichB]

Check out http://www.iptc.org/pages/index.php to see how these are supposed to be used.

Do you have information that is inappropriate for keywords?

Peter, I went to the iptc site and was unable to determine the appropriate document you were intending.  I do not find that as a user/hobbiest-friendly place.

However, after reading more of your book and reading more posts concerning Keywords, I have decided that I should just stick to using the Keyword field.  You have stated and demonstrated the use of sets to create hierarchies.  That seems flexible enough for me.  Oh, and, no, I do not have any information that would be inappropriate for keywords.  Thanks for the question/offer.

Rich

[Chris Bishop]

It's been a couple of months now, how are you getting on?
I find hiearchy difficult in keywords, but categories too software specific.
Chris Bishop

[mikewren]

It's been a couple of months now, how are you getting on?
I find hiearchy difficult in keywords, but categories too software specific.
Chris Bishop

I've reach the same point in my DAM travels.  My staff and I have amassed a large number of Keywords, and maintaining them has grown cumbersome.

Establishing some kind of keyword hierarchy seems to be the next logical step, but as of yet I've been unable to find out how to do this in IVMP.

[danaltick]

Mike,

For stock images, I use this http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/cvkc_order.html.  It is the best method I've found to-date.

Dan

[mikewren]

Is there any way to create a keyword hierarchy in IVMP?  Ideally I'd like to create the following:

Music
     [Band Name]
          [Artist Name]

However, the curveball is that the [Artist Name] may appear in more than one [Band Name].  I suppose a workaround would keeping with the flat keyword scheme in IVMP:

[Band Name] | [Artist Name]

Example:

"Pearl Jam | Eddie Vedder"

This would allow sorting/displaying of keywords to be much easier, based on bandname.  Also, should I need to unmarry the band/artist keyword into two seperate keywords down the road, consistant use of the | seperator *should* make it easy to script.... in theory, at least.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[johnbeardy]

Mike,

You can do it in the Catalog Sets. The problem is copying the keyword catalog sets to the IPTC keywords - the scripting of this is broken.

John

[Domip]

When will this be fixed ? And who should do it ? 

[johnbeardy]

It needs to be fixed by the developers. They know where the error is - it's a matter of priorities. Since I don't myself care much about a keywords hierarchy, thinking people should make more use of comma separated entries in the vocabulary editor, I've not made much noise or tried to be too persuasive about their fixing it.

John

[peterkrogh]

Mike,
How often is it important to push this information into the images?  IOW, do you normally create and use this information within the catalog enviroment, or are you sending a lot of images off to someone else (a stock agent, perhaps) who needs to be able to see it with a different program?
Peter

[mikewren]

Mike,
How often is it important to push this information into the images?  IOW, do you normally create and use this information within the catalog enviroment, or are you sending a lot of images off to someone else (a stock agent, perhaps) who needs to be able to see it with a different program?
Peter

Great way to look at this, Peter.  For now, the metadata is only used by myself and a few interns.  DAM is a solution for us to (try) and maintain sanity within our shop.  Eventually, I would like to see clients being able to make use of keyword searches on our website to find and order photos/republish rights online.

That said, the current scheme is to push metadata out to the image files weekly, usually on Friday/Saturday overnight, so that the most recent metadata lives somewhere other than the IVMP catalog file.

[peterkrogh]

Mike,
For now, I would say that you should probably keep this information in Catalog Sets.  There will be ways to push it out with one button in the future.

Second, if you want to back this information up, just backup the catalog.  Much easier and more secure way to save it.
Peter