2 Quick Tips For Managing Keywords in Lightroom

Pye Jirsa

Managing Your Images In Lightroom Using Keywords

I take a lot of photos and organizing all of them inside of Lightroom can be quite burdensome. Fortunately, I can assign keywords to my photos to help me organize and locate photos quickly. In this article and video, I have two quick tips for you guys to help you manage your photos inside of Lightroom using keywords.

Watch The Managing and Deleting Keywords in Lightroom Video

Quick Tip 1: How to Delete Multiple Keywords at Once

We know that in the keyword list we can right click and delete a keyword, but if we highlight multiple keywords and right click and press delete, it will still only delete the single keyword you right clicked on. To delete multiple keywords, you simple have to press the “minus” button on the top left of the keyword menu. When you click this button, it will delete all the keywords that you have selected.

deleting keywords in lightroom

2: Organizing Your Keywords in Folders

I like to categorize my photos based on their usage. So if the photos were taken for weddings, reviews, family portraits, or anything else, they’ll be organized in that keyword category. Adding keywords is as simple as deleting, you simply click on the “plus” icon (right next to the minus icon) on the top left of the Keyword List. After you press this button the Create Keyword Tag dialogue box will appear.

keyword dialoge box

Once you create your keyword, you can click and drag that keyword into a parent folder in the keyword list (see video above to see how I drag and drop). This way, my keywords stay nice and organized in this parent/child category system.

parent and child category folders

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you’re interested in learning more about Lightroom, check out the Lightroom Workshop Collection v5. This workshop contains everything you need to know about organizing and maintaining an efficient workflow, as well as processing beautiful images in a matter of clicks.

Pye Jirsa

Pye Jirsa is the co-founder of SLR Lounge and Lin & Jirsa Photography, one of Southern California's most recognized wedding photography studios. He is the creator of SLR Lounge's full educational library and has trained over 20,000 photographers since 2008 across lighting, posing, editing, and business strategy. He is also the co-creator of Visual Flow Presets and has spoken at WPPI, PPA, CreativeLive, Fstoppers, and Adorama.

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