MacMost Now 246: Keywords, Checkmarks and Ratings in iPhoto 09

Learn how to use keywords, checkmarks and ratings to organize your iPhoto collection.

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Video Transcript: Hi! This is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode lets learn how to use keywords, check marks, and ratings to manage your iPhoto collection. 
So back in episode 212 and then in episode 215, of MacMost Now, we looked at how to use places and then faces to manage your photos and iPhoto. But you can also assign keywords or tags to any photo, and you can rate them, and in addition to that you can add a checkmark to a photo. Let's look at how to do this. So here we are inside of iPhoto. Now, if you bring up the information panel to the left, which you can do by pressing the I button at the bottom left corner, you can see the ratings and keywords. You can actually set a rating here, but you can't set keywords, you can only view them. To set keywords, you can do it several different ways. One is to go up to View and select Keywords, or shift command K. This will actually add keywords as a field to the bottom of each one.  Now I don't have any keywords in any of these. Which is why nothing appeared. But if I went ahead and added one here, it would appear there, and I could see it for that one. And then I could go ahead and add one to there, etc. That's one way to do it.  Another way to do it, is actually use command K or Window show Keywords, and that will bring up this little Keyword's panel here. And then whatever picture you have selected, it'll hi-lite what keyword is selected. So, here beach is selected, here water is selected. I can go ahead and add another one to this, and now I have both of these keywords selected right there. 
Okay, so you notice in this panel there is some additional functionality. One of the things you can do is drag some of these keywords to a quick group. So for instance, I can drag vacation up here and then that will appear at the top. This helps if you have tons and tons of keywords that are added at the bottom, you can have a few very select ones that are added at the top right there. Another thing that we've got here is the little check mark. Click on that and that's kind of like the keywords that you  can apply, except that it also appears in the photo to the bottom right hand corner.  Of course it's only in the photo in iPhoto but its' the easy way to check to see if the check mark is there. So, you can tag your photos, you can select a checkmark for certain photos, and then you can also go down here and add a rating for any photo you want at the same time. 
So, another thing that you can do inside the Keywords panel is click the Edit Keywords button, and this will bring up the list of keywords here and you can easily add and remove them. So, you can add a keyword without actually having to add it to a photo. Another cool thing that you can do is you can add shortcuts  So, for instance, for vacation I can go ahead and add a shortcut of  "V", which was already there, vacation. For kids I can go ahead and add a shortcut, "K". And for the checkmark I can even go ahead and add a shortcut for that, I can add "C". Once I do that, I can actually go into these photos here and I can press "C" to get rid of, or add a checkmark. I can add vacation to that phot by just pressing "V". So, that's a quick easy way to do it. 
Okay, so now that I have a bunch of keywords I can use the search box at the bottom to search a keyword. Now, leaving it by the default search, means it will search descriptions, titles, places, faces, and keywords. But, I can switch the search to a Keyword search, and this will bring up these little buttons here at the bottom that list my keywords  I can select one and it will add it to it. I can select another one to add to it as well. Or even add a checkmark and it will add things that have a checkmark and that keyword there. Click the "X" at any time to go ahead and return to viewing all of your photos.
So adding keywords to your photos helps you organize them in a way that events can't because every photo has to be a part of one type of event. But, if say you want to go and label all the landscapes, well, you can't do that with faces, you can't do that with places, and you can't do that in events. You simple want to go ahead and create a keyword landscape and then go through all of your different events and label anything that is a good landscape. You can also go ahead and use checkmarks to temporarily label something, like for instance, say you and a friend are going through some photos and they see some they want copies of, you can quickly select checkmarks. And, then, once you've gone through all the photos, you can then go ahead and do a search by checkmark, and grab all those photos and export them. To get rid of checkmarks, or get rid of any tag, all you need to do is go ahead and do a search for all those, select them all and then get rid of that checkmark or get rid of that tag by selecting it again.
Now you can use ratings to organize your photos by either how good they are, or how important they are to you. On a typical vacation, for instance, you may take hundreds of photos and some of them may not be so great. It might be great to label your best photos five stars and some really good ones four stars, etc. And that way if somebody comes over and wants to see your photos, but you know they don't have the patience to look through hundreds of them. You can just do a search and show them anything with four stars and above to quickly show them the best photos you took of your last trip.
So, that's a quick look at keywords, checkmarks, and ratings in iPhoto. Hope you find it useful. Till next time this is Gary Rosenzweig for MacMost Now.

Comments: 2 Responses to “MacMost Now 246: Keywords, Checkmarks and Ratings in iPhoto 09”

Colin

14 years ago

Thanks Gary...I still don't know the difference between checkmarks...and flags...I see the default for the checkmark shortcut is a period (.) same as flags?? I don't see a search feature for 'checkmarks'....seems like some dumb programming...can you make some sense of it...for an senior user from day one who still can't see why it is such an obtuse bit of programming that doesn't follow the smart GUI conventions that Apple is known for.
Thanks for any light you can throw at this in the dark user.
Colin

Gary Rosenzweig

Apple's just giving you lots of options. You don't have to use them. In iPhoto 11 checkmarks aren't even mentioned. I believe a checkmark is just a keyword "checkmark" like any keyword you would create. So you should be able to search for it.

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MacMost Now 246: Keywords, Checkmarks and Ratings in iPhoto 09

Comments: 2 Responses to “MacMost Now 246: Keywords, Checkmarks and Ratings in iPhoto 09”

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