Nature Data LR: Migrating existing keywords

So, you have already used keywords in Lightroom to classify your bird images and want to use the Nature Data plug-in as well…what is an easy way to add species information?

Step 1. Download and install Nature Data LR…

Step 2. In Lightroom, open the Library module and expand the Keyword List panel.

Step 3. Select a species and click the little arrow on the right of the photo count.

Step 3. Select all of the photos in the main window.

Step 4. Open the Species Info dialog (Library-Plug-in extras-Species Info…)

Step 5. Select a species list and make sure the the “Alpha sort?” box is checked in the Species section.

Step 6. Click in the Species box and start typing the species name.

Step 7. After typing the first few letters, press the down arrow on your keyboard – it should jump to the right place in the drop-down list.

Step 8. Press OK, and go back to Step 3 and repeat for the next species…

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Lightroom plug-in for Nature Photographers

Nature Data LR - I have been working on a new plug-in for Adobe Lightroom 2 that allows nature photographers to add species information to their photos within the Lightroom library.  After a couple of months of development and testing, I am making the latest release available as a public beta.

The plug-in is called Nature Data LR.

I still have several features to add but think that the core functionality is ready for release to a wider audience – in fact, I already use it to classify all my own library of bird photographs.

At the moment, the plug-in provides data for bird species in the Western Palearctic and North America, with further geographic regions in progress.

The plug-in is designed to allow species lists for other things in the natural world, such as mammals, so if you have a specific request just let me know.

As this is still a beta, I strongly recommend that you backup your catalog before installing the plug-in.  Whilst I have every confidence it will work just fine, I would rather you were safe than sorry!

Unfortunately, there are some limitations in the way Lightroom allows plug-ins to operate, with the most significant being the ability to add the species data to the keywords directly.  Hopefully Adobe will hear us and release an update but until then you can add the species information as keywords when you export images.

Finally, my thanks go out to the people who have been providing input and testing during the private beta.

Special mentions go out to Massimo Grion for his efforts on providing the Italian version of the Western P’ list and testing, Wayne Nicholas for his continued efforts with testing (and patience with the early challenges on the Mac platform!) and John Stuart-Clarke for his help and support during the testing.

So, head over to the tools section of Rusticolus Images, read the instructions, install and start classifying your bird images!

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Structured keyword libraries

Tagging or keywording your images is useful for you to find your own images on your PC and to help other people find them when posted to Flickr, Smugmug etc.

Not to mention the importance of keywords in stock image libraries.

For more details, visit the keywords pages in the new tools section of the website.

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Lightroom keywords for bird names

If you photograph birds and use Lightroom, you will probably be interested in tagging and keywording accurate species information on your photos.

This can be a real pain, searching through field guides to look up species names and scientific names to tag your photos with. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone had done all that hard work for you?

Guess what?

Someone has, click through to read more (the links and instructions are at bottom of the post).

…

The idea is you add the keyword of the bird species to an image, and Lightroom adds the family, scientific and international names to your keywords when you export to Photoshop, or anywhere else.

Great for preparing images for stock libraries or even just Flickr, smugmug etc.

Of course, there are more than 10,000 species of bird in the World, so creating a keyword library of all of those species is not really practical. Many of us will only see a fraction of those, let alone photograph them.

So I started with just the British List, as published by the BOU.

Each species has the official British name, scientific name and international English name (if applicable).

To make the list more useful for keywording, I have added family information into the hierarchy, which will also be included when you export.

So, if you were to add “Arctic Skua” to your photo then export it, the keywords will contain “Arctic Skua, Stercorarius parasiticus, Parasitic Jaeger, Skuas, Stercorariidae”.

Should makes life easy shouldn’t it?

Oh, and I didn’t stop with the British List, I created a library for the North American Checklist (as published by the AOU) too.

Instructions for installing the keyword library can be found here.

Download links for the various versions are here.

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Installing keywords in Lightroom

IMPORTANT: I recommend that you back-up your Lightroom database before importing these keywords, especially if you already have species keywords.

1. After downloading, unzip the text file into a folder on your computer. For example, My Documents.

2. Open Lightroom, Library module and select Metadata->import keywords

3. Navigate to where you saved the keyword file and press “Open”.

4. After the import has finished you should have a top-level keyword (e.g. “The British List by family”) – expand that to see all the species organised by family.

5. You just add the species name to your species and Lightroom will add the rest when you export.

OK, enough of all these warnings and instructions…where is the download link?

Head here to download my Lightroom keyword libraries.

Any issues or questions, let me know in the comments.

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