Adding Keywords by batch

J
Posted By
jrm27
Feb 18, 2004
Views
546
Replies
5
Status
Closed
I’m currnetly beginning to use Portfolio in conjunction with Photoshop 7 to organize my many thousands of files. Most of my photos have keywords, however, there’s a couple hundred that don’t have keywords associated with them. Is there a way that I can batch add keywords to files that have commonalities. For example, could I batch automate the keyword "flower" into an entire folder of 250 images? I searched around the site, but didn’t see what I was looking for. Could someone give me a hand, or point me in the right direction?

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DR
Danny_Raphael
Feb 19, 2004
You’ll need to create an action to populate the keyword field, then invoke it via Photoshop’s batch processing dialog.

Here’s how to record the action:
* Open any test image
* F9 to show the Actions Palette
* From the Actions Palette menu (black arrow, top right), choose New Set (assign a name, e.g., Add Keywords; OK to close the dialog)
* From the actions Palette menu again, choose New Action (assign a name, e.g., Add Keyword=flower; click Record button). You have engaged "record mode."
* From the File menu choose File Info… Navigate to the Keywords dialog, type "Flower" and click Add. This records the step in the action.
* Click the SQUARE button ("Stop") at the bottom of the Actions Palette. This terminates the recording session, just like turning off record mode in your VCR. (Is your clock blinking 12:00 like mine is? 🙂
* Close any open images

Preparation to batch process
* Create a folder, call it \Source
* Put the images to which you want to assign flower as a keyword in it * Create another folder, call it \Destination

Batch process
* From the File menu, choose Automate > Batch
* The action set and action should already be specified
* Source: Folder. Click Choose (browse to \Source)
* Destination: Folder. Click Choose (browse to \Destination) * Click OK. PS will start fetching images from \Source, adding "Flower" to the keyword field and putting the processed images in \Destination

Note: If you want to assign multiple keywords, do that the same way as you would normatlly, e.g., type Flower, click Add, type Rose, click Add, etc.

Hope this get you moving.

~Danny~
J
jrm27
Feb 19, 2004
thanks a bunch. That really does help me a lot. Should make things a heckuva lot easier.
Y
YrbkMgr
Feb 19, 2004
To add to Danny’s most excellent instructions, you can speed up the organizing a bit by pre-selecting images in PS’s file browser, then telling the batch dialog to use the file browser instead of the source folder.

For example, you could select all the images that will contain the keyword "Flower", then run your flower action in batch against only those selected images.

Peace,
Tony
DR
Danny_Raphael
Feb 19, 2004
Excellent suggestion, Tony. You’re on top of your game as always.

Thx for watching my back.

~Danny~
Y
YrbkMgr
Feb 19, 2004
Danny,

Let’s just say that we’re members of the mutual admiration society <grin>.

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