I can see a couple of related threads to this but they are old or not quite discussing my issue.
I want to search a sub-folder (and any sub-folders inside it) for any images that contain certain metadata, such as lens or camera model.
I know I need to use the search at top left in photolibrary, rather than filter.
I can create a search eg by typing 12-60 and it suggests the full lens name for me to search for.
But regardless of which subfolder I click on before I enter a search, it seems to search all folders in my image library, or to be more accurate all indexed folders in the library.
I’ve posted a support request but have heard nothing. I am on Win11.
Am I missing something, if so what, or is this just expected PL8 behaviour? I had read about PL8 having poor DAM and I thought no problem, my needs are very simple, but I didn’t expect this.
If this IS expected behaviour, what do (Windows) people use for searching metadata? I have On1 Photo RAW, but I’d prefer to avoid using that. Adobe Bridge? But I would have to install the supporting stuff to get Bridge to work (I don’t use Adobe products so I don’t have the framework installed).
Any suggestions/advice greatly appreciated, thanks
As you can see, it found 1,343 such files out of my complete image storage hierarchy, which contains 13, 421 images. It took a couple of seconds to execute the search.
The truth is that PL simply doesn’t have a DAM worthy of the name, which is why I wrote my own when I first purchased PLv1.
EDIT
I just indexed the entire hierarchy in PL, which took around 10 minutes, and then did the same search for 28mm, which returned 1482 images but, with this message…
Second test on indexed files in PL returns 796 files with the keyword “Jazz”. According to my DAM, there are only 762, so I don’t know where the extra files are coming from.
The only possible glitch I can see is that the majority of my images are RAW files that directly contain keywords.
Thanks for this. Yes I have seen your previous v helpful posts on how things work with the Mac and your software, sounds great but no good for me.
I was aware of the filtering limitation, whereby you can only show images from the currently selected folder. So I had imagined that if there was a basic search problem, it would be that it also only looked in the current folder. But no; always seems to search all indexed folders. Deleting database and only indexing the folders I want to search isn’#t an option, but so far that seems to be the only way I could search a specific sub-folder (and its children).
I am new (a few months) to PL8 and generally loving it, but this really is very poor.
native Windows search is useless because it can’t search much - eg no chance with camera metadata or colour/star ratings attributes etc.
I have a feeling I’m going to have to install Adobe Bridge, much as I don’t want to.
This simple function I’ve been asking for … click / highlight a folder and then search in that folder (and its subfolders).
Instead, you have to search for the name of the folder you want to check, type it into the search box, select the right icon, and then try to find the information you’re looking for, which is again unnecessarily difficult because you can’t search for “and/or”, “greater/lesser” … it’s just stupid.
Ah, Wolfgang, thanks! I didn’t realise you could include a folder name in the search. It is very fernickety but I have at last managed a subfolder search with multiple criteria, eg:
… definitely fiddly, but it does give me what I need. Many thanks! (I couldn’t see any reference to this in the documentation, maybe I just didn’t look closely enough_)
Don’t know if this might help but the one thing that was putting me off buying Photolab was the search function which I had been trying to get my head around. However I have now got Adobe Bridge working on my new Mac and heaven for me.
You can use “filters” on individual folders or set up “Smart Collections” such as “Find Keywords Bees in 2024 and all subfolders”. Smart collections will pick up any dynamic changes you make to the relevant folders.
Bridge is free but you do have to put up with signing in to Adobe Creative Cloud. I just ignore anything else Adobe fire at me.
Hi Joanna
I’ve been using Bridge for many years, probably since photoshop 5 I think when Adobe changed the subscription model. I’m pretty sure it is platform independent.
Forgive me if my dates are wrong as I’m getting on a bit now and having something that gives me what I want in a simple manner is what I need.
The same is true of Photolab and tomorrow I will be buying it as I now have a combination of software that is both simple to use and powerful. Just need to formalise the workflow. At least with Bridge I don’t have to worry about the concerns expressed on the forum about database problems.
Lots of learning still to do but perhaps that is this years project just as learning bookbinding was last years.
Mike
