If you’re using Lightroom and not using Keywords—or would like to learn a few, simple not-obvious tricks—check out Scott Kelby’s illustrated, online article on the topic. It’s reprinted from his book, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers, and it has the advantage of being, well, online. It’s also free, which is always nice. You can also enlarge the illustrations, which both useful and cool.
As I wrote in my AfterCapture article, “Basic Metadata: Don’t Process Without It,” all photographers absolutely must add basic metadata. (Seriously.) Keywords, as Kelby points out, are optional. While that’s true, Scott Kelby and I agree that in the realm of digital, they are about as optional as going to the dentist. You don’t have to, but you’ll regret it—seriously—if you don’t.
It seems to me that non-keywording photographers fall into two groups: Those that simply don’t think about it—not realizing what they are missing out on—and those who think about it too much. The over thinkers are more common, I imagine. They think adding keywords in more complicated than they would like. “How do I add keywords during my ingestion process?” “How will I create a universal keyword system like the ones stock photographer use?”
Kelby keeps it simple, providing the basics—and tips—very quickly and encouraging photographers to get moving with keywords in Lightroom. After all, just as with dental care, a little bit of keyworking is a heck of a lot better than none!