Keyword Control Sets in Aperture

My posts are going to be pretty random because sometimes I will blog about tips and how-tos based on my day-to-to work. For this entry, I want to talk about the Keyword Hud in Aperture.

We all know tagging photos can be a pain, but sometimes they help us quickly locate and organize our photoes, especially in Aperture. I use the keyword function in conjunction with Aperture’s smart albums. When I’m working on a wedding project, I simply create a smart album for each keyword of a client shoot. So I have smart albums for keywords lik, Bride/Groom, Group Portraits, First Dance, Details, etc.

But up until recently, I noticed that I had too many keywords that I never ever used in a wedding project. I had too many categories that I would have to click through to select one keyword. So it dawned on me to start using Aperture’s Keyword Controls (Window>Show Keyword Controls), which consist of sets of keywords that you can access at the bottom of Aperture’s main frame.

The trick to using the Controls is to limit your sets to exactly the words you use most often. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out. Basically what I did is make a keyword set that reflects my typical wedding shoot. That set consist of exactly 14 keywords. With the size of my computer monitor, all fourteen of those keyword buttons can fit at the bottom of the application interface. Now I simply keep Keyword Controls open so that I can quickly label 1000+ photos I take on a typical wedding.

I did the same thing for other photo projects I’m working on. With this approach, there’s no need to pull out the Keyword HUD to get at keywords. (By the way, if you want to delete keywords from a file or files, just use Shift-Option+9, or better yet create your special keyword combination for deleting keywords (Aperture>Commands>Customize.)

How to Create a Set

To create a Keyword Control set:

1. Click on Window>Show Keyword Controls.

2. Click and hold the last drop-down button in the Control set. There may be a control set that already exist. Select Edit Buttons.

3. At the bottom of Button Sets, click the plus button and create a name for your set. If you know you’re not going to use the default sets in that already exist, delete them.

4. Keep your new set selected. Now go to the Keyword Library on the right side and locate the keywords you want to use in your new set. This is where you can also create new catagories and keywords.

5. After you locate the keywords, slide them one at a time into the Contents section in order to create your set. You can list them in order you like. I kept wedding list alphabetized for easy access. Try to fit as many keywords in a set as you need so that you don’t have to keep changing sets to access different keywords.

6. Now click OK and you’re ready to start labeling your images faster. The wider you expand Aperture’s interface, the more buttons will show up.

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