Today’s Question: How do you suggest handling misspelled keywords [in Lightroom Classic]? For instance, suppose in haste I typed “doh” for “dog”. I have done that more times than I would like to admit.
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can correct such errors by editing the misspelled keyword on the Keyword List on the right panel in the Library module. Using the Keyword List to add keywords to photos can also help avoid adding misspelled keywords in the first place.
More Detail: The Keyword List in the Library module of Lightroom Classic is one of the most helpful tools for managing keywords.
On the Keyword List you can simply right-click and choose “Edit Keyword Tag” from the popup menu to bring up a dialog where you can correct the spelling for the keyword. This will automatically correct the applicable keyword in metadata for all affected images.
Note, however, that this won’t work if you have both the correctly spelled version of the keyword and the misspelled version. In that case you’ll need to add the correct keyword to all affected images, and then delete the misspelled keyword.
To correct this issue, start by clicking on the right-pointing arrow to the right of the misspelled keyword, which appears when you hover the mouse pointer over the keyword. This will filter the images to show only those that have the misspelled keyword applied.
Next, choose Edit > Select All from the menu to select all of the photos with the wrong keyword. Switch to the grid view display by pressing the letter “G” on the keyboard, and then turn on the checkbox to the left of the correctly spelled keyword. You may need to click the checkbox more than once to get a checkmark, in the event that some of the selected photos already had the keyword and some do not. Then turn off the checkbox for the misspelled keyword to remove it.
At this point the number to the right of the misspelled keyword should be zero, indicating that no images in the catalog have that keyword assigned to them. You can then right-click on the misspelled keyword and choose “Delete” from the popup menu.
Keep in mind that you can help avoid adding misspelled keywords in the first place by using the checkbox to the left of the applicable keyword on the Keyword List to apply the keyword, rather than typing it manually in the Keywords section of the right panel.