Today’s Question: How do you remove a keyword from a set of photos in Lightroom?
Tim’s Quick Answer: To remove a keyword from multiple photos in Lightroom you can select the photos, make sure you are in the grid view (not the loupe view), and then turn off the checkbox for the keyword you want to remove from the Keyword List section of the right panel in the Library module.
More Detail: There are, of course, several ways you can add or remove keywords within Lightroom. When you want to and or remove a keyword for multiple images, the critical step is to make sure you are in the grid view rather than the loupe view. When using the loupe view, even with multiple images selected, changes will only affect the single image shown in the loupe view.
Once you are in the grid view, you can remove a keyword in a variety of ways. However, I recommend using the Keyword List, because it is a simple option with minimal risk of making a mistake. Simply turn off the checkbox for the keyword you want to remove from the selected images, and that keyword is removed from all of those images.
Note that if the keyword is only applied to some (but not all) of the selected images, then a dash will appear (instead of a checkmark) in the checkbox within the Keyword List. In that case you would need to click the checkbox twice to remove the keyword. The first time you click you will be adding the keyword to all selected images that don’t have that keyword yet, so that a checkmark then appears for that keyword. The second time you click you will be removing the keyword from all of the selected images.
To learn even more about keeping the metadata for your photos clean and organized in Lightroom, take a look at my “Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom” bundle of courses. You can learn (and get an automatic discount) by following this link to the GreyLearning website: