Today’s Question: I have a question regarding the filters in Lightroom Classic. Although the filters appear to allow searching for text, it does not seem to search for text in the keyword field. To search in keywords, I have to do that under Keyword List. Is this correct or am I not searching correctly using filters?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can indeed search specifically for keywords using the Text tab of the Library Filter bar in the grid view. Simply set the first popup on the Text tab to “Keywords” to get started with your search.
More Detail: Lightroom Classic provides a variety of options for searching for photos that contain specific keywords. You can, for example, click the right-pointing arrow that appears to the right of a keyword on the Keyword List on the right panel in the Library module when you hover your mouse over the keyword.
You can also use the Library Filter bar to search by keyword with a little more flexibility. In the Library module switch to the grid view display by pressing the letter “G” on the keyboard. If the Library Filter bar is not displayed above the grid view, press the backslash key (\) to reveal it. Then choose the Text tab.
On the Text tab click the first popup and choose “Keywords”. From the second popup you can choose how you want to search, such as “Contain All” if you want to search for photos that contain all the keywords that you type separated by commas. You could also use “Start With” or “End With” if you want to search based on a partial word, for example.
After selecting the preferred options from the two popups you can enter the keyword (or words) you want to search for. If you want to search based on multiple keywords simply separate each keyword with a comma.
Note, by the way, that for any photographers using the cloud-based version of Lightroom, the keyword search is not as discoverable as it is in Lightroom Classic. However, you can search specifically for keywords in the search field by preceding your keyword with “keyword:”, such as by entering “keyword: New York City”.
