Today’s Question: Is there a way in Lightroom Classic to search for only photos that contain two selected keywords rather than including images that contain one or the other but not both? When I select two keywords on the Metadata tab of the Library Filter bar I’m seeing images with one or both of the keywords, rather than only the images that have both of the selected keywords.
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can limit your search to only those images that include all chosen keywords either by using the “Contain All” option on the Text tab or by using more than one column on the Metadata tab when using the Library Filter Bar.
More Detail: By default, when you set a filter in Lightroom Classic for more than one keyword, that search is an “or” search rather than an “and” search. In other words, if you select keywords Miami and Florida for a search, you’ll see photos that contain either Miami or Florida. As a result, the search results might include an image with keywords of “Orlando” and “Florida”, even though it doesn’t include “Miami” as a keyword.
In this example, if you wanted to only see images from Miami, Florida, and not images from Orlando, you would want an “and” search. This can be handled in a couple of ways.
First, you can use the Text tab of the Library Filter bar, selecting “Keywords” from the first popup and “Contain All” from the second popup. The type the applicable keywords in the text field to the right of the popups, separating each keyword with a comma.
The other approach would be to use more than one column for keywords on the Metadata tab. You could set the popup on the header for the first column to “Keyword”, and select “Florida” from that column. Then set the second column to “Keyword” as well, and select “Miami” from that column. You would then only be viewing photos that include both Miami and Florida as keywords.
Note that when you’re using the Library Filter bar you are filtering images in the currently selected location, such as a folder or collection. If you want to search across your entire catalog you can choose the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module.
