Update: I have posted about a tool that is a little better than Keyword Assistant. You can find that post here.
This post is for all of the Mac users out there, so those with a PC should look to Google’s Picasa for something similar, but I have little experience with that program.
Last year, I started the long arduous process of tagging my photos in iPhoto. What is tagging you ask? Tagging is the process of assigning keywords to each photo. For example, I try to tag each photo with at least the people in it, as well as the place it was taken, etc. So now your question is, why would you waste your time doing such ridiculous things? Photo tags allow you to easily search your library for any person, place, or thing that you might have tagged earlier. Also, the tags are indexed in Spotlight, so any type of search does yield iPhoto photos that are tagged with the matching criteria.
Here is the problem: iPhoto’s tagging system is far from advanced, and has a user interface that
makes it difficult to be productive. Here’s the solution: Keyword Assistant. Keyword Assistant is “a plugin for iPhoto to make keyword management easier. The main feature, pictured at right, is an auto-completing text field for assigning keywords. This is much faster than using the built-in keyword panel.” Using Keyword Assistant, I was able to tag my 8000+ photo library much quicker and easier, since a lot of my keywords were the same and only required typing one or two letters for it to autofill, well, automatically.
Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Ken Ferry (the Keyword Assistant developer) has fallen off the face of the earth, so we actually do not have a Universal Binary version of Keyword Assistant, nor do we have one that works with the latest iPhoto version. However, thanks to this link, you can get the program to work quickly and easily with some simple tinkering. Hopefully either Ken will update the program or Apple will revamp its iPhoto keyword interface – either way we have a working solution in our hands.
I highly recommend tagging your photos, and if you decide to accept that recommendation, look into Keyword Assistant – it will make your tagging lack of life much easier.
PS I’m off on a Northern European cruise so this is going to be my last post here until I get back on August 15th. However, if you are curious as to how my trip is going, I will have a daily blog which you can find here. Happy Tagging!