Lemke Software GmbH Forum

I am using a library of family photos where I have typed in the IPTC KEYWORD field initials for individuals.
Spotlight searches work for many relatives, but for my son JPE it returns all of the "JPEG" images. I tried all of the advanced techniques suggested in Apple's Help site, but nothing works. How do I limit the search to just IPTC Keywords?

Please use the following approach for a more complex search:

1) Enter something into the Search field
2) Click onto + to show more options
3) Clear the Search field
4) Select the search area i.e. Keywords
5) Select the compare option i.e. contains
6) Enter the text which should be searched

Thanks. Best help ever since I started using Macs in 1984.

Hello -- I followed these steps exactly so that I could search the picture files in my browser for keywords that I entered into the IPTC tab for Keywords. The search string was All > Keywords > Contains > *keyword*. However, when I set up this string and click the Done button no items are found (the browser window is empty), even though I verified that several of the pictures contain the particular keyword. Do you have any suggestions of what I am doing wrong or that I neglected to do?

Please e-mail a screenshot of your entered values.

Here are three screenshots:
1. IPTC window showing entered keywords.
2. Complex search entries.
3. After pressing Done and no items found.

Hi,

does your external disk have a Spotlight index?

Thorsten

How do I determine this?
I do know that I can search my external drive -- see attachment Search1.

Thorsten,

Based on the question you asked me, I copied a few pictures to a folder on my internal hard drive and performed the keyword search. It works. I still have a few questions:

1) How do I get the keyword search to work similarly on my external drive?

2) I noticed that when I copied the pictures to my internal drive, I lost my ability to edit the IPTC information. That is, nothing happens when I click on the Edit IPTC button, or when I right-click and go through the edit pop-up menu. Why is this?

Phil

Hi Phil,

1) Simple enable spotlight for the drive.

2) That works here. Please e-mail the image zipped to our support.
Is there any error message?

Thorsten