Searching for Image Keywords

DEVONthink
1

I’ve just discovered DevonThink and am trying to work out whether it would be useful in my work as a photographer.

I have tens of thousands of photos with keywords which have been applied using Photo Mechanic Plus. I have created a database in DevonThink and have indexed, rather than imported, my photo library, which sits on an external drive.

I have confirmed, by experimenting with DevonThink, that the database can search for images by filename, but I have not yet been successful in searching by keyword. Can anyone suggest what I may be doing wrong?

2

Is anything shown in the Info > Properties inspector after selecting such an image?

3

Yes. The keywords I am interested in appear under Info > Properties in the Keywords box but do not appear to be picked up by DevonThink when I search for them within a database using the search window at the top of the main page.

4

I increased your trust level.
Post a screen capture of the properties for an image as well as an unsuccessful search.

5

Before we go further, I have just noticed that DevonThink is still indexing, several hours after I set up the database (there are a lot of photos!). Could this be the issue?

Indexing

6
  • How many photos are you referring to?
  • And why are you adding such a large volume of images? Note that DEVONthink is not a DAM-application.
7

About 200,000. At this stage, I am just experimenting with the free version of DevonThink to see if it suits my needs. If a collection of images this size is more than it is designed to cope with, I can continue my search elsewhere.

8

It’s not a matter of the size of the collection. The purpose matters. What is your purpose or intended use?

9

In the case of this (photography) database, to locate photos by keyword as fast as possible. In the case of others I am experimenting with at the same time, to create collections of searchable PDF documents.

10

If you’re limiting your searches to keywords, it may suffice. If you want to go beyond that, e.g., with deeper metadata, you should be looking at a bespoke DAM application.

Here is a keyword search locating an image exported via Photos.app…

image
image2102×1708 367 KB

These keywords are in the IPTC data for the image…

image
image732×926 33 KB

…and converted to kMDItemKeywords…

kMDItemKeywords  = (
    omelette,
    food
)
11

Thank you. This is beginning to look hopeful.

12

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

13

But isn’t that what Photo Mechanic Plus does rather well? (I use it too but have recently thought of methods of searching xmp sidecar files—which I appreciate it not what you contemplate—so am interested in the discussion.)

Stephen

1 Like
14

It does indeed, and I use it for this. I’m just interested to see how DevonThink measures up in this respect. One of the things I have started to notice, and which could be useful, is that searches in DT can bring up both images and documents filed near them (e.g. PDFs) at the same time.