Searching doesn't always work

mercphoto · January 29, 2005

I'm noticing that searching doesn't always work. For example, at my site: mercphoto.smugmug.com, I captioned several photos in this gallery: http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/359147. If I then search for "k8", which means "kart number 8", I don't get any matches. I know at least two photos in that gallery are indeed captioned in that manner.

I'm trying to figure out the best way for my customers to find their race photos. I'm already using a keyword tag for the track name "iron rock raceway". I thought about using another keyword for the kart number, such as "k8". The downside to that now I clutter my keyword section on my website. So I thought to put the kart number into the caption instead, and have the user do a search on that.

Some of the photos will turn up in a caption search, such as k63.

What I plan to do is have Photoshop File Browser edit a keyword in the metadata for the track name. Then in iPhoto arrange into galleries and title the photo with the image name and kart number. Then upload from iPhoto via the Smugmug Uploader.

1) Is there a problem with caption searching?
2) Is there a better way for me to make my race photos searchable for my customers?

Next race is two weeks, and its a bigger race, so I need a solution. Thanks.

Baldy · January 29, 2005

Hey Mercphoto,

Buried in the find stuff help section is:

Q: I searched for a gallery I know is there and got no search results.
A: The search engine does not search for private galleries and search words must be at least 4 characters long.

Onethumb may have changed it to 3, but we know it's not 2.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Baldy

mercphoto · January 29, 2005

Baldy wrote:

I hope this helps.

Yup! Thanks.

So I made a quick testrun of my "workflow" that I described. I imported into iPhoto a JPG that I know Photoshop had set keyword metadata for. Then I modified the title in iPhoto to have the caption I wanted. I then bulk uploaded to Smugmug via the uploader from the iPhoto album. The caption is getting set, the keyword is not. I then uploaded via file, directly from the disk rather than via iPhoto, and the image has the keywords correctly, but not the caption (because it wasn't imported from iPhoto). This is a private gallery, but Smug tech support should be able to see this example:

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/376451

I imagine this is an iPhoto problem that it is not exporting the metadata? I'm using 4.0.3.

mercphoto · January 29, 2005

Bad iPhoto...
Well, I just exported from iPhoto to a disk directory, and then loaded that into PS File Browser. And iPhoto is removing the keywords from the JPG (or never importing them in the first place?) But the JPG does have the author name and copyright that I put in with File Browser. Strange.

Searching doesn't always work

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