Attach tags to images, and manage the tag dictionary.

Les mots-clés permettent d’ajouter des informations aux images à l’aide d’un dictionnaire de mots-clés. Vous pouvez gérer les mots-clés sous forme d’arborescence hiérarchique, ce qui peut être utile lorsque leur nombre devient important.

Tags are physically stored in XMP sidecar files as well as in Ansel’s library database and can be included in exported images.

In Ansel, attaching tags is also the way to build collections: a collection is the dynamically-queried set of all images sharing a given tag, always kept up to date. So the everyday job of this module — attaching a tag to images — is the same act as “putting images into a collection”. The tag dictionary itself (creating, renaming, deleting, importing and exporting tags) is a separate, occasional, housekeeping task and lives in its own window.

Definitions

Les définitions suivantes supposent que vous avez configuré un seul mot-clé nommé “places|France|Nord|Lille”.

mot-clé
Un mot-clé est un texte descriptif qui peut être attaché à une image. Un mot-clé peut être un terme unique ou une séquence de termes connectés formant un chemin, séparés par le symbole tuyau ‘|’. Par exemple, “places|France|Nord|Lille” définit un mot-clé unique, où chaque terme du chemin forme un sous-ensemble plus petit de ceux qui le précèdent. Vous pouvez attacher autant de mots-clés à une image que souhaité.

Les propriétés d’un mot-clé sont : nom, privé, catégorie, synonymes et ordre des images.

nœud
Tout chemin faisant partie d’un mot-clé est un nœud. Dans l’exemple ci-dessus, “places”, “places|France”, “places|France|Nord” et “places|France|Nord|Lille” sont tous des nœuds. Dans l’arborescence hiérarchique, les nœuds forment les branches et les feuilles de l’arbre.
nœud libre
Tout nœud qui n’est pas explicitement défini en tant que balise est appelé nœud libre. Dans l’exemple ci-dessus, “places”, “places|France” et “places|France|Nord” sont tous des nœuds libres. Vous ne pouvez pas définir de propriétés, à l’exception du “nom”, pour un nœud libre et vous ne pouvez pas ajouter un nœud libre à une image. Voir la section “mots-clés multiples” ci-dessous pour plus d’informations.
catégorie
Tout mot-clé peut être marqué par l’utilisateur comme étant une “catégorie”.

Multiple tags

Les définitions ci-dessus s’appliquent à un exemple simple : un seul mot-clé et ses propriétés. Considérez maintenant le scénario dans lequel les quatre mots-clés suivants sont définis dans Ansel.

1lieux|France|Nord|Lille
2lieux|France|Nord
3lieux|France
4lieux|Angleterre|Londres

In this case the nodes are

1lieux
2lieux|France
3lieux|France|Nord
4lieux|France|Nord|Lille
5lieux|Angleterre
6lieux|Angleterre|Londres

Les seuls nœuds libres sont “lieux” et “lieux|Angleterre”. Ces deux nœuds libres sont également (par convention) des catégories.

Vous pouvez attacher tous ces mots-clés à toute image. Tous les mots-clés attachés à une image, à l’exception des mots-clés catégorie, peuvent être exportés avec cette image.

Si vous attachez le mot-clé “lieux|France|Nord|Lille” à une image, les mots-clés “places|France|Nord” et “places|France” sont implicitement attachés à cette image (vous n’avez pas besoin de les attacher manuellement). Notez que cela n’est vrai que parce que ces mots-clés étaient définis séparément – le nœud “lieux” n’est pas inclus car il s’agit d’un “nœud libre” (pas un mot-clé).

Module layout

The tagging experience is split across two surfaces, matching the two distinct jobs of culling (fast, frequent) and dictionary maintenance (occasional):

flowchart TB
    subgraph Sidebar["Tags sidebar — lighttable / map (top to bottom)"]
        C["view (list/tree) · sort (name/count)"]
        B["Tag entry + ✓ validate button —
type or pick a tag, then Enter or ✓ to attach"]
        A["Attached tags list — tags on the hovered / selected
images, shown as a list or a tree, trash icon on each row"]
        D["☑ show system tags"]
    end
    M["module gear menu → “manage tags…”"]
    subgraph Popup["“manage tags…” window"]
        E["Tag dictionary — list / tree, multiple selection,
no per-image checkboxes"]
        F["search box · new · import… · export… · tree/list · suggestions"]
        G["suggestion settings: confidence · recent-tags count"]
    end
    M -->|opens| Popup

The sidebar toolbox (the Tags module in the left panel) is for the “one image → many tags” workflow: it shows the tags already on the current image and lets you attach more. The manage tags window is for the dictionary itself (create / rename / delete / import / export) and its suggestion settings. It never attaches anything to your images — it only edits the tags. Open it from the module’s gear (preset) menu → manage tags….

Manage tags window

Open this window from the module’s gear (preset) menu → manage tags…. It is a separate window dedicated to maintaining the dictionary, and contains:

  • a search box at the top that filters the tag list as you type (its ✕ icon clears it);

  • the tag dictionary, listing every tag known to Ansel, either as a flat list or as a hierarchical tree. Multiple tags can be selected at once (Ctrl-click / Shift-click) for bulk operations;

  • a row of buttons:

    new
    Create a new tag using the name typed in the search box.
    import…
    Import tags from a Lightroom keyword file.
    export…
    Export the whole dictionary to a Lightroom keyword file.
    image
    suggestions
    Show a list of suggested keywords based on the keywords already associated with the selected images (see the suggestion settings below). CAUTION: this view queries the database so it might be slow.
    image
    list/tree
    Toggle the dictionary between the flat list view and the hierarchical tree view.

  • the suggestion settings (formerly a separate preferences dialog), applied immediately:

    suggested tags level of confidence
    Level of confidence used to include a tag in the suggestions list (default 50):
    • 0: display all associated tags,
    • 99: match tags with a 99% confidence level,
    • 100: an essentially unreachable level of confidence, so no matching tags are returned. Use 100% to disable the best-matched suggestions list (faster).
    number of recently attached tags
    Number of recently attached tags to include in the suggestions list (default 20). A value of “-1” disables the most-recently-attached suggestions list.

In the hierarchical tree view, a name in italics represents either a free node or a category. You can adjust the height of the dictionary by holding Ctrl while scrolling with your mouse wheel.

All other dictionary operations (rename, change path, delete, “set as a tag”, navigation to a tag collection, …) are reached by right-clicking a tag — see Usage below.

Usage

Attach a tag

To attach an existing or new tag to the image(s) under the cursor (or, failing that, the selected images):

  • Type its name in the sidebar tag entry — picking from the autocompletion list if it already exists — then press Enter or click the ✓ validate button. Hierarchical tags are created using the pipe symbol “|” to separate nodes. If the tag does not yet exist it is created, then attached.
  • Press Ctrl+T to open a small text box at the bottom of the central lighttable view, type a tag name and press Enter. The tag is created if needed and attached to all the selected images.
  • Drag an image or group of images from the lighttable/filmstrip and drop them onto a tag row in the collections tab of the Library module. This attaches that tag to the dragged images (no file is moved).

For a tag that is attached to only some of the targeted images (shown with a count lower than the number of images), right-click it in the attached list and choose attach tag to all to extend it to every targeted image.

When hovering over images in the lighttable you can check which tags are attached either in the attached list here, or in the tags attribute of the image information module.

Detach a tag

From the attached tags list in the sidebar:

  • click the trash icon on the tag’s row to detach that one tag;
  • double-click a tag to detach it;
  • select one or several tags and press the Delete / Backspace key;
  • select one or several tags, right-click, and choose detach tag(s) to detach them all in one go;
  • right-click anywhere in the list (even on empty space) and choose detach all tags to remove every tag from the targeted images at once.

Create a tag

Il y a plusieurs manières de créer un nouveau mot-clé :

  • Type into the sidebar entry and press Enter (or ✓). The tag is created and attached to the target images in one step.
  • Use “create tag…” in the dictionary’s right-click menu (manage tags window). The tag is created under the selected node (hierarchical) or at the root, and is not attached to any image.
  • Use “set as a tag” in the right-click menu to turn a free node (e.g. “places|England”) into a real tag, so that it gets implicitly attached to all images carrying its sub-tags (e.g. “places|England|London”).
  • Import a Lightroom keyword text file (the import… button). Existing tags are updated, new ones are created. You can export your tags, edit the file, and re-import it.
  • Import already-tagged images. Tags found in imported images are added to the dictionary (no opportunity to rename or re-categorize them during import).

A number of tags are generated automatically by Ansel for certain actions — for example “Ansel|exported” and “Ansel|styles|your_style” identify images that have been exported or had a style applied.

Edit / rename a tag

In the manage tags window, right-click a single tag:

edit…
Change the tag’s name (you cannot move it to another node here — the pipe “|” is not allowed in this field), and set its private and category flags and its synonyms. The command is aborted if the new name already exists. These attributes are recorded in the XMP-dc Subject and XMP-lr Hierarchical Subject metadata. Which tags end up in exports is controlled in the export module.
  • A tag set as “private” is, by default, not exported.
  • A tag set as “category” is not exported in XMP-dc Subject, but is exported in XMP-lr Hierarchical Subject (which holds the organization of your tags).
  • “synonyms” enrich the tag information and mainly assist search engines — e.g. “juvenile”, “kid” or “youth” as synonyms of “child”. They can also be used to translate tag names to other languages.
change path…
Available in tree view only. Lets you change the full path of a node, including the nodes it belongs to (use the pipe “|” to specify the hierarchy). The dialog shows how many tagged images would be impacted. This is powerful but can significantly rewrite your images’ metadata, so use it carefully. The operation is aborted if it would conflict with an existing tag.

A quick way to reorganize the structure is drag and drop of nodes in the tree view: drag any node and drop it onto another node to make it (and its descendants) a child of the target. Dragging over a node opens it automatically (drag over the node’s selection indicator to avoid opening it). Drop a node onto the top of the window to move it to the root level. Conflicting moves are aborted.

The “copy to entry” right-click item copies the selected tag into the search box, so you can tweak its name and use new to create a similar tag.

Delete a tag

Deleting a tag removes it from all images (selected or not) and from the database. Because this can impact many images, a confirmation dialog shows how many images are affected. Take this warning seriously — there is no undo (short of restoring your database and/or XMP sidecars from a backup).

In the manage tags window:

  • right-click a tag and choose delete tag;
  • select several tags (Ctrl-click / Shift-click) and right-click → delete tags to remove them all after a single confirmation;
  • right-click a branch node and choose delete node to delete that node together with all its child tags.

Tags can also be deleted (and renamed) from the collections tab of the Library module.

Import / export

The import… button reads a text file in the Lightroom tag file format: existing tags are updated, missing ones are created. The export… button writes the entire dictionary to such a file. Round-tripping (export, edit, re-import) is a convenient way to bulk-edit tags.

Keyboard

  • In the sidebar entry, Enter attaches the typed/picked tag (creating it if needed). Shift+Tab moves focus to the first user tag in the attached list.
  • In the attached list, Tab returns focus to the entry; Delete / Backspace detaches the selected tag(s).
  • In the manage tags window, the dictionary’s Left/Right arrows collapse/expand the selected node in tree view; Tab / Shift+Tab move focus to/from the search box.