DAM Programs

I have for many years used Expressions Media as my go-to system for keywording. It is really quite good, fast and flexible. However, recently, if the advent of 4k it is starting to fail me. What do you guys use for keywording?

My brain.

Sorry - could not resist. : )

Really - lately I accept many suggestions from the keyword robot, but consider and "approve" them first. Sometimes it's general stuff and saves a bit of typing, others it actually comes up with terms I might not have considered.

If I'm keywording a clip consisting of subject matter that I might benefit from learning about, Wikipedia is not only useful for terms, but also fun.

Not sure why you say 4K would change the Expressions Media thing...does it sample your clip? To my mind, keywords are resolution independent, excepting of course if you want to include the resolution in the tags.

I aim to push myself to get at least 35, preferably 40 useful tags for each clip. It's hard sometimes. But like any training, the keywording muscle gets stronger with practice, and more accurate, while if you rely too heavily or too often on automatic functions it can atrophy.

Your right, it's probably not the 4k but I end up with an H264.mp4 file and for some reason Expressions doesn't recognize it and I get a black thumbnail. Not much use when you have to keyword. What makes Expressions particularly useful is it has auto fill libraries you write in, so if you have "car" it will also fill in auto, automobile, transportation, travel, vehicle, commute, or whatever else you deem important, you get 10+ relevant keywords by typing 3 letters.

You could render a quick HD version of the clip for use with Expressions. Probably doesn't have to be full length. Would a still work?

My biggest problem is finding the few relevant keywords that SPECIFY what the clip is. Too many of my clips have tags "aerial, Alaska, Haines, mountains, peak, ridge, winter, scenic, scenery, clouds, weather, Chilkat, flight, forest, long shot, snowy, high angle, timelapse, etc., and I really don't do a lot of duplicate versions, but it's hard to set each masterpiece apart from the others.

I have come across clips at P5 in search results with a few keywords that are nothing to do with the clip or search enquiry, the search picked up the description, so I think a well thought out description and title are as important or more so than keywords.

Yes, spamming should be avoided. Having a mountain scene with keywords: technology, person, grandmother is a no-no.

Mazamook, there are sources of most searched conceptual keywords, and they can be more important than literal keywords. Mountains fit the: grand, majestic, towering, cold, hard, or other possibly relevant keywords.

For the record, I hate keywording. Yet I know its as important as a good rendering. The proxy file for purposes of keywording is a not a bad idea.

I do my keywording directly inside of Adobe Bridge. Works fine for years (and of course with 4K material too.)!

Yep, I also use forbidding, imposing, massive, vast, etc. It's just that so many of my shots have those. I need to shoot some ugly, small, puny, boring mountains I guess. I do try to define the "feel" of a shot with my tags also, and basically just consider all the ways I can imagine a buyer might find it through a search vector. I have a feeling that there are ways beyond the scope of imagining that people search for given clips, and uses we'd be surprised by.

Agreed on the search hitting the terms in the title and description. However, a few agencies do away entirely with the title, or the description, or both, it seems, so all the terms I deem important in the title and description are generally also in the keywords. Lately anyway. Sometimes I get goofy with my descriptions for fun.