I almost ended up with a photo disaster today. When we are on trips I dutifully download and add keywords to all the photos we take each day. This is a very useful thing to do. So during our Alaska trip that is what I did. When I got home, I transferred the files onto my main computer and loaded them into Lightroom. So far so good, but none of the keywords came over with the files. Dang, this could have been a disaster. What is a person to do? Well, I did a little sleuthing and found that the Lightroom records had the keywords, but they had not been written to the files. How could this happen? I think the culprit in all this is the fact that I set up a new catalog for this trip and didn't realize that I had to go into the settings and check the box "automatically write changes into XMP." For some reason when you start a new catalog the settings go to some default.

OK, problem solved. Not so fast, Bucky! I checked the box and looked at the files, but no keywords yet. Here is the problem. There were thousands of files that needed to have keywords written to them and that just takes a LONG time. Finally, after hours of waiting, all the files had been updated, the peasants rejoiced and peace returned to the realm.

When we finish our traveling this fall I plan to upgrade to the latest version of Lightroom. I have no idea how that will go, but every time I install new software there seems to be a learning curve that can get quite long. I am a firm believer in the "If it's working, don't mess with it" philosophy. This is a darn good philosophy. Every time I transgress it, I get myself into trouble and wish that I had left well enough alone. You would think I might have learned my lesson by this time.