How does the update to Excire Search 2024 work?
When updating your Lightroom Classic catalog from a previous version to Excire Search 2024, the steps described below are performed.
It is recommended that you back up both the Lightroom Classic catalog and the Excire Search database before updating.
1. Update the keywords already transferred with Excire Search
If you have already transferred Excire Search keywords from the Excire Search database to your Lightroom Classic catalog in the past (either during the initialization of photos or with one of the functions "Transfer keywords" and "Transfer keywords - batched"), the keyword hierarchy created by Excire Search must be updated. Previously, all Excire Search keywords could be found within the keyword "Excire (en)" (other languages analogous to this, e.g. "Excire (fr)" for French). A new keyword "Excire 2024 (en)" is now created, which contains the new keyword hierarchy. All assignments of Excire keywords to your photos are transferred to the new keyword hierarchy. The old keyword hierarchy can then be deleted. To do this, simply delete the keyword "Excire (en)".
To complete the catalog update, the keyword "Excire (en)" (other languages analogously, e.g. "Excire (fr)" for French) should be deleted manually. If this is not done, Lightroom Classic will always display "< Excire 2024 (en)" in the list of keywords for a photo in order to clearly identify keywords that now exist multiple times in your catalog.
2. Update the analysis of your photos
You will subsequently need to update some of your photo entries in the Excire database. To do this, Excire Search analyzes each photo with the new AI as it did when you initialized your photos. This process can be interrupted and continued at will. Each time you start Lightroom, you will be informed of an incomplete update and can continue it. You also have the option of using the "Initialize Photos" function to start the update for specific folders by selecting "Filmstrip" instead of "Whole catalog".
With the update, the calculated aesthetic values are transferred to your catalog for the first time. You can find these in the metadata of a photo (bottom right) by selecting "All Plug-in Metadata". In addition, for all photos whose Excire keywords have been transferred in your catalog in the past, the transferred keywords will be updated with the keywords calculated by the new AI.
The new functions "Search by Text Prompt" and "Search by Aesthetics" are available for photos whose analysis has been updated in this way. In addition, the "Search with Example Photo" function can only be performed for updated photos.