Excire Search 2 is the plugin version of the powerful AI search software, which adds Excire searching capabilities to Lightroom Classic. Let’s look at some ways it can enhance your Lightroom Classic workflow.
Excire Foto and Excire Search 2 both sort and keyword your photo library automatically, no manual work required. The keyword hierarchies analyze both content and the photographic qualities of your photos, tagging photos automatically.
While Excire Foto does this in a stand-alone app, Excire Search 2 does this within your existing Lightroom Classic catalog, so everything is at your fingertips where you work.
Using Excire Search 2 in Lightroom Classic
Before you can search with Excire Search 2, you need to initialize your Lightroom photos. In other words, you must let Excire Search 2 scan them and keyword them. You’ll find this in the Library menu, under Plug-In Extras, then Initialize Photos.
Once initialized, the power of Excire Search 2 is unleashed. So how can you use Excire Search 2 with your Lightroom Classic catalog? Here’s five ideas!
Use Excire Search 2 to sort the landscapes from the portraits in your holiday photos
Because Excire Search 2 has the ability to find all photos with faces, you can quickly sort your holiday photos into those that you’ll edit with your landscape editing tools, and those that require a portrait style.
Use “Search for Faces” for this idea to find all photos with any face. Label with a Lightroom Classic color label, and everything will be ready to go for batch processing.
Finding previous sessions with clients for social media posts with Excire Search 2
Many of my portrait clients have been coming to me since their children were babies (or even before). Using the Search for People option in Excire Search 2, you can find all photos which contain specific people.
You could use this to put together a social post showing one of the cute little kids growing from baby to toddler to child, all in front of your lens.
Just select a photo which contains the person is question, then hit Library, Plug-In Extras, Search for People, and you’ll be served with all the photos in your catalog containing that specific person.
Preparing competition entries with Excire Search 2
Because Excire Search 2 keywords photos according to the photographic characteristic, you can find all the photos in your catalog with qualities like bokeh. Because some photography competitions require you to submit a portfolio of five or six images, you could use this to find visually similar images in your catalog to find a cohesive set that work well together.
Use the Search by Keyword option and explore the Photography hierarchy for inspiration. Another option to try out is Search by Example Photo or Search by External Example Photo: Find a strong starting image in your collection, and find others that resonate as a portfolio.
Keep your social media on-brand with Excire Search 2
Another use for the Excire Search 2 Search by Example Photo tool is to find the best images in your most recent shoot to share on social media, or to add to your portfolio. When your clients book you for the look and feel of your images, it’s important to share on-brand photos to attract your ideal client.
Curate a bank of your favorite images (e.g. as a Collection in Lightroom Classic), then when you do a new shoot, select one and use it for the basis of your Search by Example Photo in the new set of images. From the results, choose your social posts!
Culling photos from a photoshoot session using Excire Search 2
Using the Search for Faces option, you can find all the photos with smiling faces, single or two or more faces, even sorting by age of the person.
This is a great tool to narrow down the photos from a session. Need a photo of each child, one of the parents, and one of the whole family? Run a quick search on different numbers of faces and pick your favorite. Done and done.
