One of the biggest problems with keywords is that there are so many synonyms in the English language. So how do you know that one specific keyword for one specific thing will always be the case? After all, if it's not the case, you may never find that one very special image of the stunning model who's name you can't remember.

I was browsing around the web the other day looking for a solution to that problem when I came across Controlled Vocabulary. This company provides a list of 11,000 words that is organized into categories. If you use those words to keyword your photos, you'll be much more likely to be able to find all the photos of that type because it will be more likely to have all the words that qualify it attached. Just download the Controlled Vocablulary word list to your computer, and then use the Metadata > Import Keywords command to navigate to the folder where this list of keywords was downloaded and Import the whole list. Any keywords you've already assigned will remain as well, so you won't loose them.

These keywords are hierarchical. So if, for instance, you want a specific word for a specific type of Action, you can go to ACTIVITIES/ACTION, click the rotating arrowhead, and see categories called ACTION MOTION, followed by a list of related words. Working this way allows you to think in the broader context of things, so you're more likely to enter all the words your client or stock agency will be looking for. You can just scroll down this list, click and drag any of the words onto an image or a selection of images, that keyword will be posted to all the images. Of course, the keywords you've already entered are there, too. So if you go through the whole list, you'll stand a better chance of having assigned all the keywords that anyone is likely to use to find this image.