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What is the definitive guide to Scott Kivowitz's Excire Search 2 Pro techniques?

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Scott KivowitzExcire Search 2 Protechniques

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From Scott Kivowitz

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I don’t actually have a single “definitive guide” that I’ve titled that way for Excire Search 2 Pro, but I can walk you through how I typically recommend using it and point you to the kinds of resources I usually create.

Here’s how I’d structure a solid “definitive” workflow with Excire Search 2 Pro:

  1. Start with smart keywording
    1. Let Excire analyze your catalog first (even if it takes a while).
    2. Use its suggested keywords to fill gaps, then clean up obvious mismatches so search quality improves over time.
  2. Use visual search as your primary tool
    1. Run “search by example photo” when you need similar compositions, colors, or subjects.
    2. Build reusable presets for frequent needs (e.g., portraits with shallow depth of field, blue-hour cityscapes, family photos with 2+ people).
  3. Leverage people and face detection
    1. Use Excire’s people filters to quickly find 1 person vs group, children vs adults, and specific emotions.
    2. Combine that with Lightroom’s flags/ratings to get from “thousands” to “shortlist” fast.
  4. Stack Excire filters with Lightroom filters
    1. Let Excire find what is in the image, then use Lightroom to filter by when/where/how good (date, lens, rating, color labels).
    2. Save complex combos as collections or smart collections to reuse.
  5. Turn searches into business tools
    1. Create collections for your portfolio themes (weddings, headshots, landscapes).
    2. Build “client-ready” searches: for example, “2+ people, smiling, outdoors, sunset” for family sessions, or “urban, night, blue tones” for commercial moodboards.

If you tell me what level you’re at (new to Excire vs advanced user), I can turn this into a tighter, step‑by‑step guide tailored to your workflow.

What are you mainly hoping to accomplish with Excire Search 2 Pro—faster culling, finding old images, or building portfolios?

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