An image contains the code used to create a deployment. Then, a deployment can be created from an image, which should then create a replica set (which is the number of pods that should be created), and then the pods should be created.

If you are not familiar with the oc command, refer to OpenShift - Getting Started with the oc command.

The oc label deployment command can be used to apply one or more labels to a deployment. In this example, label region=east is applied to the deployment named my-app.

~]$ oc label deployment my-app region=east
deployment.apps/my-app labeled

And the oc describe deployment command can be used to see the labels that have been applied to the deployment.

~]$ oc describe deployment my-app
Name:                   my-app
Namespace:              default
CreationTimestamp:      Tue, 31 May 2022 20:31:51 -0500
Labels:                 region=east

The oc get pods command can be used to see that new pod(s) should immediately be created after the label has been applied to the deployment.

~]# oc get pods
NAME            READY   STATUS     RESTARTS  AGE
my-app-9mzm2    1/1     Running    0         52s

And here is how you can remove a label. In this example, the region label will be removed.

~]$ oc label deployment my-app region-
deployment.apps/my-app labeled