- Getting started
- Organizing folders
- Using collections to organize images
- Taking your collections on the road
- Using flags and ratings
- Adding metadata
- Tagging faces in the People view
- Organizing photos by location
- Finding and filtering files
- Reconnecting missing files and folders
- Review questions
- Review answers
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using collections to organize images
Although an organized system of folders provides a good foundation for your photo library, grouping images into collections is a far more efficient and flexible way to classify your images—and offers many more options when you need to find them.
Note
Once you’ve grouped a selection of photos as a collection you can rearrange them in the Grid view or the Filmstrip, changing the order in which they will appear in a presentation or a print layout. Your customized sorting order will be saved with the collection.
A collection is like a virtual folder: a grouping of photos from your library based on your own associations rather than on the actual location of the files. A collection may contain images drawn from any number of separate folders on your hard disk. Inversely, a single master image can be included in any number of collections; the same photo might appear in a collection of images with architectural content, a compilation of shots with an Autumn theme, a collection you’ve assembled for a client presentation, and another created for a vacation slideshow. Grouping images as collections in your library doesn’t affect the files and folders on your hard disk, and removing a photo from a collection won’t remove it from the library catalog.
Tip
You’ll learn more about Publish collections in Lesson 10, “Publishing Your Photos.” Syncing collections is discussed a little later in this lesson.
There are three basic types of collection: Collections, Smart Collections and the Quick Collection. Any collection can also be part of an Output Collection—a collection that is created automatically when you save a print layout or a creative project such as a photo book or web gallery, linking a set of images to a particular project template, together with all of your customized settings. Any collection can also become a Publish collection, which automatically keeps track of images that you’ve shared via an online service, or be synced to Lightroom CC on your mobile device via Adobe Creative Cloud.
The Quick Collection
The Quick Collection is a temporary holding collection; a convenient place to assemble a group of images while you gather photos from different folders. You can access the Quick Collection from the Catalog panel so that you can easily return to work with the same selection of images at any time. Your images will stay in the Quick Collection until you are ready to convert your selection to a permanent collection that will then be listed in the Collections panel.
Note
If the Thumb-nail Badges option is activated in the Library View Options, a photo that is included in a collection of any kind displays the collection badge (
) in the lower right of its thumbnail.
Click the badge to see a menu listing the collections in which the image is included. Select a collection from the list to designate that collection as the image source folder.
You can create as many collections and smart collections as you wish, but there is only one Quick Collection; if there is already a selection of images in the Quick Collection, you’ll need to convert it to a standard collection, and then clear the Quick Collection before you can use it to assemble a new grouping. To create a new collection for images that are currently in the Quick Collection, right-click / Control-click the Quick Collection folder in the Catalog panel and choose Save Quick Collection from the context menu.
If the Quick Collection Markers option is enabled in the View Options for the Grid view, a circular marker appears in the top right corner of a thumbnail in the Grid view or the Filmstrip when you move your pointer over the image cell. You can add the image to the Quick Collection by clicking this marker.
Once the photo is added to the Quick Collection the marker becomes a solid grey circle. Click the solid marker to remove the image from the Quick Collection. You can select multiple images and perform the same operations for the whole group by clicking the Quick Collection marker on any of the selected thumbnails.
You can also add a selected image or group of images to the Quick Collection by pressing the B key or choosing Photo > Add To Quick Collection, or remove a selected image or group of images from the Quick Collection by pressing the B key again or choosing Photo > Remove From Quick Collection.
Collections
You can create as many permanent collections as you wish. Use a collection to collate the images you need for a particular project or to group photos by subject or any other association.
When you create a collection of images for a slideshow or a web page, all the work you do on your presentation will be saved with the collection in the catalog file. In fact, the catalog entry for a single collection can incorporate your settings from the Develop module, a slide layout and playback options from the Slideshow module, designs you set up in the Book and Web modules, and a page layout modified in the Print module. Output collections for print jobs will also include your color management and printer settings.
Note
Remember that a single photo can be included in any number of collections, although the master image file is located in only one folder in your library. For this reason, grouping your images in collections is a far more versatile organizational method than sorting them into categorized folders.
To create a collection, choose Library > New Collection. Alternatively, click the New Collection button (
) in the header of the Collections panel and choose Create Collection from the menu. Enter a name for the collection and click Create. Your new collection will be listed in the Collections panel; you can then simply drag photos onto the listing in the Collections panel to add them to the collection.
Smart collections
A smart collection searches the metadata attached to your photos and gathers together all those images in your library that meet a specified set of criteria. Any newly imported photo that matches the criteria you’ve set up for a smart collection will be added to that collection automatically.
You can create a Smart Collection by choosing Library > New Smart Collection, and then specify the search criteria for your smart collection by choosing options from the menus in the Create Smart Collection dialog box.
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You can add more search criteria by clicking the + button to the right of any of the rules. Hold down the Alt / Option key and click the Plus button (+) to refine a rule. In the illustration below a second rule has been added to search for images containing “Europe” in any searchable text, and then a refined rule has been added to search for images which were either captured or edited this year.
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