Relying solely on your brain is an ineffective way to remember where your images are. If you use Adobe Lightroom Classic, it won't matter how cluttered your hard drive is; you can find just about any photo if you spend a little time organizing them.
Ben Willmore explains how to organize your images with collections in Lightroom Classic. A collection is like a playlist in a music program. If you drag a photo on top of a collection, Lightroom Classic remembers the location of that image to display it to you later; Lightroom Classic doesn't actually move it on your hard drive. This allows you to access images easily at any time, as collections act like virtual folders that allow you to group and manage photos without altering their original location. In his tutorial, Willmore demonstrates how to create new collections, create collection sets, group images into collections and organize images with flags, stars or color labels.
Collections are a tool to group photos in one place for easy viewing and to perform a variety of tasks. Once created, collections are listed in the Collections panel of every module. They can be selected at any time you need them. You can create as many collections as you need.
- Navigate to the Collections panel, typically on the left side of the screen.
- Click the Plus icon to the right of the Collections panel.
- Choose Create Collection from the dropdown menu.
- Enter a name for the collection.
- Click Create.
Drag the image(s) from the
Grid view to a collection in the Collections panel. Images can be added to multiple collections.
Note: The number to the right of the collection name indicates the total number of images in that collection.
- Navigate to the collection containing the image(s).
- Select the image(s) you want to remove.
- Press Delete or right click and choose Remove from Collection.
Note: This only removes the image from the collection — it does not delete it from the library or your hard drive.
A collection set is a container that includes one or more collections but doesn't hold photos itself, providing flexibility for photo organization. It is represented by a filing box or 'shoebox' icon.
- Navigate to the Library module.
- Click the Plus icon to the right of the Collections panel.
- Select Create Collection Set from the dropdown menu.
- Enter a name for the collection set.
- Click Create. The collection set is added to the list and appears as a 'shoebox' icon.
- In the Collections panel, drag any collection into a collection set folder to add it to the set.
- Click the collapse and expand icon in the collection set within the panel to view or hide its contents.
Note: You cannot drag an image into a collection set; a set can only contain collections.
When you have a large number of collections and collection sets, you can rely on searching for collections instead of remembering your organizational structure.
- Click into the search bar field found at the top of the collections list.
- Enter a keyword to search through the image collections. The list will only display the matching collections and their collection sets.
Attributes such as
flags,
star ratings and
color labels can be added to individual images to help you organize and sort your images later. This is especially useful when working with large sets in collections.
- Select an image in one of your collections.
- The Toolbar appears horizontally at the bottom of the screen. If it is not already displayed, you can choose to show it.
- Select the View option in the menu bar.
- Navigate to and select Show Toolbar from the drop-down menu; the toolbar will appear horizontally at the bottom of the screen.
- Set any of the following attributes for the selected image:
- Pick indicators are used to mark whether an image is picked or rejected and are represented by flags.
- Choose the white flag icon from the toolbar to pick an image (e.g., note the need for printing) or use the keyboard shortcut P for Pick. Or, choose the black flag with an "X" from the toolbar to reject an image (e.g., note the need for removal) or use the keyboard shortcut X for Reject.
- Star ratings are a more granular system for rating images, ranging from 1 to 5 stars.
- Choose the number of stars to be assigned to the image from the toolbar (e.g., five stars might indicate that an image is a favorite, where one star might indicate the least favorite) or use the keyboard shortcut numbers 0-5 to set the star rating.
- Color labels can be assigned and used to represent whatever you like for your organizational needs. Available colors are red, yellow, green, blue and purple.
- Choose the desired color from the toolbar to add to the image or use the keyboard shortcut numbers 6-9 (6=red, 7=yellow, 8=green, 9=blue). Note: Purple does not have a default keyboard shortcut.
Once attributes have been assigned to images in a collection, those attributes can be used to sort the order in which the images display to help you organize even further.
- Navigate to and select the View menu.
- Select Sort. A menu of sort options opens.
- Click to select the attribute that you would like to use to sort your images – Rating sorts by the number of assigned stars, Pick sorts by the assigned pick and reject flags, Label Color sorts by the assigned colors.
You can also filter images based on their assigned attributes to make finding images even easier. Filtering by an attribute will only display the images that have that attribute assigned.
- The Filter Bar appears horizontally at the bottom of the screen. If it is not already displayed, you can choose to show it.
- Select the View option in the menu bar.
- Navigate to and select Show Filter Bar from the drop-down menu; the filter bar will appear horizontally at the bottom of the screen.
- Click Attribute in the filter bar to open the attribute filtering options.
- Click to select the desired attribute for the images you want to show – Flag for picks or rejects, Rating for images with the selected number of stars or more, Color for the desired Color Labels.
- Optionally, click a selected filter attribute to unselect it and clear that filter, or click None in the filter bar to clear all filters at once.