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nilsohman
Known Participant
January 2, 2026
Open for Voting

P: A shortcut to create a virtual copy of an image into another collection

  • January 2, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 87 views

I use virtual copies and collections exensively when I'm working with projects. I often to through images in several collections and folders looking for images in a new project. And I want to create new virtual copies of found images for the new project.

 

I start a new project by creating a collection and set it as the target collection. I then start looking for images for the project in different folders and collections and use the shortcut B to have them appear in the project collection. After the "hunt" I mark all images in the project collection and create virtual copies of all images (Shift-V). With alla virtual copies still marked in the Metadata pane I then give them a copy-name (usually the same as the name of the projectfolder). Then I go to Edit/Invert Selection and then I remove those from the collection. I now have a collection with virtual copies unique for this project. This way I don't risk to alter images that are used in other projects.

 

To make this process easier I would like a new Shortcut (Ctrl-B) that creates a virtual copy of a selected image in the target collection. The copy name should be the name of the target colletion.

2 replies

nilsohman
nilsohmanAuthor
Known Participant
January 10, 2026

Thank you!! I'll try this!

 

Nils

johnrellis
Legend
January 4, 2026

While waiting for Adobe to implement this, you can use the linked script to create virtual copies of the selected files and place them into the target collection, changing their copy names to the name of the collection:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/autt0g9b2gau7pj87kftb/create-vc-into-collection.lua?rlkey=jg0bwucpmtxr0vf72kw7y4n1y&dl=0

 

Instructions for installing the script and assigning it a keyboard shortcut are at the top of the file (open it in Notepad or Textedit).