P: Add option to create a virtual copy of photo when adding to an existing collection

I too have a use case which could benefit from such functionality: I’d like to be able to have different “views” of photos. A photo could have multiple views, each with a different “Develop settings” (be it crop or any other edit). For example, you could have a set of wallpaper photos, each with different crop settings for different screen sizes.

I would prefer to have an option for collections (regular and smart) which will automatically create a new “view” for each photo in the collection, regardless of whether the photo is added to the collection when the collection is created or later on. Edits made to a photo will behave as follows:

• Edits made in the original folder of the photo will affect and be visible in all “views”
• Edits made in a “regular” collection (i.e. a collection for which the new option is not selected) will behave in the same way, i.e. will be visible across all “views”.
• Edits made to a photo in such a “view collection” will be made on top of the regular edits (i.e. will be additive to the edits made in the original folder and/or in regular collections) and will be local to that collection (that is will affect no other folder / collection containing the photo).

Such functionality would be very helpful for my individual use case, and may satisfy other people’s too.

I can use collections and virtual copies to achieve similar functionality, but it’s a rather clunky solution:

• Virtual copies pollute the folder where they get created.
• Yes, I can check the “make new virtual copies” box when creating a new collection, but this would apply just to the selected photos at the time in which the collection is created: when adding a photo to such a collection later on the user must remember to first create a virtual copy of the photo and then add that virtual copy.

Thanks!

I would also like this as I often want to add an image to a collection as a virtual copy. Currently, I have to add the image, create a VC, and remove the original image. As an example, I have a collection for my Mac wallpapers with VC's that have been cropped and have some more sharpening etc. Example 2 is a collection of images that are going to be edited later in Photoshop where I have removed some of the Lightroom Develop settings, but I still want to have the fully developed original that has been published etc. Example 3 is a client collection that contains various Print versions of cropped images of different aspect ratios.

I could see this being useful, like holding down the Opt key to copy a file to a folder using the OS rather than moving it.