P: Color collections and collection sets to simplify navigation & cataloging

We need this very basic "feature" Adobe. Why haven't you implemented it yet?!?!?

LIGHTROOM: (Is it possible) to have the ability to highlight (with any color) the folders in the library, so in future I know which folder I have yet to do/to be done. As my library is quite extensive and navigating it can be quite time consuming.

LR has fantastic features to organize-categorize-rate images but there are no such possibilities about Folders, which is a contraddiction for a software primarily meant to help at organizing; the chance of differentiating Folders too by rating, label or any other way to assign them a particular marking could be an extremely helpful and time saving feature.

My many folders of images (I use the ROOT\YYYY\MM\DD\ format) are inevitably various different states - some are freshly imported and untouched, some are partially edited, some are edited but awaiting review, some are published/finished, etc. - but Lightroom offers me no way to keep track of which folder is in which state, so I have to rely on post-it notes and digital todo lists which I maintain outside of the app.

This is error-prone and time consuming. Instead, I would like to be able to right-click a folder and set a state and/or colour in the same way that I can with images. This would allow me to identify the state of all the folders simply by looking at the folder tree-view, and being able to group & filter the treeview by state/colour would be the icing on the cake, so that I can quickly get an overview of how many folders of each state/colour are awaiting my attention.

Please give this serious consideration for LR4, surely this is a feature that would benefit almost all your users, and I can't understand why it hasn't already been thought of and implemented...

I think you are on the right track. It wouldn't surprise me if this feature never gets implemented for folders, because the trend is for folders to be sorta "under the hood", with collections taking the more active role for photo organization.

I use folders almost exclusively for my organizational purposes, so I'm all for making them "first class citizens"/full-featured in Lightroom, but I think I may be in the minority at this point.

For now: metadata, collections, and/or lib filtering is your answer...

I think you are on the right track. It wouldn't surprise me if this feature never gets implemented for folders, because the trend is for folders to be sorta "under the hood", with collections taking the more active role for photo organization.

I use folders almost exclusively for my organizational purposes, so I'm all for making them "first class citizens"/full-featured in Lightroom, but I think I may be in the minority at this point.

For now: metadata, collections, and/or lib filtering is your answer...

Thanks for some great hints to try out. I'm going to experiment with using collections on folders that I need to work with. Ultimately, the color coding or flagging of folders would be preferred, but this at least gives me some flexibility in organizing folders.

|> "So, anyone out there have a suggestion on how to do something similar? What's your workflow in terms of tracking folders needing work?"

I import into a holding area, and only move into the main folders when initial work is complete.

If still more work needed, I tag the files. Initially I used spare IPTC field for it, now I use CustomMetadata - either way works. Make smart collection of stuff needing work (or lib filter).

You can use TextMeta (v1.2+) to include folder path / names so you can display by folder in lib module.

PS - When you clear the "needs work" condition, photos will immediately disappear from your smart "to do" collection, so do that last, or put photos in a regular collection to work on.

Rob

|> "So, anyone out there have a suggestion on how to do something similar? What's your workflow in terms of tracking folders needing work?"

I import into a holding area, and only move into the main folders when initial work is complete.

If still more work needed, I tag the files. Initially I used spare IPTC field for it, now I use CustomMetadata - either way works. Make smart collection of stuff needing work (or lib filter).

You can use TextMeta (v1.2+) to include folder path / names so you can display by folder in lib module.

PS - When you clear the "needs work" condition, photos will immediately disappear from your smart "to do" collection, so do that last, or put photos in a regular collection to work on.

Rob

Love to be able to flag entire folders in the Lightroom Library module.

I flag individual photographs that I would like to work on, but I'd love to be able to flag entire folders in a way that the flag is visible in the navigator pane. I would most likely flag folders that still had photographs needing work, and "unflag" the folder once all work was completed.

So, anyone out there have a suggestion on how to do something similar? What's your workflow in terms of tracking folders needing work?

Thanks,
Andy