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johnrellis
Legend
April 2, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Stacking in folders and collections should be global

  • April 2, 2011
  • 88 replies
  • 3758 views

Stacks should be handled uniformly, regardless of the source selected. As it stands, stacks are second-class citizens in Lightroom.

* Currently, photos in different folders can’t be stacked. This restriction forces users to be aware of which folder a photo resides in, which goes against the mainstream digital-asset-management philosophy of hiding folder locations. I don’t know of any use-case justifying this restriction.

* Stacking isn’t displayed when viewing collections and smart collections. This is especially annoying when viewing smart collections, since smart collections are the only way to do advanced searching. It would be better if stacks were viewable within collections just as they are within folders and with filtering – when more than one photo in a stack is part of a collection, then the stack could be collapsed or expanded, but only the photos in the collection will be shown. This is the way stacks work now with filtering, so extending this to collections would be consistent. Users who don’t want to see stacking in collections could simply invoke Expand All Stacks.

* And of course, you should be able to stack and unstack photos when viewing a collection.

88 replies

john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020
Because as I explained earlier in this thread, stacking was originally conceived as a tool for reviewing and presented the best of a group of images on top of the stack, hence it has details like moving items up and down within the stack. However, people soon started using stacks to implement a persistent connection or relationship between images, because it was easier and more natural than adding metadata, for example. What we're looking at is a clash between these two concepts.
Antoine HLMN
Known Participant
April 19, 2020
No, it is not a bug. It is a feature which gives you the flexibility of having photos stacked differently in different places. So in collection 1 which I set up for a slideshow presentation, a stack can contain images x y z a b c, while z a b are also in a stack in collection 2 which is for a book, while in the folders none of those stacked. Previously, flags behaved similarly, and the per-folder/collection stacking was introduced when Adobe made flags global.

I totally get and understand the need for having different stacks in different collections. But you can just "unstack" and them restack as much as you want, according to your new preferences. I don't see why the stacks inheritance is limited to ONE single folder level.
Antoine HLMN
Known Participant
April 19, 2020
No, it is not a bug. It is a feature which gives you the flexibility of having photos stacked differently in different places. So in collection 1 which I set up for a slideshow presentation, a stack can contain images x y z a b c, while z a b are also in a stack in collection 2 which is for a book, while in the folders none of those stacked. Previously, flags behaved similarly, and the per-folder/collection stacking was introduced when Adobe made flags global.

I totally get and understand the need for having different stacks in different collections. But you can just "unstack" and them restack as much as you want, according to your new preferences. I don't see why the stacks inheritance is limited to ONE single folder level.
Antoine HLMN
Known Participant
April 19, 2020
Thanks John, but I honestly still don't get it. I've already made hundreds of stacks in tens of folders. I'm keeping my pictures organized by date. And no matter what, if I want all those images in ONE collection (place, whatever where), I can't find a way to preserve those stacks.
Copying the parent folder does not work, cosigning the images does not work either.
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020
"So how do I get in the same collection, stacks from different folders ?"

There's no trick. You just have to add the photos to the collection, and then go to the collection and drag the photos into stacks.

Antoine HLMN
Known Participant
April 19, 2020
By dragging photos into the stacks.

What do you mean?
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020
"Make somebody like John Beardsworth could write a plugin for that?...  ;)"

Except plugins can't stack. OK, there is a way but it is only if a plugin imports the photos (bypassing the regular Import dialog).
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020
By dragging photos into the stacks.
Antoine HLMN
Known Participant
April 19, 2020
Héhé! Would be an option, but I prefer to use what's provided by the original software 🙂

I think I found a workaround:

What if I copy the folders into a collection set, and treat that collection set as my target collection, without caring about the individual collection within ?
JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2020
Make somebody like John Beardsworth could write a plugin for that?...  😉
-- Johan W. Elzenga