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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
  • 3779 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

Andrzej007
Participating Frequently
January 11, 2012
The simplest example.
Being in "All photographs" you can't stack two photos from different folders which is a big pain.
With stacking possible in collection I suppose (I'm not sure) you could stack photos virtually from anywhere - it would be great!
areohbee
Legend
January 11, 2012
I can't imagine either...
Inspiring
January 10, 2012
... but not as local as flags used to be ;-)

Beat
johnrellis
Legend
January 10, 2012
Does anyone know example workflows (use cases) this stacking design is intended to address? With collection-specific flags, I understood the motivating examples, even though they didn't apply to my workflows. Absent motivating examples, I can't figure out why this stacking design might be useful to a "typical" user.
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 10, 2012
Flags are global, stacks are local
areohbee
Legend
January 10, 2012
Gold star comment.
Inspiring
January 10, 2012
Almost ....

Flags would at least show up in a smart collection if applied in folder/All Photographs, stacks don't.

Beat
areohbee
Legend
January 10, 2012
Put another way, stacking is entirely context-sensitive (it is tied to the source), like how pick flags *used* to be.
Inspiring
January 10, 2012
1) No
2) No
3) No
4) No

Also, to answer your next question :-)
If I stack two photos in All Phtotgraphs, the stack only shows up in the containing folder (not in any collections nor smart collections).

Beat
johnrellis
Legend
January 10, 2012
[I'm away from a fast connection for many days so can't download the beta.]

I'm confused by Beat's comment. In LR 4 beta, suppose I stack two photos in collection A. Will those photos appear stacked when I select the following sources?

- All Photographs
- the containing folders
- collection B (which also contains the two photos)
- a Smart Collection matching the two photos