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October 23, 2018
Answered

Library Module Complex Searches

  • October 23, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 313 views

Lightroom's Library module is weak in its search functions. I market some of my work as stock, direct to clients who have very specific requests.

Is there a way to search all photos that contain a specific word in the caption, which were made in specific months (any year), and are in any folder with a specific name? For example, my one of my searches today called for finding all photos with "Pinus" in the caption, photographed during the winter months (November-March), in a garden (I have folders named Gardens under my master "year" folders going back to 1993). Without limiting the search to the months I need, and garden photos only, I had to wade through 3000+ photos to find the handful that fit my client's criteria.

I know I can select individual months, within each year, using the Metadata panel, but it's really tedious to select the months individually within each year. I also know I can select the individual "Gardens" folders and limit my search to those, but again it's very tedious to select each of those separately for each year.

Although it shouldn't matter, I have nearly 300,000 photos in my catalog, running LR Classic CC version 7.5, under Windows 7.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Rob_Cullen

    I am not a user of Plugins, but there is sure to be one that might do what you need. Such as Any Filter by John Ellis. http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfilter.htm

    Any Filter Lightroom Plugin

    To do your filter in Lightroom may involve some time defining Smart Collections, with something like this-

    1 reply

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    October 24, 2018

    I am not a user of Plugins, but there is sure to be one that might do what you need. Such as Any Filter by John Ellis. http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfilter.htm

    Any Filter Lightroom Plugin

    To do your filter in Lightroom may involve some time defining Smart Collections, with something like this-

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.3, Photoshop 27.5, ACR 18.3, Lightroom 9.3, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .