"Set copy as original" multiple photos

Question

I am trying to change a whole lot of virtual copies to ‘set copy as original’ in one go for Lightroom Classic on PC.

I know the standard way; select image > photo > ‘set copy as original’ - but this can only do one at a time.

I have discovered if you select all the virtual copies to change, you can leave out the selection step which speed the process up by a fair bit. The step goes as follow:

select all virtual copies so they are highlighted > photos drop down > ‘set copy to original’;

now instead of selecting the next virtual copy, adobe deselects the converted virtual copy automatically, and you can go straight back to the photo drop down > ‘set copy to original’ without needing to selecting the next copy, and continue this till all selected copies have been converted.

unless there is another quicker way I am missing?

Sameer K · Answer

Hi @MEGS77. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. Thank you for the detailed write-up, and apologies for the late response.

What you've found is an efficient method currently available, since there is no built-in way to batch-apply "Set Copy as Original" to multiple virtual copies. It is designed to operate on a single image at a time, even when multiple images are selected.

For now, your workaround of selecting all VCs first and then repeatedly going to Photo > Set Copy as Original is the fastest path.

What you can also do is to use a keyboard shortcut: You can assign a custom keyboard shortcut to this command via a third-party utility, which would let you repeat the action with a single keystroke instead of navigating the menu each time.

Let me know if this helps.
Thanks!
Sameer K

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