Converting pre-existing collections to Folders?

[adriant12105070]

In trying to sort my front page in SmugMug, I discovered that to do a complete positional sort all subject files must be the same, that is one cannot mix folders and galleries. Galleries are what have been exported from Lightroom Classic via the SmugMug plugin as a Collection.

So, in reverting to Lightroom, I found that the exported collections were all created following a catalog search for specific subject matter, ie. “Dogs”

So my question is how, in Lightroom, can an existing collection drawn from multiple folders be retroactively  converted so that they are a collection within a new folder? I have tried to do this, even changing the name, but I get the Move warning which I do not want to do, as I want the originals to remain in their source folders.

Thank you.

Adrian

[Discussion moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Lightroom Classic — The desktop-focused app]

[Akash Sharma]

Hi Adrian,

I can't think of a way of doing this.

However, It seems like a great idea, could you share this as a feature request here? Lightroom Classic | Photoshop Family Customer Community  This forum is monitored by our developers and they might look into it for future updates.

Thanks,

Akash

[JohanElzenga]

I’m not sure what you are asking. There’s no such thing as a “collection within a folder”. Even though you could look at collections as ‘virtual folders’, they are different from real folders and reside in their own panel.

[dj_paige]

If it has to be done in folders within Lightroom, then you have to move the photos to the newly created folders. And, if you have a photo that is in two (or more) collections, this method would seem to fail. The whole idea of Lightroom is to move you past the limitations of folders, so more advanced and powerful organizing tools can be used.

You can export collections to individual folders (which contain the exported files, not the original files). Does that meet your needs?

[adriant12105070]

When you say “export to individual folders” are you saying folders in Lightroom?

[dj_paige]

adriant12105070  wrote

When you say “export to individual folders” are you saying folders in Lightroom?

Export implies the folders are in your operating system. There really are no folders in Lightroom Classic, what you see in the folder panel in Lightroom Classic is the operating system folders that Lightroom Classic knows about.

[adriant12105070]

Ok, here is the workflow.

With the SmugMug plugin installed in LR in Publish Services, one can set up a folder, and even limitless galleries(similar to LR collections).

if one highlights a LR Folder, or collection it can be dragged and dropped into a newly created folder or collection  in the Publish SmugMug section of the Library module, and exported.

I have just experimented to see if random photos selected from across the folders in the catalog, will export to SmugMug, and it works.

I further created new folders and galleries with test names in the SmugMug LR Plugin and exported the original images in a folder to SmugMug, and it not only worked, but because it was a folder and not a stand alone collection that was exported, I am now able to sort the folder home images in Smugmug, whereas before, SmugMug did not allow sorting of a mix of folders and galleries(collections).

Seems like the issue is now resolved, and once again, thanks to all the contributions.

[cmgap]

Try a test by working with a small collection > duplicate the collection and rename it to match the smugmug folder > Export the collection for SmugMug. When you export the collection, make the appropriate settings for smugmug as usual. Let us know if that will work.

[adriant12105070]

Thank you for your suggestion. Creating a folder for a pre-existing collection, even with name changes doesn’t seem to work.

To recap, SmugMug sorts folders first and galleries(exported Lightroom collections) second. So alpha sorts for a home page presentation doesn’t work. I have tried renaming in LR etc. and that does not appear to work.

My big issue is if one selects images from across many folders within a catalogue,( doing a text search), the only place those images can reside is in a collection. If one creates a folder and attempts to place the images there, the MOVE warning  appears, and I want the originals to remain in their respective folders.

If anyone has further thoughts, please let me know. It has been suggested that I refer this to Photoshop Family.

Thanks,

Adrian

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Creating a folder for a pre-existing collection, even with name changes doesn’t seem to work. To recap, SmugMug sorts folders first and galleries(exported Lightroom collections) second. So alpha sorts for a home page presentation doesn’t work. I have tried renaming in LR etc. and that does not appear to work.

Perhaps it is because I don't use SmugMug, but I don't see why exporting an entire collection to a new folder doesn't get what you want.

[adriant12105070]

Thank you for your thought. When using the SmugMug plugin, there is no ability to create a new folder. As I have just read the in another post from Johan, it is impossible to have a photo resident in two Lightroom Folders. That said, it appears that whatever I have to engineer, has to be done in SmugMug, ie random photos from different folders in LR can only be resident as copies in a collection, but cannot be in two folders. Therefore I have to stick with exporting the random photos via a collection.

Thanks to all for your contributions....much appreciated.

Adrian

[dj_paige]

Aha, that explains it, the SmugMug plugin won't work with collections the way you want. Seems to me you might want to try this plug-in from Jeffrey Friedl (which is donationware, although there is a free trial) to see if it will work any better. Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “Export to SmugMug” Lightroom Plugin

[JohanElzenga]

adriant12105070  wrote

My big issue is if one selects images from across many folders within a catalogue,( doing a text search), the only place those images can reside is in a collection. If one creates a folder and attempts to place the images there, the MOVE warning  appears, and I want the originals to remain in their respective folders.

Folders in Lightroom are real folders on disk. That is why it is impossible to add an image to more than one folder. And that is why collections are so much better to organise your images. An image can be in as many collections as you want.