P: Lock lib-filtered and smart-collected contents temporarily so photos don't disappear...

[areohbee]

I often round up photos to work on using the library filter or a smart collection. Unfortunately, as soon as I start working on them, they often disappear - you know what I'm talking about, right? (criteria that was holding the photo(s) gets cleared).

How about a lock button, such that the contents of the filtered list or smart collection won't change until unlocked.

(at a minimum, add "Empty Collection" to context menu, since my present workaround is to copy from smart collection to dumb (temp/to-do) collection. But, I often want to clear the to-do collection for a new round, without selecting it and thus losing my present selection...)

If you like this idea, please remember to click the '+1' button below.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Like a pause button? I like that idea. Might help a little with performance on slower machines, or those with hundreds of SC's too.

[johnrellis]

Rob wrote: "at a minimum, add "Empty Collection" to context menu, since my present workaround is to copy from smart collection to dumb (temp/to-do) collection. But, I often want to clear the to-do collection for a new round, without selecting it and thus losing my present selection."

The Photoshop Elements Organizer has a nice feature that made it easier to work with ad hoc sets of photos: a browser-like back/forward button that let you undo and redo just the search and navigation criteria. In LR's terms, you could, for example, select a folder subtree as a source, filter by label, then decide to further filter by lens to identify a subset of photos, make an adjustment, then hit "back" to go back to the previous set of photos.

LR captures all user actions with a single undo/redo, but it's dangerous to use for undoing search and navigation, since I'm always afraid I'll undo an image or keywording adjustment. I think it would be better to separate them, with a back/forward button for undo/redo of search and navigation actions.

I tried implementing back/forward as a plugin, but some bugs in the SDK (reported seperately) made it impossible.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I setup a smart collection with 'cropped' is 'false' to collect images that I want to crop. When applying a crop, as soon as you remove your finger from the mouse button, the picture is removed from the collection and you are left with 'no picture selected'. I have had no chance to adjust the crop.

Shouldn't it wait until you have accepted the crop, by hitting enter? is there a parameter to control this?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same thing with me. I use a smart collection with "adjustments" set to "false" so that all my unedited photos are grouped together until I get a chance to work on them. As soon as I touch any setting for an adjustment in Develop the picture just disappears. I don't like the idea of an "Empty Collections" contextual menu item as the whole point of smart collections is that it is auto organizing so when I complete my edit it should be removed from my "Task" list. What about when going to develop from a smart collection that you add a "Finished" or "Done" button next to the Reset button to let the collection know you are done editing the image and are ready for it to test the filters again?

[andlind]

I use smart collections a lot -- for example I have smart collections for images without a "Person" tag. This is perfect for tagging images with just one person. However, as soon as an image contains more than one person I can't use the normal tools -- as soon as I have tagged one person the image disappears from the collection, preventing me from tagging more people. The tools that unusable are Keyword Suggestions, Keyword Set, and the Keyword List panel itself.

I would like some kind of feature to allow me to temporarily disable the smart collection update. This could be done in a number of ways, for example:

* Simple: Add a "freezed" state to a smart collection -- a hotkey could be used to toggle between the freezed and unfreezed state. In the freezed state, you could be able to add multiple keywords and do other things that otherwise might affect which images are selected.

* Per image: Likewise, but per image. This way you would have select a number of images first and "freeze" them, before adding multiple keywords, and finally unfreeze then. From a user-interface perspective this could be represented using a "pin" of some kind.

* Special key: Selecting keywords while pressing the CMD key (I use a mac) would allow you to select multiple keywords. When the CMD key is released, the smart collection is updated (and, possibly, images are dropped from the smart collection). This is somewhat similar to, say, selecting multiple files in Finder.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I use Smart Collections and Library Filters a lot to fix isseus in my photo library. Like adding keywords to photos not yet keyworded or adding location fields. However, because Lightroom today updates a collection/filter in real time it means that if I have a filter on photos without keywords they are immedeately removed from the view as soon as I enter one keyword, and I do not get a chance to add another. So I would love to have an option to NOT automatically refresh the current view even if the criteria for the view changes.

[johnrellis]

See this related thread

Option to 'lock' focus on current photo during Auto-Import
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

How the heck is this still an issue 6 years later? This is basic editing workflow... or should I say #Classic.

Come on Adobe, I grew up and started paying for this janx, you should do the same and make it worth my money. Nobody wants your crazy cloud crap, we just want to crop pics in simple squares and move along with our day... Please fix these Dumb Collections.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photos...

[john beardsworth]

19 votes is why.

[samkatz88]

First, I love having the Edit Status filter on bottom so I can quickly find edited or unedited images that are otherwise rated with my star or flag system. Problem is trying to work on an "undedited" image.  As soon as you touch any slider, it disappears, as in, it gets edited, so it's no longer there.   Is there any way this behavior can be changed? Or do we have to manually turn off the filter before edit???

[Rick Spaulding -]

Hi Rich,

Yeah, that is what it's designed to do I guess but there is a quick way around it. Filter your unedited images then select all and hit the B key to add them to a Quick Collection. You can edit to your heart's content and they won't disappear.

Does that help?

[Marsje78]

If you have a smart collection with:

"Has adjustments" = "false" 
"Rating" => 1 star or "Picked" = "flagged"

Then you have all the images selected by culling but don't have any adjustments yet.
When I select one of those images and go to develop and make an adjustment it drops out of the smart collection as expected. But also the develop window losses the image before it is finished.

And yes i can add the images to a non smart collection first but it can't be right that Develop losses the image because it drops from a smart collection.....

[Marsje78]

Thank you for merging me in to this one. 
But to be clear. I don't need a lock button. 
I just want the Delevop module not to losse the focus of the image i'm working on if it drops from a smart collection in de background.

(something like: you are working om something on the work floor and the dude from stocks rearranges the todo racks. So he picks up the thing you are working on and places it back to the general stock rack and you have to pick it up again because the stock dude rearranged the todo rack?)

[rpengale]

Agreed. When I'm working on an image in the Develop module, Adobe should not take it from me. I shouldn't need to perform extra steps to place it into some special collection or mark it in some special way before I start developing it. When I decide to quit the develop module, then, if I have used some selection criteria to limit the Library module list, you can update the list appropriately. There is no rational reason to take it and hide it from me before I am done with it.

[JohanElzenga]

You don’t need a button. There are better ways to solve this. Like I said in your original thread, the way Apple Aperture worked is ideal. It will never remove an image from a smart collection (smart album in Aperture) as long as that image is selected. Only when you move to the next image, the previous one may disappear because it no longer fits the criteria.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm using Windows Lightroom Classic version release 10.0.  When I go to edit a jpeg or raw file in a smart collection and use auto adjust, it is automatically removed from the collection before I can do anything or see what's done.  I am left with no selected photo.  I did a workaround by giving them all a temp tag and recreating the criteria for the collection, but it would be a lot easier if it was smart enough not to update the collection immediately.

[COBill]

Not a solution but a suggestion: use a keyword. Usually I'm working on several projects so I just give each one its own keyword and then a single click opens them all in the library module. 

[GoldingD]

What are the rules you assigned to the smaart collection?

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[johnrellis]

Michael, many people use the Quick Collection or create a temp collection to capture the results of a smart-collection search so they don't change underneath you as you work.  After clicking the smart collection, right-click the Quick Collection and do Clear Quick Collection (see the menu for its shortcut) and then type "b".