P: Ability to sync Smart Collections with Ecosystem Clients

[nycgeo]

Collection synching / Lightroom Mobile is a great addition to Lightroom 5.4. Please extend this functionality to Smart Collections as well.

[WitsEndFL]

I agree completely with Geoffrey! Smart Collections are such a powerful tool to organize photos in LR, I have far more Smart Collections based on Keywords than regular manual collections. The inability for LR to sync Smart Collections is a disappointment and limits the value of LR Mobile for me. Please add this feature to a future release!

[Henrik Eidem Kurka]

Smart collections AND folders

[SJ_Fotography]

yeah I also have lot of smart collections created, would love to see such a feature.

[SJ_Fotography]

would love to see such a feature, I've lot of smart collections in my catalog 😕

[Tom Hogarty]

Thanks everyone. This would absolutely be a good addition to Lightroom mobile. There are some complexities because of the dynamic nature of smart collections. If a smart collection includes pick flag as a criteria and you unflag an image on the ipad, would you want to be able to undo that choice and bring the image back to Lr mobile without returning to the desktop? If so, for how long?

Regards,
Tom

[WitsEndFL]

Tom, thank you for replying on this so quickly. When I realized smart collections were not included in this release of LR mobile, I assumed the reason must be due to the dynamic nature of the smart collection and the selection criteria used. In my opinion, for those of us that use smart collections, we know what selection criteria we used to create the collection. If we change the "flag" or other item which caused an image to appear in a smart collection in desktop LR, it immediately disappears from our smart collection which relied on a specific criteria. In LR mobile, I don't think it should be any different. If we change a pick flag in LR mobile and that was the criteria that we used as part of our smart collection, it should disappear from the collection in LR mobile near immediately just like it does on desktop LR. If we realize this as a mistake, we can always go back to LR desktop to re-pick an image if need be.

[SJ_Fotography]

Another option would be to give an update option for smart collection in mobile. Which means even though we change some parameters those affect the smart collection condition they won't change automatically until the user exclusively click update. This can cover situations where user changed any of such property by mistake.

It would be good to keep such option than immediately updating coz users might mainly use the mobile app when they are away from the desktop.

[nycgeo]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your reply. I'm basically with Doug on this. Changing a pick flag on a smart collection image and causing it to disappear from LR Mobile is not substantively different from deleting an image from a static collection. The net result is one less image in a collection with no way to add it back on Mobile.

A potential solution to this issue is to simply include a mobile-only folder or collection of the n most recently removed images. This folder would allow users to view and re-add any images that were deleted /removed by mistake.

[Brad Balfour]

Right. I'm with Geoffry and Doug. Don't let edge cases like the pick flag being used in the smart collection query prevent you from doing the 80% that is really useful to most people.

I really just want to be able to sync the smart collection to mobile so I can refine the photos. Most of the smart collections don't depend on criteria involving things like pick flags.

[jovapo]

Why not just have a pop-up warning when the user tries to do something that would remove the photo from the collection? If they hit ok remove the photo, if they hit cancel don't make the change. It could be one of those don't show again warnings so it wouldn't be too annoying?

Also I was wondering why there isn't an option to just sync my whole library? Maybe this is planned for a future release. If this was possible it would be another way to fix the sync issues with smart collections as you could also go find the photo in the library.

[janbth]

I agree with what has been said in favor of smart collection syncing. I would also add the suggestion to have the ability to undo changes. So, if a photo disappears from the collection due to a pick flag being changed, one could "undo last change" and the photo would reappear.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I think syncing smart collections is a must, and was very dissapointed when this was not included. Currently I have 2 normal collections and 75 smart collections.

Regarding the editing of photos that results in photo being removed, I would really like to see an undo button (or shake to undo as is default on iOs). I don't think that there should be a time limit, but undo could be limited to 10 undos, and only for the current program session.

[SJ_Fotography]

Probably we can have a separate section to show photos being removed from the smart collection as a result of changes the user made and keep it there until the user confirms or clears.

The way I work should not cause me trouble even when it's immediately removed, since I create smart collection based on a collection, so if a photo is removed I can still find it in my collection.

Another work around would be to create a collection with all our photographs and flag it back if we accidentally unflagged them which removed it from smart collection. This way you do not have to go back to the desktop to add the picture back to smart collection.

Basically I would say, enable this feature for us, we will find work around how to make use of it 🙂

[callmedoug]

Feature Request for Lightroom Mobile: Sync to Smart Collections, or auto Sync new photos.

What would be great is if when I add photos to Lightroom, they can automatically be added to LR Mobile. Since LR Mobile will not sync a Smart Collection, there is no way to auto upload photos right to LR Mobile without some manual intervention.

In my case I want to shoot wirelessly from my camera to LR, using Auto-Import. Then have those photos go right to LR Mobile for review.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom Mobile allows the iPad version of Lightroom to sync with your desktop collections. However, the collections that can be synced are only static collections that you must manually create. Lightroom needs to be able to sync a Smart Collection with the iPad.

[0mx9]

The little synchronize symbol does not appear next to smart collections. I guess it is possible to make a normal collection, synch that, then copy the entire smart collection every once in a whlle and paste the smart collection into the normal collection. I think that won't delete deleted photos though.

[Eugene Master]

I define my smart collections with keywords, not with simple flags or color codes. So a flag change on the iPad makes no difference to me. Likewise, should I add/delete keywords on iPad, I would want those changes to sync back to my computer. Best of all, it would be awesome if the photo would add itself to the proper collection based on keyword rules while still on the iPad. I use flags only to keep or discard photos, so I would absolutely want those to sync back and change.

[Jim Wilde]

Correct. Smart Collections are not supported for syncing with LR mobile. Hopefully that will change, why not add your vote in this thread from the feedback site:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_should_be_able_to_sync_smart_collect...

[ryosode]

My ideal workflow for Lightroom Mobile will be to come back from a full day of shooting, start importing on my desktop, then just have iPad in my hand and start reviewing images in "Previous Import" auto collection or "Today's Image" type smart collection. I usually review images promptly, so I don't really care if the contents of smart collection changes day to day and iPad's synced images change on day-to-day basis.

I also don't use flag. I use keywords and star rating for image categorization.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Oh my gosh! This would be so awesome. I'm actually surprised that it isn't something that is already implemented. It's great to see that you guys are actually looking into this.

[cweng50]

Agreed that smart collections are essential. i was really looking forward to this, but so far i think Mosaic still has the better paradigm, where it syncs everything by folder and allows you to browse by folder, and then then adds the collections as well so you can browse by collections.

[Colin RedGriff]

I too was disappointed when I found that smart collections couldn't be synched to the cloud.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I agree with Doug. I use pick flags and star ratings in almost all of my smart collections (and I only use smart collections).

I don't really agree with jovapo's comment "Why not just have a pop-up warning when the user tries to do something that would remove the photo from the collection? " because the point of me using pick flags and star ratings is to determine whether the image should be in this collection or graduate to another based on my selection. A 'confirm?' waring every time would be MUCH more annoying than the 1 in 100 times that I change a pick flag and want to get it back.

I think a single level of undo would solve this. I have never accidentally eliminated an image from a smart collection and then wanted it back 10 minutes later. For me, It is always an immediate "oops!" Undo solves that.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Smart Collections are an integral part of my Lightroom workflow. I use Smart Collections to identify what stage an image in my workflow.

Pretty please with a cherry on top support Smart Collections