Stacking is such a helpful and useful feature. For example, when I create a panorama or an HDR bracket, I can stack the photos together, select the stacks, and then let LR figure out the bracketing. SUPER USEFUL for basic bracket shots or panos.
However, I have to unstack or expand the photos to do things with the stcked photos. Some examples:
I have to expand the stacks to mark the used brackets as rejected.
There is no "relativity of stack status" between collections. In other words since stacks are collection specific, I can't grab an entire stack and move it between collections, or add the entire stack to a collection unless I expand the stack. Even if I do, its not stacked when it arrives.
SUGGESTIONS:
- make a command key to allow stack manipulaton - basically a "select all in stack" option key for the selection process.
- make a "reject all but top of stack" command somewhere. A variant on this could be a "flag top of stack and reject the rest" command.
- Make a "stack GIF maker" where a stack could be considered frames of a short animation, and allow exporting that way. As a bonus, have an option to import movies this way.
- Brainstorm other ways to use Stacks. Conceptually, stacks are great - The photographer is only dealing with the top of the stack and thus ignoring all the underlying photos. Why and when is this a good idea? Is there a way to more automatically deal with the stack contents in different ways?
Personally I am manually trashing about 5k photos a year by finding old stacks in collections, unstacking them, highlighting unflagged photos since the stacks don't inherit flags down the stack, then doing THE PURGE. This is clearly wasting my time in library maintenance. Can you help lessen this?
Thanks