If Lightroom allowed the user to specify that a smart collection stay selected, then smart collections could be used to define persistent global pre-filters, and if a password was required to deselect, then they could also be used to implement password protected discretionary viewing (e.g. privacy).
I've heard several pleas for privacy, from a single check-box, to levels 1-5 like ratings, defining privacy metadata... This idea would cover all those cases and much more. I mean, maybe you want to let your girlfriend peruse without seeing pictures of your ex-girlfriend. Pictures may only be "private" in certain contexts. I prefer the term "discretionary viewing" instead of "privacy". My most frequent use would be to simply keep all the photos out of my face that I don't really want to see when I'm just generally navigating around... But, this idea can also be used as a more sophisticated global library filter - giving the power of smart collections as global library filter, but freeing up the handy library filters at the top to go with...
Reminder: Very little development time required to implement this - all pieces are already in place.
If you like this idea, please remember to click the '+1' button above - thanks.
Discretionary viewing is a really good idea. Some clients shouldn't have access to other client's photos, so a way to protect groups of photos - perhaps through collections, sounds great. Thanks!
But the problem with this approach is that when you want to view other collection->you loose the filtering
Or when you view your photos per folder or when you set a filter -> the filter is automatically set on all the photos not just the currently selected collection. Try it open a collection and click on one f the keyword on the right panel to filter the photos by this keyword -> photos from outside the collection will appear if they have this keyword tagged.
==>These smart collection MUST work in all cases
so these smart collection, once activated should be acting like super collection.
Any other collection if selected should only display the photos that appear in both collections.
To makee it short these smart locked collection should be used as kind of custom persistent filters.
or antoher way would be to hide all photos present in the collection, rather than display all photo present in the collection.
I prefer using collection only, this make it simpler to retrieve, view or change the private settings of private photos.
You could also add a button in the filter tool bar to filter out private images; whenever you click it - to hide or show- photos, it will prompt you to type the password, if there is any password set.
for each private collection, It should be optional to set a password, so you can easily use these collection to filter unwanted photos, without the fuss of typing passwords.
Indeed sometime I just want some photos to get out of my view not because I do not want to show them to anybody, but because they pollute my catalog (though I want to be able to find them in the catalog as it helps me access them much faster than by the windows explorer and edit them if needed or reuse them,...)
example:
-I import my raws as DNG, but I keep my raws as well so I would like to hide them I do not need to view them all the time.
-I make (or made before lr came to the world) destructive edition, and kept a copy of the original. same problem here I want them both in the catalog but I do not need anymore to view the originals all the time
-I do panorama or HDR, I do not need the photos that were used to that purpose, to appear in the catalog all the time
-I create videos using time step photos , I do not want all those photos to appear all the time.
-And with LR 4 you can create soft proof copies, I do not want them to appear in the catalog all the time
You could tell me to stack photos, and I do that, but I end up with all of my photos being stacked, and I need to unstack to see why they were stacked, and imagine what the stack looks like if I have a multiple-softproofed destructively edited HDR, panorama, with the dngs and the raws images... Ok I am making up the worst possible case. But you get the idea : the stack does not mean anything more.
I also believe that with softproofing more and more people will see the problem when they do it with stacked photos.
I would LOVE to be able to password protect folders.
Images in password protected folders should not show up in searches, unless you globally unlock them.
I'm requesting a Password enabled global filter / tag / checkbox that locks photo's as private allowing me to hide them from view in my Lightroom catalog or while using Bridge. This is a common function in most cameras and is very sought after in viewers. My situation is my photos reside in chronological folder structure and are not segregated so when my son was born I took photo's of the event and some were shared with the family and some were not because of obvious reasons. Now that my son is getting older he likes looking at pictures in Lightroom so I would like to hide them from general view without changing my file structure, moving the pictures or creating a separate catalog. The password lockout is vital because I also have friends and family that look through Lightroom and select picture they want me to give them.
As you can see this was requested 4 years ago, and still is not implemented.
Such a capability is helpful but not sufficient because the files still exist on your hard-drive with viewing still possible with an OS-level viewer--via right-click Show in Explorer/Finder on another photo that isn't hidden, so hiding merely in LR is not that practical except in special situations when the person is smart enough to look in LR, but not smart enough to look in the OS. If you are always supervising other people's viewing of the photos, then you can make a filter that hides the photos you don't want to un-savvy user to see.
Magic Folders/Encrypted Magic Folders from pc-magic.com (and numerous other utilities) can hide/encrypt files unless a password is entered after a hot-key is pressed.
So to accomplish what you're wanting w/o LR having a password function, would be to install such a utility, then select the files you want to keep private, do an Export as Catalog to copy the photo settings into their own catalog, then remove them from the main LR catalog, then use a file-hiding utility (like EMF) to hide both the individual photo files and that separate catalog. Removing from the main catalog is necessary to keep the previews from being seen even if the files are hidden.
Obviously if LR had a password function, then you could use it in conjunction with a OS-level file-hiding utility like EMF and not have the segregate things to their own catalog.
A file-hiding utility that works at the OS-level would work with Bridge, because Bridge displays current folder contents directly rather than having database that stores settings and previews for what was imported regardless of where the files are, now.
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