P: Stacking in folders and collections should be global

[johnrellis]

Stacks should be handled uniformly, regardless of the source selected. As it stands, stacks are second-class citizens in Lightroom.

* Currently, photos in different folders can’t be stacked. This restriction forces users to be aware of which folder a photo resides in, which goes against the mainstream digital-asset-management philosophy of hiding folder locations. I don’t know of any use-case justifying this restriction.

* Stacking isn’t displayed when viewing collections and smart collections. This is especially annoying when viewing smart collections, since smart collections are the only way to do advanced searching. It would be better if stacks were viewable within collections just as they are within folders and with filtering – when more than one photo in a stack is part of a collection, then the stack could be collapsed or expanded, but only the photos in the collection will be shown. This is the way stacks work now with filtering, so extending this to collections would be consistent. Users who don’t want to see stacking in collections could simply invoke Expand All Stacks.

* And of course, you should be able to stack and unstack photos when viewing a collection.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

What is really bad is that images in stacks are not found through a search. Unless you already know that you have a particular image, you'll never be able to find it again unless you expand all stacks first.

That greatly diminishes the value of stacks to me.

[areohbee]

Good idea John. I have nothing to add over what you and TK already have said...

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Stacking is now available in Collections in the Lightroom 4 beta. You can read more about it here: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

[areohbee]

Thank God! er, I mean Adobe...

[b_gossweiler]

But AFAIK, stacks don't carry over from folders to collections and vice versa, do they?

Beat

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

No, true. Do we want this reopened?

[b_gossweiler]

I think we would 😉

[areohbee]

The big print giveth, but the small print taketh away...

[johnrellis]

[I'm away from a fast connection for many days so can't download the beta.]

I'm confused by Beat's comment. In LR 4 beta, suppose I stack two photos in collection A. Will those photos appear stacked when I select the following sources?

- All Photographs
- the containing folders
- collection B (which also contains the two photos)
- a Smart Collection matching the two photos

[b_gossweiler]

1) No
2) No
3) No
4) No

Also, to answer your next question :-)
If I stack two photos in All Phtotgraphs, the stack only shows up in the containing folder (not in any collections nor smart collections).

Beat

[areohbee]

Put another way, stacking is entirely context-sensitive (it is tied to the source), like how pick flags *used* to be.

[b_gossweiler]

Almost ....

Flags would at least show up in a smart collection if applied in folder/All Photographs, stacks don't.

Beat

[areohbee]

Gold star comment.

[john beardsworth]

Flags are global, stacks are local

[johnrellis]

Does anyone know example workflows (use cases) this stacking design is intended to address? With collection-specific flags, I understood the motivating examples, even though they didn't apply to my workflows. Absent motivating examples, I can't figure out why this stacking design might be useful to a "typical" user.

[b_gossweiler]

... but not as local as flags used to be ;-)

Beat

[areohbee]

I can't imagine either...

[Andrzej007]

The simplest example.
Being in "All photographs" you can't stack two photos from different folders which is a big pain.
With stacking possible in collection I suppose (I'm not sure) you could stack photos virtually from anywhere - it would be great!

[johnrellis]

That's what we thought was the intended design. But according to Beat, if you stack two photos in a collection (regardless of whether they are in the same folder or not), they won't appear stacked when you select All Photographs.

[hsbn]

Can you create a collection that contain All Photographs? Would the stack transfer from one collection to another?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Surely, this isn't the way you would expect stacks to work? In Elements stacks seem to work the way I would expect - so if you stack images together they are effectively treated as a single photo where ever you view them from! I can see some possibilities of context specific stacking - but in general I would have thought that this is not what is required. I would completely agree with John's original proposal about how stacking should work and if do a search or use a Smart Collection you should be presented with the pre-stacked photos and have the option to expand them if required. It would be a real shame for LR4 to do some work in this area - but still not deliver functionality which is already working in other members of the Photoshop family!!

[bengineer]

I liked it better when flags were local.

[areohbee]

You can have stacks in collections be same as in folders using Stacker:

http://www.robcole.com/Rob/ProductsAn...

[Califdan]

Yes, the stacking feature of LR is, at the same time, a potentially very powerful feature, and not quite living up to its promise.

I would also like to see a way to expand a stack and have all the images become "selected" as part of the expansion (rather than just the top image). As a suggestion, perhaps if you hold when you click the "1 of x" symbol the stack is expanded with all images selected.

I'd also like to see a way to have meta data changes applied to the entire stack when you change it on the top image on a collapsed stack. Perhaps a preference setting. For example, if I add or remove a Keyword to the top image of a collapsed stack I'd like to be able to have that change replicate to all images in the stack rather than just the first one.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

But not in Smart collections.