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.

[johnrellis]

Thanks for posting details about your workflow.   As you can see in this thread, there are many who similarly desire stacks to be global.

Unfortunately, in the five years since the feature appeared, though a few have expressed the opinion that they like stacks to be local, no one has backed up their opinion with details about how their workflow uses local stacks.

At this point, I think it's unlikely Adobe will ever change the behavior.

[Califdan2]

Anssi, 

I'm not going to dismiss the desire of many people to change how stacking works (for example allow images in different folders to be stacked together, allow stacks to work in collections, etc.) but one has to understand where the concept of stacking came from.  This goes back to the days of film and slide film in particular.  After our "shoot" was processed we'd put the slides on a light table and literally stack similar images.  It was rare that one would ever stack slides from two different shoots (e.g. on from this years Superbowl with one from last years Superbowl, or one from this wedding with once from some other couples wedding).  In fact, any images taken more than a few minutes apart would probably not be stacked.  This is the model Adobe used when creating LR.  The thought was that images from any particular "shoot" (however you define it) would be in one folder.   The classic use of slide stacking was when we bracketed our shots.

As a prolific LR user, I too have a need to clump or group similar images when selecting those I'm going to put on my web site, or send to the client or add to a photo book or slideshow and in many cases these similar images are not in the same folder.  And, yes, I've said to myself I sure wish I could stack these.  but I've created work arounds.  

Let me go back to Anssi's case.  First of all you may want to rethink having 9 folders for 3 days and 3 cameras.  First of all, Date is a strong metadata field that can be used for filtering, smart collections, and sorting so if you consider the 3 day "event" as one "shoot" you really will not have lost much.  Second,  I too shoot with multiple cameras.  For me it's important that I can sort by capture date/time to see things in chronological order  even though I kept switching camera's.  So, I naturally want them in one folder.  But it's possible that two cameras could produce the same file name on the same day.  So, when I import images from my memory cards I let LR rename the files.  For example, images from my Canon 5D Mark III would have a file name like 5dk3-#1234 (for image IMG_1234).  Now I can keep the entire shoot in one folder and stack to my hearts content.

Now, when it comes to selecting photos to publish, I don't use stacking but rather I use collections - most often the Quick Collection with the "B" related speed keys.  Keeping with a sports analogy, let's say I'm trying to select between several bull riders being thrown off the bull.  What I'll do (after rating them) is select filter for>= 3 stars.  Then I put all the candidates in the SC (Smart Collection) by tapping B for them.  Then I open the SC, click "N" for survey view or "C" for compare view and narrow the field to the best one(s) and I bump up the star count or drag them to the collection I'm using to gather the images for that book or client or whatever.  

But, that's just me.  So, even though I initially wished that stacks could span folders that is no longer high on my list.  However I do still wish that if I have stacked images in folder, that when I look at those images in a collection (especially a smart collection in my case) that it would show me the stack position and let me perform stacking operations assuming, of course, that images involved are in the same folder.

One other thing.  Anssi, I'm sure you're aware that you can view multiple folders at one time by selecting more than one in the Folder panel.  I mention this because one reason I've seen people want to put images in collections is so they can see multiple folders at once in the grid not knowing that you can multi-select folders.

Dan

[john beardsworth]

When you make that new collection, use  the Duplicate right click command - it automatically duplicates the existing collection's stacking.

Local stacks allow one to, for example, group pictures in a collection you're using to create a book or another type of presentation. Stacks act like chapters or  sections, providing an overview and letting you easily reorder the sections. Local stacks are flexible enough to allow the same photos to be stacked differently in different contexts. If stacks went global, you wouldn't be able to do that.

And see my comment earlier, "Flags are global, stacks are local".  Stacking in Lightroom is designed for a client selection workflow, where you hide the rejects by stacking. And after we lost local flags, we needed another local way to identify the winners and rejects. Local stacking provides the flexibility to group photos  differently in more than one collection - eg a collection for the bride and groom to choose which of the big kiss shots is the winner, another collection when you're creating a portfolio of the studio's wedding work. Global stacking doesn't provide that flexibility.

People use and think about stacking in too many ways to make either local or global satisfactory, and I agree it's unlikely to change. Adobe would just break too many workflows without really satisfying those who think global stacking is the solution.

[joshanon]

My workflow and desire for stacks to be global is likely simpler than what you describe.  I have the RAW master file.  Then I edit a version in Photoshop or in a plugin.  I want to keep those versions together, no matter where the image is.  That way, if I make a smart collection to see 5-star images, for example, I could see the TIF, decide I want to re-process the RAW (or maybe I need the RAW to export to verify the image), and I wouldn't have to hunt for it.  

I used to do that in Aperture easily with stacks.  Now I have to go searching.

[Ralph Hill]

John, you seem to have a different view of how stacks should work than I do. I think that is fine. And I agree that changing the way that stacks work would break things for many people.

So, maybe you could help me out. I have historically used stacks in Aperture to group related photos. Examples: a burst of photos of a single animal with related poses, photos to be stitched into a panorama, photos to be blended into an HDR, photos for a stacked night image. It is important to stack the photos with an exemplar image on top and maybe color flags to hint at what is below in order to reduce clutter (for night stacked images I am current shoot 30+ frames, bursts of animals can be 10 to 20 easily, HDRs are 5 to 7, without stacking it is pretty much impossible to see what I have). In Aperture I could import my photos, stack, evaluate and later arrange the photos into albums (think catalogs) organized in different ways (e.g., birds vs. mammals vs. landscapes, or by date, or by location...) In each album the stacks would be preserve (that is critical). How do I get this functionality in Lightroom?

In summary, I want to group images in the main folder because the images are related or are finished together. I then want to organize all photos including the groups into multiple collections based on some arbitrary criteria, where the groups are preserved (I do not want to have to re-group in every collection). 

Suggestions?

[Califdan2]

Create a Keyword (KW) for whatever "grouping" you're after at the moment.  Apply the KW to the desired images.  filter on the KW.

[john beardsworth]

Lightroom doesn't let you lock photos together in a stack that persists in all collections, Ralph, so you won't find that functionality in Lightroom. Apart from using keywords, and that Duplicate collection method, another trick is to do your stacking  in the folder before you add the photos to collections. Then drag the folder from the Folders panel and drop it into the Collections panel - this creates a new collection with the existing stacking. Not the same as a persistent grouping, I accept, but it can be a helpful approach.

I agree with your earlier comment about the need for a ground-up redesign. Stacking is designed for a particular way of working, a client selection process, but people have sought to use stacking to meet a wider range of needs to group images. Rather than losing the flexibility of local stacking, the way forward would be to find other ways to represent grouping.  I remember making some suggestions, but it was a long time ago....

Edited - apologies if you saw Rory instead of Ralph. There are a lot of you Hills 😉

[Ralph Hill]

Thanks to Dan and John for the replies. I agree that keyboarding seems to be the only answer for now and that is what I am trying. The next thought I had was to have named filters so I could quickly jump say, from mammals to birds to pictures from days 3. Then I realized that smart collection are named filters. Yes! Wait, smart collections are collections which means that they ignore stacks. Sigh. I just don't see a winning move here.

[johnrellis]

"named filters so I could quickly jump say, from mammals to birds to pictures from days 3."

To be precise about terminology, Library filters are a different beast from smart collections, and you can do some of what you want to do with filters. For example, you could define filter presets to show photos with the keyword Birds or Mammals:



An advantage of filters is that they can be applied to the currently selected source (e.g. a folder or collection), whereas smart collections cannot (there is a clumsy workaround). A disadvantage of filters is that they do not support all the criteria that smart collections do (another design wart).  For example, while filters let you (somewhat clumsily) filter by date, you can't easily do "capture date in the last 3 days", as you can with smart collections.  

[Ralph Hill]

Thanks for the suggestion John. Saving library filter presets helps. This is not something l had looked at. One issue is that the presets change everything. So, if you are working on 4 star birds and want to switch to 4 star mammals, you have to select the filter preset then the star level (unless you have saved presets for every combination you might want) and perhaps also flags, possibly change the sort order and then try to remember what images you were looking at last. So, yes, you can get to the collection of images you want with a handful of clicks, but you have lost all the context from the last time you were looking at this collection. A bit better than nothing, but not a good solution for the work I do.

[Califdan2]

another time saver when using keywords and filters is to use a Text filter rather than a metadata filter.  For example, rather than selecting "Birds" in the metadata filter column called Keywords, use the text filter and select Keywords in the first box, and contains,contains all, or starts with in the 2nd box and 'Birds" in the 3rd box.  then when you want to switch to "Fish" just type 'Fish" right over "Birds" in that 3rd box.

[johnrellis]

"use the text filter and select Keywords in the first box, and contains,contains all, or starts with in the 2nd box and 'Birds" in the 3rd box"

Unfortunately, depending on the keyword hierarchy, that can often produce false matches.  For example, "Keywords contains words birds" would match the keyword "blue birds".  And "Keywords start with birds" would match the keywords "blue birds" and "birdseed"".

(The lack of exact match for keywords and other fields is another design wart.)

[SteddyShots]

Very odd that you still cannot stack items from different folders. Most set folders to be by year, month and day. So say you are shooting a series of photos at night time around midnight. Some photos will be in one folder for one day, and ones taking seconds later after midnight will be in the second day folder, and you can't stack them which seems quite odd.

[Antoine HLMN]

Same issue here: I created a ton of stacks in the folders where the images are in. Now I copied those images in collections and ... stacks are gone! What an annoying bug 😞

[JohanElzenga]

It's not a bug, because it's as designed. Except it's designed badly.

[john beardsworth]

No, it is not a bug. It is a feature which gives you the flexibility of having photos stacked differently in different places. So in collection 1 which I set up for a slideshow presentation, a stack can contain images x y z a b c, while z a b are also in a stack in collection 2 which is for a book, while in the folders none of those stacked. Previously, flags behaved similarly, and the per-folder/collection stacking was introduced when Adobe made flags global.

You can replicate a folder's stacks in a collection by dragging the folder and dropping it in Collections.

[Antoine HLMN]

Ok, here's what I figured out:

• Stacks are preserved when the folder is dragged to create a collection.
• Stacks collapsed, only the top of the stacks is copied
• Stacks expanded, all the images are copied, but the stack info is missing

[Antoine HLMN]

So how do I get in the same collection, stacks from different folders ?

[JohanElzenga]

Make somebody like John Beardsworth could write a plugin for that?...  😉

[Antoine HLMN]

Héhé! Would be an option, but I prefer to use what's provided by the original software 🙂

I think I found a workaround:

What if I copy the folders into a collection set, and treat that collection set as my target collection, without caring about the individual collection within ?

[john beardsworth]

By dragging photos into the stacks.

[john beardsworth]

"Make somebody like John Beardsworth could write a plugin for that?...  ;)"

Except plugins can't stack. OK, there is a way but it is only if a plugin imports the photos (bypassing the regular Import dialog).

[Antoine HLMN]

By dragging photos into the stacks.

What do you mean?

[john beardsworth]

"So how do I get in the same collection, stacks from different folders ?"

There's no trick. You just have to add the photos to the collection, and then go to the collection and drag the photos into stacks.

[Antoine HLMN]

Thanks John, but I honestly still don't get it. I've already made hundreds of stacks in tens of folders. I'm keeping my pictures organized by date. And no matter what, if I want all those images in ONE collection (place, whatever where), I can't find a way to preserve those stacks.
Copying the parent folder does not work, cosigning the images does not work either.