P: When selecting a collapsed stack, provide option to apply changes to all photos in the stack

[OUcaveman001]

In Lightroom 5.4, if I select a collapsed stack of photos in the Library module, I would like the option to automatically apply changes (e.g. metadata) to all photos within that stack.

Background: as a first-time Lightroom user, I used the auto-stacking feature so that my 3-shot bracketed (i.e. HDR) photos would be stacked together. With the stacks collapsed, I went through my library, selected multiple stacks, and typed in a GPS location to be applied to those photos. I assumed that by selecting the (collapsed) stacks, the metadata would be applied to all photos within those stacks. However, the GPS locations were only applied to the first photo within each stack.

After the fact, I learned that stacks must be expanded in order to select all photos within the stack. From my perspective, this defeats the purpose of creating stacks - if one must expand the stack to apply changes to all photos within the stack, there doesn't seem to be much point of creating stacks in the first place.

[JohanElzenga]

"This was already suggested in forums back in 2008 and it's hard to believe, that this is not a common request, even if it's not high priority."

Apparently most people do not see this as a major issue. For example: I usually keyword my photos before I start creating stacks. And I often do not want the brackets to contain the keywords of the HDR, because I do not want to find HDR brackets if I search by a certain keyword. I only want to find 'finished photos', i.e. the HDR photo.

[NetHawk]

OK, good point. So this could be an option, to suit everybody's needs. I, for example do NOT keyword first. Right after the shoot I wan't to see results and do the bookkeeping work later. You also state, that often you don't want to keyword your brackets, but obviously sometimes you do want it. This clearly is a sign, that a feature is missing and that's why I suggested it here. There is always a way around a specific need. But in your first answer it alredy became clear, that this involves additional steps. So whenever a request can only fulfilled with extra work, this is a sign, that the workflow could be improved. I'm aware, that this is not a major issue, that's why it's not implemented (yet). I use Lightroom since the first version and over the years I could tick off many items from my wishlist. This is one of the few still remaining. Should I forget about it? Not mention it? I don't think so. It was time to talk about the less obvious feature request, because all in all Lightroom has become very mature and feature rich. Please consider to cut some corners, that's all I'm asking for.

[arbell15]

The default behavior of lightroom when a stack is collapsed is to only work on the master file when I do things like rename the file, delete the file, etc.

I believe this is done to be Safe which is ok, however, it would be great if lightroom could prompt the user or all a user to configure it to apply things to the entire stack even if it's collapsed.

[Bob Somrak]

You could use John Beardsworth's SYNCOMATIC plugin to sync the metatada and edits to the rest of the stack. It has a few minor glitches/bugs I reported that don't affect the sync data but it works great.

http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/lightroom/syncomatic/

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[NitroR00]

I can't believe Adobe hasn't addressed this yet.  I use film simulation bracketing and only want to keep one out of a group of photos - if I want to reject a stack I want to reject the whole thing, not just the first image.  I will say that the Syncomatic plugin suggested earlier works GREAT and I'm happily paid for that as it sped up my workflow significantly.

[johnrellis]

"I can't believe Adobe hasn't addressed this yet."

Worse, they've marked it Idea: Declined at the bottom of the first post.  They rarely mark Ideas as Declined.

[jackalopemaui]

I rarely use stacks but just stacked sets of drone photos so that I could edit each day of photos separately. I assumed selecting a stack would let me edit the entire stack at once. I was surprised when I discovered that's not the case. What exactly is the reason for limiting edits to the "top" of the stack which happens to be the first photo? I saw that some posters said this workflow makes sense. What workflow automatically assumes the first photo in a set is the only one you want to edit?

Expanding a stack, selecting the photos carefully limiting the selectio to the stack, and then editing is unnecessarily labor intensive. Adobe should add a "sync stack" option.

[Califdan2]

Seeing as how Adobe has no interest in addressing this issue here is a quick workaround.

1)  Create an empty collection

2)  when you have whatever "source" you are using (e.g. one or more folder, All Photographs, Etc/), use <Ctrl+Click (win)/<cmd>+click (Mac) to add the "Empty Collection" to whatever source you already had.

Now, all images in the selected source(s) are shown regardless of their stack participation.  If you already had the tops of collapsed stacks selecte, they will stillo be selected making the stacks easier to find.  But, you will still have to select the other images in the stack.   

[Califdan2]

My prior post is solution 3 in the following article which I wrote a couple of years ago

https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/blog/2022/4/lr014-lrc-tip01-all-photos-really