Inspiring

Answered

Converting pre-existing collections to Folders?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
July 25, 2019
4 replies
1014 views

In trying to sort my front page in SmugMug, I discovered that to do a complete positional sort all subject files must be the same, that is one cannot mix folders and galleries. Galleries are what have been exported from Lightroom Classic via the SmugMug plugin as a Collection.

So, in reverting to Lightroom, I found that the exported collections were all created following a catalog search for specific subject matter, ie. “Dogs”

So my question is how, in Lightroom, can an existing collection drawn from multiple folders be retroactively converted so that they are a collection within a new folder? I have tried to do this, even changing the name, but I get the Move warning which I do not want to do, as I want the originals to remain in their source folders.

Thank you.

Adrian

[Discussion moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Lightroom Classic — The desktop-focused app]

converting collections to folders

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Correct answer dj_paige

Creating a folder for a pre-existing collection, even with name changes doesn’t seem to work. To recap, SmugMug sorts folders first and galleries(exported Lightroom collections) second. So alpha sorts for a home page presentation doesn’t work. I have tried renaming in LR etc. and that does not appear to work.

Perhaps it is because I don't use SmugMug, but I don't see why exporting an entire collection to a new folder doesn't get what you want.

cmgap

Community Expert

Try a test by working with a small collection > duplicate the collection and rename it to match the smugmug folder > Export the collection for SmugMug. When you export the collection, make the appropriate settings for smugmug as usual. Let us know if that will work.

adriant12105070Author

Inspiring

Thank you for your suggestion. Creating a folder for a pre-existing collection, even with name changes doesn’t seem to work.

To recap, SmugMug sorts folders first and galleries(exported Lightroom collections) second. So alpha sorts for a home page presentation doesn’t work. I have tried renaming in LR etc. and that does not appear to work.

My big issue is if one selects images from across many folders within a catalogue,( doing a text search), the only place those images can reside is in a collection. If one creates a folder and attempts to place the images there, the MOVE warning appears, and I want the originals to remain in their respective folders.

If anyone has further thoughts, please let me know. It has been suggested that I refer this to Photoshop Family.

Thanks,

Adrian

adriant12105070Author

Inspiring

Creating a folder for a pre-existing collection, even with name changes doesn’t seem to work. To recap, SmugMug sorts folders first and galleries(exported Lightroom collections) second. So alpha sorts for a home page presentation doesn’t work. I have tried renaming in LR etc. and that does not appear to work.

Perhaps it is because I don't use SmugMug, but I don't see why exporting an entire collection to a new folder doesn't get what you want.

Thank you for your thought. When using the SmugMug plugin, there is no ability to create a new folder. As I have just read the in another post from Johan, it is impossible to have a photo resident in two Lightroom Folders. That said, it appears that whatever I have to engineer, has to be done in SmugMug, ie random photos from different folders in LR can only be resident as copies in a collection, but cannot be in two folders. Therefore I have to stick with exporting the random photos via a collection.

Thanks to all for your contributions....much appreciated.

Adrian

D

dj_paige

Legend

If it has to be done in folders within Lightroom, then you have to move the photos to the newly created folders. And, if you have a photo that is in two (or more) collections, this method would seem to fail. The whole idea of Lightroom is to move you past the limitations of folders, so more advanced and powerful organizing tools can be used.

You can export collections to individual folders (which contain the exported files, not the original files). Does that meet your needs?

adriant12105070Author

Inspiring

When you say “export to individual folders” are you saying folders in Lightroom?

D

dj_paige

Legend

adriant12105070 wrote
When you say “export to individual folders” are you saying folders in Lightroom?

Export implies the folders are in your operating system. There really are no folders in Lightroom Classic, what you see in the folder panel in Lightroom Classic is the operating system folders that Lightroom Classic knows about.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

I’m not sure what you are asking. There’s no such thing as a “collection within a folder”. Even though you could look at collections as ‘virtual folders’, they are different from real folders and reside in their own panel.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Akash Sharma

Legend

Hi Adrian,

I can't think of a way of doing this.

However, It seems like a great idea, could you share this as a feature request here? Lightroom Classic | Photoshop Family Customer Community This forum is monitored by our developers and they might look into it for future updates.

Thanks,

Akash

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