Image order in collection – Added Order not working

[Filip Wolak]

I have created a collection that contains images from different folders. The images in this collection have been manually reordered to follow a certain idea.

Now, whenever I create a new collection to which I want to add select images from my existing collection, their order is reset. Neither bulk addition, nor adding them on the one-by-one basis seem to work, both methods break the previous order, even when the "Added Order" sort mode is chosen in the destination collection.

I end up duplicating the original collection and removing the unwanted images, but that's not an ideal solution.

Is there a way to make the 'added order' work the way I want?  Or, maybe am I simply not understanding the "Added Order" concept?

[richardplondon]

"Added order" refers to the timestamp of importing to the whole Catalog, or otherwise, the timestamp of creating a virtual copy within the whole Catalog - and not the order of addition to a particular Collection.

Just as, if you sort by filename - the images all refer to their filenames the same, regardless of the selective view where these may be appearing.

When any image appears in a Collection, or in many Collections, that is just another instance of the same thing with all the same current attributes. AFAIK there is no separate record kept of the date/time when a given image was added to a given Collection.

Your only possibility is to drag images into a custom order within a given Collection; though I suppose (an idea which goes horribly against every lesson and instinct, about functionally separating data vs metadata) you could then hard-rename the images from within a custom-ordered Collection in a certain sequence-numbered way, and thereafter sort these images meaningfully by filename. They would still be sortable by Capture Date instead, when needed - which generally speaking amounts to the same as filename sort when only one camera body is involved (and when original camera filenames are preserved).

Another idea may be, you could encode a number sequence into a metadata field such as Caption, and then make use of that to transfer this specific ordering into other contexts and methods.

[Filip Wolak]

Those are all good suggestions, none of which is ideal. Most importantly your answer clears my confusion. I feel like such 'keep an order of adding to the collection' functionality would be great to have, especially when you try to build a story by picking images from a larger collection. Such way of working just feels so natural to me; I am always discouraged to discover the 'random' order and the idea gets often lost.

I might, therefore suggest this as program improvement; I am pretty sure I am not alone in this. Thanks!

[johnrellis]

"Whenever I create a new collection to which I want to add select images from my existing collection, their order is reset. Neither bulk addition, nor adding them on the one-by-one basis seem to work, both methods break the previous order, even when the "Added Order" sort mode is chosen in the destination collection."

Set the sort order of the target collection to Custom Order, not Added Order. That will preserve the order of the photos as you drag them in (in batch or one-by-one).

[Use the blue reply button under the first post to ensure replies sort properly.]

[richardplondon]

Nicely expressed.

My suggestion "drag images into a custom order within a given Collection" was a bit cryptic, in retrospect!