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Creating a collection by month, day but not year

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mfaucher

New Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2013
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15
Location
Southeast AZ, USA
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
I want to create a collection by metadata date (month and date only, not year) that spans years. For example I want all photos taken on April 23 for the last 5 years. Why do you ask? I want to look at my bird photos in that way to assess migration patterns. Is there an easy way to do this without creating special metadata fields? Thanks
 
I seem to recall that one of our talented plugin artists created such a plugin to do what you wish. Maybe they or someone with a better memory than me can provide a link.
 
Look at the Workflow Filters command in my Search and Replace plugin. It adds values for days and months.

John
 
I should add that you can use this feature without buying the plugin.
 
I should add that you can use this feature without buying the plugin.
And I will add that if you really want to keep talented plugin artists developing nifty plugins like this, you should support them financially for their efforts.
 
And I will add that if you really want to keep talented plugin artists developing nifty plugins like this, you should support them financially for their efforts.

In general I agree with you. I am really willing to spend money for good software, however 23€+VAT is quite expensive for a Lightroom Plugin.
Other developers (e.g. Lightroom Plugins - alloyphoto or Lightroom Plugins - Products) ask for 5-15 $/€/£ which seems to be much more justified in my eyes.

Best Regards
Wernfried
 
One could go for the app store model of selling more copies at a low price, but this plugin is for more serious users. And as you see from this thread, I don't play hardball with features.
 
I am really willing to spend money for good software, however 23€+VAT is quite expensive for a Lightroom Plugin.
That's for the developer to decide. Your decision is simple: are the features worth the price to me?

Separately, the feature the OP wants should be, imho, built into Lightroom. That it isn't strikes me as a silly, easily-rectified, oversight.
 
That's for the developer to decide. Your decision is simple: are the features worth the price to me?

Separately, the feature the OP wants should be, imho, built into Lightroom. That it isn't strikes me as a silly, easily-rectified, oversight.

What the OP wants can already be done in Lightroom with a smart collection. Granted, you have to adapt it every year, but that is just a minor inconvenience.

23.jpg
 
The prices quoted here are trivial compared to the effort required to develop them. It is an individual's call to decide if the price is worth it. I know from experience that each sale results in extra time spent by the developer in supporting the product.

My compliments and appreciation to JohnBeardy and others who have extended the usefulness of Lr
 
And when you want the 24th too? And maybe just during the early hours? Here you see how you can filter on title and captions too.

Screen Shot 2017-04-25 at 18.27.51.png
 
I know from experience that each sale results in extra time spent by the developer in supporting the product.

That made me laugh! Many plugins are for narrowly-defined jobs - just send pictures to an online service etc. This plugin is very different, because people want it to do all sorts of metadata manipulations. So yes, I try my best to help, even sending custom scripts, and on plenty of occasions I advise them not to do what they're contemplating! Some listen.

John
 
just a minor inconvenience

I agree in practice but strongly disagree in principle. Lightroom should make hard things easy, and easy things trivial. There's a finesse to it that Lightroom — which I greatly admire and find worth more than it costs — lacks in enough places that I think Adobe is uncaring. This strikes me as a "version 2" issue — not a version six one.

Are there any other Smart Collections that require the work-around of being updated yearly? Are there other Smart Collections which can be simply stated that require separate rules for every year?

Date of year, Day of week, and even time of day should be in-built references. It's a database. These data are useful and basic. It should be trivial to group all photos I've taken between five and six o'clock in the winter in the Dakotas.

Simple example:
All photos taken on New Years Eve.

Complex example (actually difficult):
All photos taken in the hour before sunset (generalized: solar time of day for each photo {itself location dependent}, in addition to time separated from the date-time stamp).

The simple stuff should be completely covered by Lightroom.
 
I've always made the case that if data's in Lightroom, users will find good reasons to exploit it. So I don't disagree. Fine in theory - but I just don't think you should hold your breath waiting!
 
Agreed. How many photographers want a 'Shot on April 23rd' smart collection anyway? Not nearly enough to place this high on the list. There are far more important issues that Adobe needs to fix first. They can't do all at once.
 
And when you want the 24th too? And maybe just during the early hours? Here you see how you can filter on title and captions too.

View attachment 9261

Shot on 23rd or 24th is also possible in a smart collection; you simply add five lines for each 24th in the same way. But I agree, there are more possible queries and Lightroom does not support them all. I was in no way implying that your plugin isn't worth the money!
 
Agreed. How many photographers want a 'Shot on April 23rd' smart collection anyway? Not nearly enough to place this high on the list. There are far more important issues that Adobe needs to fix first.

It's bog-basic database design. Adobe has (just going with Google info here) at least a couple BILLION dollars cash on hand. If they haven't completed bog-basic database work on one of their flagship programs, it IS NOT FOR LACK OF RESOURCES.

They can't do all at once.

On what do base your claim? Of course they can. They choose not to, and users put up with it.
 
It's bog-basic database design. Adobe has (just going with Google info here) at least a couple BILLION dollars cash on hand. If they haven't completed bog-basic database work on one of their flagship programs, it IS NOT FOR LACK OF RESOURCES.



On what do base your claim? Of course they can. They choose not to, and users put up with it.
All issues have to pass a cost benefit test. If there are only a few people that will benefit from the feature and the cost is significant to implement, then the feature won't be implemented. The same is true with bugs. If it is not mission critical and only affects a few users, it might linger for years.
 
All issues have to pass a cost benefit test.

In principle, sure. In practice, Adobe could remove almost all bugs, bring Lightroom completely up-to-date, and still take everyone in the US out to dinner. We're not talking about a small earnest shop like DevonThink or OmniGroup. I posit that the cost of doing a great deal of the work to debug Lightroom and make the user experience "frictionless" is close to trivial to Adobe. And some of the things missing are, again, bog-basic "version 1" features, and many of the user inconveniences should have been "version 2" corrections. Users should expect and demand more — and gurus shouldn't apologize for Adobe's corporate laziness on these issues. Adobe is a colossus — their applications should be _masterful_, exemplary, & consummate. Lightroom is not.

Imagine what photo management software ten of the top contributors to this forum could design and produce with, say, a $50,000,000 budget.
 
You don't get "at least a couple BILLION dollars cash on hand." by spending money on things that don't generate a benefit to the bottom line.
 
You don't get "at least a couple BILLION dollars cash on hand." by spending money on things that don't generate a benefit to the bottom line.

I'm not a share-holder, and I'm not here to argue for share-holders. I'm a customer. I want much better software. We know what Adobe wants. What do you want?
 
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