LR2.1 Bug: Collection Sets and Rejects

[davidmknoble]

I should probably have called this bug, Collection Sets and Pick Flags, but the result is the same. This is a copy of an article:

http://outdoorimages.blogspot.com/2''8/11/lr2-bug-collection-sets-and-rejects.html

I posted on my blog and will (next) report to Adobe on their Bug Report Form (also located at the top of this forum in the menu bar).

In my continuing efforts to create an easily customizable Smart Collection Workflow, I come across some inconsistencies in Lightroom 2 (and 2.1) with what one would expect to happen. I am calling these inconsistencies 'Bugs,' but since extensive documentation on the functionality of Regular and Smart Collections does not exist, I will use inconsistencies for the moment.

This report discusses issues with Collection Sets, Collections and Rejected images. The bottom line is that the rejects marked in a Collection do not move up to the Collection Set level. More importantly, they do not appear to be recorded in such a manner that Smart Collections can pick them up either.

Here is what I did to test it:

1. Create a Collection Set to hold multiple collections: say 'Test Set'
2. Create a Collection within the Collection Set: say 'Test Collection'
3. This is important, put a group of images into the 'Test Collection', but make sure they are the original images, not virtual copies.
4. Mark a few random images as flagged and a few random images as rejected.
5. Mark a few random images with a star rating, the number of stars is irrelevant.

Now, go back and view the parent Collection Set. You will notice that none of the images show a pick flag or a reject flag. However, the star ratings do appear.

Now, go back to the Catalog, All Photographs. Notice that the images there also do not show a pick flag or a reject flag. However, the star ratings also appear here.

Now, pick one of the images in the 'Test Collection' and view the metadata. The Copy Name is blank indicating it is the original image file. The rating shows.

Why would this happen? More importantly, this would be counter-intuitive to what I would expect, especially if the star ratings are captured.

The result of this bug is that it is difficult to use Smart Collections to analyze a collection of images.

 

[Ben Jenssen]

Pick and reject flags don't follow images from collection to collection, that's just the it works. It's by design. I've learned to live with it. I'm shure there are reasons why the made it that way, I don't know the details, though. Can somone explain, please?

 

[DonRicklin]

For global taking use Rating or Color labels. Flags are local because you may do one flag setting to get images into a collection, but then another in the collection to subdivide it, further cull or work on particular images.

Don

 

[davidmknoble]

Someone close to Lightroom development explained the same concept to me:

Pick flags follow the collection, not the image file.

I think this is good at the end of the day because it allows a collection, either for your viewing, customer viewing or any other method, to allow picks and rejects. Thus, your customer can 'pick' images in one collection while you 'pick' images in another.

However, here is my issue. Do the following:

Create a collection and name it 'Test'.
Then set the pick flag for a few images and set the reject flag for a few images.
Then create a smart collection with the following parameters:

1. Collection name contains 'Test'
2. Pick flag Is Picked

The smart collection will contain the picked images.
Now change the second parameter to the following:

2. Pick flag Is Rejected

The smart collection will NOT contain any images, regardless of whether the collection contains rejected images.

I would expect the pick and reject flags to be equal in how they operate through smart collections.

More importantly, using smart collections to help with the workflow, I cannot use a collection of newly imported images and review what is picked and what is rejected using smart collections. I would like to filter out the rejected images so that I do not spend more time working on them.

As an asside, what happens when you use the menu to delete rejected images and images are 'rejected' in a collection, but not 'rejected' in the library?

Anyone else with thoughts?