Request for advice re rating or flagging or otherwise grading images differently over multiple collections.

[chriselizabeth6]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version 10.1.1

Operating System

1. macOS 10.15 Catalina

Hi, I was just double checking something simple about flagging in collections and a LR employee forum post from 2011 said that flags are collection dependent so that you could have the same photo in several collections with different flags in each- so rejected in one set and picked in another, as needs be. I tried this out today and its not working for me and my flag is the same in each collection and the original folder, from following this up on the original forum thread I suspect this feature was changed in newer versions of LrClassic and has fallen into obscurity.
This seemed like a useful feature, as if for example a landscape photo appears in several collections and while it was a good option in collection 1 (perhaps a collection of shots all from one place) it may later get rejected from a different set (such as best landscape images taken that year).
I think it could be really useful when in a collection to be able to mark photos as rejects, then remove them all from the collection in one fell swoop, the downside of this would be that in their original folders presumably they would now be rejects too.

Does anyone know if there's a setting I can change to make this work the way it did in the past as described above?

Or please does anyone have a suggestion of a workflow they use that avoids these problems to do with overlapping file purposes etc. Perhaps colours or another method could be cleverly used instead?

Thanks

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yep, that changed with Lightroom 3, when flags became global instead of local. There isn't a way to change that. You might try using the Quick Collection shortcut (b) to temporarily mark the ones you either want to put into a new collection, or that you want to remove from the collection you're working through.

 

[clee01l]

Ratings (*), Pick/reject (flags), and color Labels are all universal and show up in folders and all collections. You can use ratings in one collection and pick flags in another collection and color labels in a third collection. But the best workflow is to use the same method in every collection. Fortunately you can create many collections
A collection named Landscapes can include all of your landscapes. Another Collection called "Best Landscapes" can include the best image in the Landscapes collection.

I use ratings (*) at the All photographs level and rate my best photos with 3 or 4 or 5 stars.

I use Smart Collection to automatically gather images that meet my criteria

{Collection}{contains}{Landscapes}​

{Rating}{is}{*****}​

Rejected images are images that I want to remove from the Lightroom Catalog everywhere. Later I can go to the "All Photographs" special collection and delete all of the rejected image form the catalog and from the disk.

Color labels are assigned to indicate the stage of my workflow:

Just imported, to be worked​

Workflow in process​

Needs further review​

Processing complete, not published​

Processing complete and Published
​

​

 

[chriselizabeth6]

Thank you both for your detailed comments, I'll put the advice into practice this afternoon.

 

[johnbeardy]

You might try using stacks. When flags became global, stacks became local. So a group of photos A-E might be stacked differently in different collections, with photo A at the top of a stack in collection 1 and photo B might be top in another collection. There are shortcuts for moving photos up and down within stacks.

 

[chriselizabeth6]

You might try using stacks. When flags became global, stacks became local. So a group of photos A-E might be stacked differently in different collections, with photo A at the top of a stack in collection 1 and photo B might be top in another collection. There are shortcuts for moving photos up and down within stacks.

Thanks I'll look into that