The digital age of photography means that there is a proliferation of frames taken suggests that its easy to forget what you have done and not take the picture to it’s rightful conclusion.
In my case taken to conclusion might mean that a picture ends up here on my blog, on my website, as an A3 sized print or an A2 sized print if the picture is exceptional.
To help me bring order to the editing process I use various smart collections in the Lightroom Library. A smart collection automatically brings together in one place all the pictures that are tagged in a particular way. Each photographer will require different criteria for output. The example below is just what I use for me.
The process is based on logic unfortunately as are all things to do with computers!!
Firstly you will need to create a Collection Set – this is just a container to hold a series of smart collections.
Once you have a collection set then you can add individual smart collections to it. The idea here is to edit or refine the numbers of pictures. I have 41,488 pictures in my Library as of today’s date. So as I create smart collections hopefully I am only working with the images that might go somewhere.
By using combinations of flags, stars and colour labels a very wide range of criteria can be selected. When you add in all the options in the Smart collection drop down menus then the world is your lobster!
This post is not intended to be a click by click guide how to create custom collections – see the link to the Adobe video below.
In my collection set I have:
Smart Collection No 1 only looks for any picture that is Flagged.
Smart Collection No 2 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a one star rating – it’s colour processing is finished.
Smart Collection No 3 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a two star rating – it’s B&W processing processing is finished.
Smart Collection No 4 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a three star rating – it’s Lith processing is finished.
Smart Collection No 5 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a four star rating – it’s Infra-red processing is finished.
Smart Collection No 6 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a red label – it’s been used on my blog .
Smart Collection No 7 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a Yellow label – it’s been used on my website.
Smart Collection No 8 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a Green label – it’s been printed for a talk.
Smart Collection No 9 only looks for any picture that is Flagged and has a Blue label – it’s been used in an article.
See this video by Julieanne Kost from Adobe that explains things in her usual straight forward way.
Once you get the principal you can use the same logic to refine pictures say for a distinctions application.
It also follows that I can find any combination of criteria so if I want to find what files have been processed as say Lith and then printed – all I need to search for is a flagged 3 star picture with a Green Label. It’s so simple even I understand it.
A big hello to all the new followers of my blog this week.
(c) Andy Beel FRPS 2014
Andy Beel FRPS 
You sound very organised, Andy. What is more: You Are very organised!
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Hi Paula Thanks I’m semi-organised, It’s all set up all I have to do is flag, star and colour as I go along, but that does not always happen, Today I was going back through my blog pictures in Lr to put red labels on the ones I have forgotten to do. Andy
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This is very helpful. I’ve only been using the quick collection thus far, teamed with keywords, but I should start using stars and colours. Thanks.
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Hi Glad to be of assistance. Andy
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