Lightroom Tutorial – Organizing Photos For Quick Editing

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For more great Lightroom Tutorials (and lessons on the Beta version of Lightroom 3) join NAPP (The National Association of Photoshop Professionals).

After you have flagged all your images as “picks” or “rejects” you can get down to making a collection of these images to edit. You will need to decide if you want to delete the non-selected images or keep a file of these Raws just in case. In a recent Lightroom seminar I attended, Scott Kelby recommended deleting them.  His rational was, if they did not make the cut, why keep them?

I however am a picture hog and prefer save things, so I leave them in this original imported catalog.  I then make a collection based on the “picks.”

Start by going to LIBRARY – ENABLE FILTERS – and make sure it is checked off. If not select it so that it is.

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Then go to LIBRARY – FILTER BY FLAG -FLAGGED ONLY

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Now only your Flagged “Picked” images are showing. Then SELECT all images remaining by holding down SHIFT and either selecting via the library or bottom panel. You can also hit Command + “a” or Control + “a” to select all.  They will all by highlighted once you do this.

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Then you will go under LIBRARY – NEW COLLECTION.

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And this dialog box will come up.  Choose the name you want for this collection. I named mine Halloween Photos. You can put it within a set if desired – or leave it as it’s own collection – and then check “Include Selected Photos.”  It is also up to you if you want a virtual copy you can check the last box.  I use that only on select photos.  Then click “create.”

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You can get to this collection on the left side under “collections.”

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And that is all there is to it! From here, since I still do most of my editing in Photoshop, I adjust the white balance, and check and adjust exposure if needed in the develop module.  Then I save (as .jpg or .psd) and open using Autoloader into Photoshop.  Hope this helps for those of you wanting to learn Lightroom!

MCPActions

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  1. Julie McCullough on November 2, 2009 at 11:46 am

    This works great! the other night I sorted through 130+images and processed the 30+ picks in 2 hours. Thank you to LIGHTROOM and MCP ACTIONS!! Love them both!

  2. Shelly LeBlanc on November 2, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Thanks Jodi. Since I’ve switched to Mac, I’ve been having a lot of trouble picking/rejecting in Bridge.I’ll try it in LightRoom tomorrow. Some tasks should take time, picking/rejecting should not.

  3. Jackie Waldoch on November 2, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    Do you then get rid of the “rejects”? What do you do with them? I’ve been using the 1 star and then sorting by stars, but I like this idea too!

  4. Melissa Brewer on November 2, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    This is how I always do my picking. It saves soooo much time. I don’t even bother rejecting the ones I dont like I just skip them all together. I flag all the ones I want to edit, then I’ll set the view to flagged only and edit those. If I find I dont like some after all I just unflag them and they’re gone!

  5. Heather Price on November 3, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Thanks Jodi for this tutorial,i always struggle with lightroom as i mostly use photoshop,this is invaluable info!

  6. Skoticus on June 18, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    I only do this on shoots with under 100 pictures. When I have a lot of pictures I do everything. I go through and refect, then rate them 1, then from those 2, then from those 3, etc, until I have 30-40 images that are the BEST. Events with 1000+ photos typically can have 5 stars.Rating them helps me really focus on which is absolutely the best photos to put in my portfolio, show on the blog, show the client initially. Also, has helped my photography a TON to be so critical. I still highly recommend rating images, because it you will select the better images that way. But, that’s just my two cents

  7. Brandon on February 21, 2012 at 7:09 am

    Just additional idea. When using P and X as described, start with the first photo in an import, hold down shift as you go, when you press either P or X, it will just jump to the next image. This shaves time further and makes the process smooth. Works on Window, I guess Mac’ll be the same.

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