Lightroom CC Gem: You Can Now ‘Add to Collection’ When Importing Photos
Adobe Lightroom CC/6 has been a hot topic in the photo community ever since it was announced a week ago. Although most discussions have focused on the “big” features such as HDR, panoramas, and performance, I have personally found one small addition to be the most useful new feature in my own workflow. I’m talking about the new “Add to Collection” option — it’s a bigger time saver and organizational boost for me than anything else that was introduced.
If you are like me, you’re so anxious to start editing that you put off creating a collection to keep your images sorted. Personally, I got into a bad habit of working out of the ‘Last Import’ collection, which is fine, right up until you import another shoot.
Now, with one little check box, you can create a new collection, or select an existing collection to add your new images to upon completion.
Here’s a short tutorial video by Adobe showing file importing in Lightroom CC:
Bonus Feature
Another feature that hasn’t gotten much press is the ‘Filter Collections’ option.
What may seem mundane — and useless to many — can actually be a very powerful tool for users with an extensive number of collections. The concept of collections can be great for staying organized, but when your list gets out of control, sometimes it can take quite a bit of scrolling to find that one session from a few months back.
‘Filter Collections’ adds a quick way to do a text search in all of your collections. The search field will quickly display matching category names.
Personally, I was hopeful that this search would also turn up categories that include images containing matching keywords, but it seems as if the standard filter tools still have to be used for those.
About the author: Mike Bober is a photojournalist and commercial photographer who offers his services in Southern Vermont and New York City as Northshire Photo and Media.
