About collections

Collections are a way to group photos in one place for easy viewing or for performing a variety of tasks. For example, photos in a collection can be assembled into a slide show, contact sheet, or a web photo gallery. Once created, collections are listed in the Collections panel of the Library, Slideshow, Print, and Web modules. They can be selected anytime you need them. You can create as many collections as you need.

To temporarily group photos for certain tasks, they can be placed into the Quick Collection. Unlike collections, there can be only one Quick Collection at a time in the catalog.

Smart collections are collections based on rules that you define. For example, you can create a smart collection of all photos that have a five-star rating and a red color label. Photos that meet the criteria are automatically added to the smart collection.

Here are some things to keep in mind about working with collections:

• Make sure that you understand the difference between catalogs and collections. Collections are groups of photos within a catalog.

• Photos can belong to more than one collection.

• You cannot stack photos in a collection.

• You can change the sort order of the photos in a regular collection, but you cannot sort by User Order or drag photos to rearrange them in a smart collection.

• Removing a photo from a collection doesn’t remove the photo from the catalog or send it to the Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Mac OS).

• You can create collection sets to organize your collections.

• You can explicitly save Slideshow, Print, and Web module settings in a type of collection called an output creation.

For a video about using collections and keywords to organize your photos, watch Lightroom 2 basics: collections and keywords.