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Author Topic: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection  (Read 1821 times)

pflower

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How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« on: May 22, 2012, 12:10:17 pm »

Or alternatively how to filter out photographs from a collection  that are already in another collection.

I use collections a lot to organise projects.  The problem I am facing is in determining what photographs have already been used in a particular project/collection so as to avoid using them in another one.  For example, I may have 35 pictures in a collection called "Landscape 1".  I want to create another project/collection called "Landscape 2".  I can filter the catalog down to my candidates for selection and put them into a new collection called "landscape 2" but I can't find a way to exclude the photographs already in the collection "Landscape 1" so as to avoid duplicates.

I have tried keywording the photos in the original collection and then doing a smart collection excluding them.  But that doesn't work since smart collections only appear to operate across the entire catalog - i.e you can't make a smart catalog from a collection or reduced selection of the entire catalog.

The only solution I have come up with is to keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 1" with the keyword "landscape 1" and then keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 2" with the keyword "landscape 2" and then make a smart collection which includes photographs with landscape 2 as a keyword whilst excluding those with "landscape 1".  This seems cumbersome and it strikes me that there should be a better solution.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to how this might be achieved?

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Phil Indeblanc

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2012, 12:21:35 pm »

How about making a folder called Landscape, then having Lanscape1 and Landscape2 in  that Folder hierarchy?

This would allow you to include or exclude subfolders.
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digitaldog

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2012, 12:33:25 pm »

The only solution I have come up with is to keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 1" with the keyword "landscape 1" and then keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 2" with the keyword "landscape 2" and then make a smart collection which includes photographs with landscape 2 as a keyword whilst excluding those with "landscape 1".  This seems cumbersome and it strikes me that there should be a better solution.

I can’t think of a better solution. It would be useful if you could filter smart collections (the criteria for Collections appears to only affect dumb, not smart collections). Other than using folders as Phil suggests, I think using keywords is a good one because you’ll embed that metadata into the images (well if DNG’s) and that kind of data is always useful. Once you have the selects, it should be just one quick edit to drag and drop keywords onto the group OR you could use Captions instead. The later might be better if you don’t want to ‘clog up’ keywords lists with Landscape1, Landscape2 etc. You can use a SC to filter via the captions.
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pflower

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2012, 02:39:11 pm »

I can’t think of a better solution. It would be useful if you could filter smart collections (the criteria for Collections appears to only affect dumb, not smart collections). Other than using folders as Phil suggests, I think using keywords is a good one because you’ll embed that metadata into the images (well if DNG’s) and that kind of data is always useful. Once you have the selects, it should be just one quick edit to drag and drop keywords onto the group OR you could use Captions instead. The later might be better if you don’t want to ‘clog up’ keywords lists with Landscape1, Landscape2 etc. You can use a SC to filter via the captions.

Actually you have identified a slightly better workflow.  It still requires keywording the photos in the original collection, but you can then filter the new (non smart) collection by that keyword and remove the photos from it.  It cuts out the need to make a smart collection from the entire catalog.  But it would be nice if one of the filtering options would be to identify photographs in a particular collection.
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john beardsworth

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2012, 02:49:35 pm »

You know that there's a smart collection criterion "collection name"?
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digitaldog

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2012, 03:12:31 pm »

You know that there's a smart collection criterion "collection name"?

I can’t get it to work with smart collections however. You?
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john beardsworth

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2012, 03:31:31 pm »

Yes, it's at the heart of my "workflow smart collections". Is empty may not work - you have to use "doesn't contain a e i o u".
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digitaldog

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2012, 03:38:11 pm »

Yes, it's at the heart of my "workflow smart collections". Is empty may not work - you have to use "doesn't contain a e i o u".

What I tried to do was filter out a smart collection using a smart collection. I think this is something the OP is asking for.

I have a smart collection that collects all the images I used to build web galleries by accessing a keyword. That works, fine (criteria: Keyword contains Web Gallery). I end up with 924 images.

But then I added a criteria: Collection doesn’t contain: enter name of a Web Gallery smart collection. I still end up with 924 images. I figured the criteria doesn’t work to filter other smart collections. What am I missing?
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digitaldog

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2012, 03:42:45 pm »

OK, I’ve verified that the criteria can’t filter another smart collection, only a dumb collection. Too bad. If I drag one of the Web Gallery keyworded images into a dumb collection, then use the Collection Criteria, the number in the SC is reduced. So it seems again that Collection does or doesn’t contain, start with etc only works on dumb, not smart collections. Feature request time!
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pflower

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #9 on: May 22, 2012, 03:48:40 pm »

Yes, it's at the heart of my "workflow smart collections". Is empty may not work - you have to use "doesn't contain a e i o u".

Can you elucidate a little more about what you do?  The problem I have is that as far as I can tell a smart collection operates over the entire catalog.  So if there are 25,000 photos in the catalog every time you create a smart collection it filters out according to the criteria you have  but against the entire catalog.

If I create a collection called Landscape 1 and a different collection called Landscape 2, I can't see how a smart collection that rejects a collection that contains Landscape 1 but includes Landscape 2 will filter out so as to have only photos from Landscape 2 (eliminating any duplicates).

Now I have started on this I am fascinated to find if I can find a simple way to do this.
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john beardsworth

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Deep

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Re: How to filter photos NOT in a Collection
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2012, 03:06:51 am »

Or alternatively how to filter out photographs from a collection  that are already in another collection.

I use collections a lot to organise projects.  The problem I am facing is in determining what photographs have already been used in a particular project/collection so as to avoid using them in another one.  For example, I may have 35 pictures in a collection called "Landscape 1".  I want to create another project/collection called "Landscape 2".  I can filter the catalog down to my candidates for selection and put them into a new collection called "landscape 2" but I can't find a way to exclude the photographs already in the collection "Landscape 1" so as to avoid duplicates.

I have tried keywording the photos in the original collection and then doing a smart collection excluding them.  But that doesn't work since smart collections only appear to operate across the entire catalog - i.e you can't make a smart catalog from a collection or reduced selection of the entire catalog.

The only solution I have come up with is to keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 1" with the keyword "landscape 1" and then keyword all the photographs in "Landscape 2" with the keyword "landscape 2" and then make a smart collection which includes photographs with landscape 2 as a keyword whilst excluding those with "landscape 1".  This seems cumbersome and it strikes me that there should be a better solution.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to how this might be achieved?



Can't you just go into one collection, select all the photos and give them a colour tag (e.g. hit "9" and they all get a blue tag).  Then go to the other collection and sort by colour.  You now have found all the photos which are in both collections.  Give them a different colour the same way.  Go back to your original collection and sort by colour again and you'll have your answer.  You can do that about as quick as I can type this!

Don
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