Hello pad scrappers!!
With the new year comes lots of organizing and planning for a new year of pocket scrapbooking for me. One of the things that I absolutely must do before I can begin another year of pocket scrapbooking is creating smart collections in Lightroom.
I have been creating weekly pocket “project life” style scrapbook layouts to document my life since 2012 and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I love it for the way I can so easily document the big and little moments in my family’s life.
Creating a smart collection in Lightroom for each week of the year at the beginning of the year helps immensely with this project and today I am going to describe the steps to doing that.
First off, I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what I mean by “smart collections”. There are two types of collections that can be created in Lightroom, regular collections and smart collections. Smart collections are live and they are created by filtering your photos according to rules that you write. It is important to note that you cannot add or remove photos from Smart Collections just by dragging and dropping as you would a regular collection. Photos are culled into smart collections only if they meet the criteria that you set up for the collection.
To help with weekly documentation, I set up Smart Collections based on the date that photos were taken. Each week of the year has its own smart collection that exists within a Collection Set.
Step 1: Create a Collection Set
In the collections panel, click on the plus sign and then click on “Create Collection Set”. I named my collection set “2019 Photos by Week”. I have a set for 2017 and 2018 as well. Do not check the box for “Inside a Collection Set”. Click the “Create” button.
Step 2: Create a Smart Collection for Each Week of the Year
Now with that set that you just created highlighted, click the plus sign in the Collections panel and select “Create Smart Collection”. A dialog box like the one above will pop up. Name the smart collection by week number, check the box for “Inside a Collection Set” and select the set you created in step 1. For the criteria, select match “all” of the following rules – Capture Date – is in the range – and in the boxes provided put in the dates for that week. It’s helpful to have a calendar close by when you are creating these smart collections! Click on the box for “create”. You will then complete this process for every week of the year.
Now as your photos are uploaded they will automatically be put into the week’s collection that they belong to.
Here is a look at my “week 1” smart collection. Whenever I’m ready to work on my project life layouts, I simply go to the smart collection for the week I’m working on and edit photos from there. This makes the process so easy!
I’ve found this to be extremely helpful when I’m behind on my project and working to catch up.
Smart collections have lots of uses besides working on pocket scrapbooking projects. I would encourage you to explore and play with them to create a smart collection to fit your needs.
Have you used smart collections in Lightroom before?
Michele Kendzie says
I use Smart Collections when I’m doing Project 365 or Project 52 or other photography projects. I already import my pictures into dated folders so I wasn’t sure what you describe is something I’d use. I don’t want to scrap all of my photos. But now I’m thinking I might do it, with another rule added. In addition to having the date rule for the weekly folders, I’d add a rule for a keyword or maybe a color label, and then, when I’m going through my photos as usual every time I upload, I can tag/label the ones I want to use for weekly scrapbook pages. Thanks for the inspiration!
The Lilypad says
That’s a great way to use Smart Collections!! I would love to hear how this works out for you!