Here’s a little known feature of Lightroom: The Target Collection.
As explained in my earlier post, making a Quick Collection and saving it as a Collection is an effective way to manage your photos without moving them from any of their original folders.
The following description of a Target Collection may (“may” is an understatement for sure) sound confusing.
A Target Collection is when you assign the Quick Collection’s attributes to any Collection folder that you’ve made or saved. It’s a simple right-click away (or Control Click or two-fingered click, depending upon the kind of mouse or trackpad you are using) on any saved Collection folder and choosing “Set as Target Collection.” A little “+” is the indicator.
Then your Targeted Collection will behave like the Quick Collection in the Catalog Panel.
That is, any time you tap the “B” key (simply the B key, no other modifier) with a photo selected in your library or when you click the, “Add Photo to Quick Collection” button (see earlier post), that photo will now appear in the Collection folder of your choice. How do you know it’s a Collection folder? By the small “+” to the right of the Collection name.
Yikes! This all sounds like a real nightmare, but it’s not.
Watch the video. It will be a lot easier than reading my futile attempt of a written explanation.
And now, 180 seconds (more or less) with Lightroom Guy on how to create a Target Collection.
I’m brand-new to Lightroom (Classic) and have 35,000 to pare down down from several hard drives that I’ve put duplicate files on over the years, so this will be a really helpful way of categorizing them before I start choosing which ones to keep. I know you made this video several years ago, but it’s still helpful. Thanks for a great tutorial!
Some parts of Lightroom are pretty much unchanged over the different versions. I’m really glad this was helpful!