Should You Use Lightroom Folders or Collections?

As a photographer, you need to organize and manage your digital images. There are many applications in the market for editing digital pictures. Still, just a few of them are capable of doing photo management. Lightroom is the most powerful tool for both photo editing and management. You can organize pictures in Lightroom in many different ways; Lightroom Folders and Collections are the most popular ones. 

However, photographers always ask about the differences between Folders and Collections. In this article, I cover some of the main differences in Lightroom Folders Vs Lightroom Collections.

Lightroom Folders or Collections, which one should you use?

This sounds a simple question. However, the answer is not as straightforward as I like it to be. 

Firstly, Let’s talk about their standard functions. Lightroom Folders and Collections both are for organizing pictures. However, each one performs differently  

Secondly, Let’s look into their differences, then you can make your decision. Personally, I use both Folders and Collections in my Lightroom workfellow. 

Lightroom Folders:   

In Lightroom, Folders are the actual containers of the images. In other words, the photos reside inside folders. Therefore, a picture can be stored in one folder, unless otherwise you duplicate the picture and save it in a different folder.

To me, duplicating photos is not the right approach. So, this brings us into Lightroom Collections. 

Lightroom Collections

Collections in Lightroom are the virtual location for the photographs. You can consider Lightroom Collections as Albums. Thus, a picture resides inside a Folder but can be shown in multiple Collections. So, there is no need to make copies of a photo to organize it in many different Collections. 

Let m explain it in a daily base uses:

 For instance, you are an avid traveller and a wildlife photographer. You travel to many parts of the world to take scenery and wildlife photos. 

Therefore, you create Folders for each country that you have visited to save the pictures. On the other hand, you made many wildlife photos while you were there, and you want to separate these pictures as “Wildlife” images for easy access in the future.

Here it comes, the power of Lightroom Collection! You can create a Collection and add the wildlife pictures to the collection. Therefore, you have those images inside a folder (country folder) and some particular photos in an album without duplicating them!

There are many more practical uses of Lightroom Folders and Collections. I will cover more in upcoming articles. 

Do you want to learn Lightroom?

Omnilargess Lightroom Training Program is a comprehensive workshop. It is a three-week program and covers many hidden features in Lightroom. Our next Lightroom class starts on November 4th. 

Do you want to take better pictures?

Omnilargess Photography workshops focus on many hidden features in digital cameras and editing software. These hidden features assist photographers in taking their photography skills to the next level.

I dedicate a good portion of our digital camera workshops and Editing classes to discuss these hidden features.

Digital Camera Crash Course is one of our most popular photography courses. This two-week program is in four sessions, and each session consists of theories and hands-on practices.

Our next Digital Camera Crash Course starts on September 26th, 2020. There are only a few spots left.

That is all for now. Stay tuned for my next photography Tips. We love to hear from you. Let us know if you have any questions, feel free to send us your questions, and we will be more than happy to answer them. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more Free Tutorials and Tips.

Ted and the Omnilargess Team