This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Working with Stacks
Lightroom’s Stacking feature enables you to group related photos into a condensed stack in the Library Grid. By grouping images into stacks, you can save room in the Content area and ultimately spend a lot less time scrolling through thumbnails to find a specific image you’d like to work with. Note that grouping images into stacks only affects the way the thumbnails are displayed in the Grid. It does not change the location of the files on your system.
Group Related Photos into a Virtual Stack
Select any image thumbnail (or multiple image thumbnails) from the Grid or Filmstrip.
Choose Photo, Stacking, Group into Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Group into Stack from the contextual menu.
Lightroom creates the group. The number of images in the stack is displayed in the upper-left corner of the topmost thumbnail.
- To expand the stack, click the left or right edge of the topmost thumbnail, or choose Photo, Stacking, Expand Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Expand Stack from the contextual menu.
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Promote a Photo to the Top of the Stack
By default, when you create a stack, the first image selected is automatically positioned at the top. However, you can choose a different image from within the stack to represent the group at any time.
- Select the stack from the Grid.
Click the left or right edge of the topmost thumbnail, or choose Photo, Stacking, Expand Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Expand Stack from the contextual menu.
- Select the image in the stack to promote to the top.
- Choose Photo, Stacking, Move to Top of Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Move to Top of Stack from the contextual menu.
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The image thumbnail is displayed at the top of the stack and remains visible even when the stack is collapsed.
Remove Photos from a Stack
Lightroom also enables you to remove a grouped image (or several grouped images) from a stack. When you do, Lightroom places the image thumbnails outside the group and back in the main Library Grid.
- Select the stack from the Grid.
Click the left or right edge of the topmost thumbnail, or choose Photo, Stacking, Expand Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Expand Stack from the contextual menu.
- Select the image(s) in the stack to remove.
- Choose Photo, Stacking, Remove from Stack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Remove from Stack from the contextual menu.
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The image thumbnail is removed from the stack and placed outside the group in the Library Grid.
Unstack Photos
In Lightroom, image stacks are extremely flexible and are never permanent. You can release a stacked group of images at any time.
- Select the stack from the Library Grid. It does not matter if it is expanded or collapsed.
- Choose Photo, Stacking, Unstack. You can also Control+click (Mac) or right-click and select Stacking, Unstack from the contextual menu.
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The stack is released and the image thumbnails are no longer grouped together.