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Smart Collections
Smart Collections are similar to what exist in Bridge but with a lot more power. You can create a live collection based on a set of rules. For example, set it up to show all the Photos taken on a particular camera or lens, date or one of many other criteria. Ok, to get really cool try holding down the Alt/Option key while adding a criteria and you can fine tune with variables. Whenever images are added to the Catalog and they meet the criteria, they will automatically display in the smart collection. I like to set a keyword for web gallery or portfolio. This way all the images I need are available in a single click. Add the fact that collections are now visible in other modules, I can quickly create a web gallery, ok, let's walk through it...

You'll see a new Category in the Collections Panel. called Smart Collections. Lightroom ships with some canned ones. Click on any of them to see what happens. Its way of filtering images. These is a lot more power to this though. Whenever any images in the catalog are added, or changed to meet the criteria set in Smart Collections, they will be added or subtracted for the collection automatically. Lightroom is sniffing the Catalog all the time, looking for matches.

Creating a Smart Collection
To create a new Smart Collection, Click on the plus sign in the collections Panel.
Choose Create Smart Collection

Add a name for your Smart Collection and then choose a criteria. (rule)
If you want to you can add to a set (Folder)
For match choose either All or Any. This sets the rule to display images if only one criteria (any) is met or all criteria have to me met to display the photos.(all).
Choose a rule. In this case I chose Keyword contains building.

You can further expand the rules to include a 5 star rating by Clicking the plus sign and choosing another rule. Now all the images that contain a keyword Building AND are 5 star will be displayed.

If you really want to get fancy, hold down the alt/Option key as you click the Plus Sign and you can add variables. Now the search is looking for only the 5 Star images that contain both the keywords building and Geddy. (You can get really creative here and whittle down thousands of images to just the few you're looking for.

Look at the catalog and all the Images with the matching keywords are displayed.

But only those that are also labeled with 5 stars show up in the Smart Collection. There is an almost unlimited amount of different rules you can set. Find what works for you.

Because they are Smart Collections and not just filters, change 1 of the images to 4 star and see what happens. It's removed from the collection immediately.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial. Stay tuned for more, or check out the Lightroom 2 For Digital Photographers video for 7 hours of training on Lightroom2

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