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If you have a flair for photography, Adobe Lightroom is probably one of your go-to photography software for photo edits. One of the features of Lightroom is that it allows for the proper organization of images by flagging them, and knowing how to view flagged photos in lightroom is essential.
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How to View Flagged Photos in Lightroom
Depending on the Lightroom version you use, there are several ways to see your flagged images on lightroom. Without any hassle, you can access and view flagged photos in Lightroom from either the Library Module or the Loupe View/Develop Module.
Viewing Flagged Images in the Library Module
In the Library Module, you’ll notice an “Attribute” option among the “Library Filter” options. Click on the “Attribute” option to reveal three unique flags — flagged, unflagged, and rejected. Clicking on any flag will filter the total photos to reveal the exact photos categorized under the chosen flag.
Here’s a more detailed step-by-step approach to viewing these flagged photos.
- Lightroom opens to its Library Module by default. So unless you’re already working in the Develop Module, it’s easier to view flagged images from here.
- Underneath the Library toolbar, you should notice the Library Filter on the right corner of the page.
- One of the options of the Library Filter is the “Attribute.” It can be found on the same toolbar line of the Library Filter.
- Click on Attribute. Three distinct flags appear underneath (White flags, an uncolored flag, and a black flag).
- Click on the desired flag.
- The images under the category of the chosen flag will be filtered from the total images.
Viewing Flagged Images in the Develop Module
When in the Develop Module or Loupe View, the Filter Option is located around the upper right corner of the page (especially in grid view). By default, the filter option filmstrip would be showing “Filters Off,” which indicates all photos would be on display.
When you click on this filmstrip, a drop-down menu reveals different options, from which you should select “Flagged” to display the related photos. If editing the images in Develop Module, you can open and view the flagged images using the following detailed steps.
- Open Lightroom on your computer
- To switch to the develop module, select a photo under the library module and click on the key D
- Go to the filter panel at the top right corner of the filmstrip displayed in this module and select the filter option
- After doing this, a drop-down menu will be displayed on the new window which sets the default lightroom filter as “No Filter”
- From this menu, choose the option titled “Flagged”
- Doing this displays the entire collection of flagged photos on lightroom
What Types of Flags Can You View in Lightroom?
Lightroom offers three unique flags to allow users to categorize their photos. All photos not assigned a flag are automatically categorized as unflagged. These photos would have a non-colored flag icon, indicating they’re neither picked nor rejected.
The next and most popular of the flags is the “Pick” flag. This white-colored flag is selected when the photo is good and should be kept. As a photographer, you would always have some pictures that come out just fine and naturally get chosen during the selection process.
On the other hand, it’s common to have pictures that are either blurry or are not what you need. In Lightroom, these photos are referred to as “Rejected” and are assigned a black-colored flag.
Is Flagging Better Than Ratings in Lightroom?
No matter how perfect the camera’s quality or the photographer’s expertise, some photos don’t just seem to come out right. As a photographer, you decide which photo should pass and which should not.
Lightroom allows users to use flags or ratings to sort and categorize photos. Although both tools perform almost the same function, which does a better job of photo categorization? We’ve answered that extensively below.
Simplicity
You can assign a white flag (Pick) to an image if you like it, a black flag (rejected) if you don’t like how it turned out, or leave it unflagged if you’re yet to decide if you want to keep it or not. Doing this is fairly simple.
Ratings make things a bit complicated. For example, Lightroom offers users the option of choosing/grading a photo from 1 to 5 stars. While it’s easy to understand a rating of 1 and 5 stars, what would two stars and four stars signify if there’s an undecided three-star option?
The Filtering Process
Editing multiple images is much easier with flags when you need to filter photos based on favorites and dislikes. By selecting the white flag, all your favorite photos are immediately displayed. Doing this saves you time and energy trying to make further decisions.
When choosing favorites, you would probably have to look through those with four or five stars. Even if you settle that all photos with three stars are undecided, you would need to reconsider those tagged with two stars as either rejected or undecided photos making things even more complicated.
Deleting Photos
Undoubtedly, it is way easier to delete unwanted photos categorized with flags than those with stars. When photos are flagged on Lightroom, by clicking on the black flag (rejected), all photos that are unwanted and need to be discarded are immediately displayed.
When using the ratings, you’ll have to filter through the photos rated with one star to delete them before filtering through those rated with two stars. In simpler words, the process is a bit too cumbersome than when working with flags.
How to Erase Flagged Photos in Lightroom
Now that you’ve been able to view your flagged photos, you can either choose to discard the rejected ones or further filter through the picked ones. Lightroom makes things super easy when culling and organizing images.
Here are the steps to delete flagged photos in Lightroom.
- Start by filtering the images to display only the rejected ones.
- Select the Rejected flag (Black flag) depending on the module you’re in.
- Make a quick look through all the displayed images, and be sure you want them deleted.
- Click on the toolbar icon labeled “Photo” to reveal a drop-down menu.
- A scroll towards the bottom and click on “Delete Rejected Photos.”
- A pop-up screen would request if you want to delete the images from Lightroom, Disk, or cancel the action.
- Deleting from Lightroom means the images can no longer be found within Lightroom’s catalog, though they are still available within the computer/device storage. However, deleting from Disk removes the photos from Lightroom and the computer’s storage.
- By clicking on either of the options, you would have successfully removed the rejected images from Lightroom.
Benefits of Knowing How to View Flagged Photos in Lightroom
The Flag feature on Lightroom is essential. It helps in categorizing photos that are needed or discarded. In Lightroom, images are either unflagged or flagged as rejected.
Depending on the type of flag assigned to an image, it is categorized with photos of similar flags. Knowing how to view these images opens the door to a seamless workflow on lightroom. Besides, it enables you to access essential lightroom files quickly.
Conclusion
Although Lightroom offers two primary options for sorting and categorizing photos, knowing how to view flagged images is essential. When photos are flagged, they’re assigned a white flag or a black flag, and these images can be easily viewed via the Develop or Library module.
