Lightroom Learn

Find your photos quickly

Organize images with albums, ratings, and automatic content recognition.
Published

There are several ways that you can find specific types of photos in Lightroom, including filtering by date, by creating albums, applying flags and star ratings, and by using Lightroom’s powerful automatic search.

Find photos based on the date

Lightroom automatically keeps track of your photos by the date they were captured and lets you view photos by the year, month, and day they were taken. To display photo by date, tap P to display the Photos sidebar, or click the Photos icon in the upper left. Click to open the All Photos view and then click By Date. Here you can choose to view a specific year, and also narrow your search within the year to more specific criteria such as the month or day the photos were taken.

Organize your photos into albums

Albums are the tool you’ll use most to organize your photos in Lightroom. Create albums to organize photos by topic, your favorite images, or group photos together for a current project or particular use. You can even nest albums inside folders for another level of organization. Albums are similar to playlists for music; the same photo can be added to multiple albums.

Click the + symbol at the top right of the Albums panel to create a new album or folder. Right-click on an album name for additional options. The sharing status of an album is indicated with a badge on the album thumbnail.

Locate photos based on flags and ratings

Deciding which photos are “good” is a basic task we do when we review our images. Assigning a quality designation by adding flags or star ratings to your photos in Lightroom allows you to search for and quickly find your very best images.

Choose a group of images that you want to search (i.e., All Photos), and click the Refine Search icon (the funnel symbol) at the top of the interface to display a range of different search criteria you can use to filter your images, such as showing only the photos with three or more stars. To cancel a search, click the X to the left of the Refine Search icon.

Search for photos based on image content

Lightroom can automatically find photos based on their content. Without having to add keywords manually, you can search your photo archive using subject matter terms, such as “horses” or “mountain”. In the search bar at the top, enter the terms you want to search for. You still have the flexibility to add and search for your own keywords if you find that works best for your workflow. You can also search by location and a variety of other camera metadata.

Instruction and Photography by

Seán Duggan