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Lightroom Classic’s Filter Bar helps you search your photos and this article shows you eight ways you can use it. The idea is to familiarize you with the way the Filter Bar works and encourage you to come up with your own searches. If you’ve ever wondered how many Virtual Copies a photo has, or how many of your photos don’t have copyright info embedded, then you’ll find the answers here. But before you do a search you need to decide which photos you are going to search. Here are the options:
1. Search a specific Collection or Folder. For example, when I’m writing a book I may need a vertical photo to fill a space. So I start by selecting the Collection of available photos, then doing a search for vertical photos (Filter Bar search #1).
2. Search multiple Collections, Collection Sets or Folders. Select one, then hold the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) key down and click on others to add them to the selection.
3. Search all your photos. Go to the Catalog folder and click the All Photographs Collection.
These ideas will also help you with spring cleaning activities like adding copyright info to photos which don’t have it, or finding older photos that you haven’t applied Denoise to yet.
Filter Bar search #1: Finding horizontal or vertical photos
This one is useful for me as I often need to find a photo in a specific orientation to fill a gap in a book. Likewise, I tend to use photos in the landscape format to illustrate online articles. This search may also come in handy if you are looking for photo to print in specific orientation or aspect ratio.
To make the search, go to Metadata and set the first column to Develop > Aspect Ratio. As well as the portrait and landscape formats it also brings up other aspect ratios you may have used, like the square format or panoramas.
Remember, you can refine the search further by adding rules to other columns, like Keywords, Camera or Focal Length.
Filter Bar search #2: Find photos without GPS data
Most smartphone cameras add GPS co-ordinates to your photos. You may also have a camera that adds GPS data to your photos. Or perhaps you add GPS data using the Map module. Either way it’s useful to know which of your photos don’t have GPS data, so you can add it if you want to. Set the first column to GPS Data.
Filter Bar search #3: Hide rejects
Do you use the Rejected flag when you cull photos? If you do this search helps you cull images faster by hiding rejected images. You can speed things up more by enabling Auto Advance (Photo > Auto Advance). This tells Lightroom to move on to the next photo when you hit any key. Set the first column to Flag and click the Flagged and Unflagged options to hide rejects.
Filter Bar search #4: Find Virtual Copies
Virtual Copies are very useful but it’s easy to lose track of them once you have created them. Here’s an easy way to find all Virtual Copies of any photo.
1. Make a note of the photo’s filename (you can copy it from the Metadata panel, set the menu to EXIF).
2. Go to the Catalog panel and click on All Photographs.
3. Click on Text in the Filter bar, set the search rules to Filename and Contains All and paste the name of the photo in the search box.
4. Click on Attribute and then the Virtual Copies icon on the right of the Filter bar. This search reveals all Virtual Copies of your photo.
The screenshot below shows the Virtual Copies for the photo with the filename 20250919-DSCF0558.raf.
The only problem with these search rules is that it includes other photos that your camera gave the same filename as it cycled back through its numbering sequence.
You can work around this by setting the Padlock icon (in the top right of the Filter Bar) to the locked position, right-clicking the correct photo and choosing Go to Folder in Library. As long as you don’t have two photos sharing the same name in the same folder, this limits the search to just the Virtual Copies you are looking for.
Filter Bar search #5: Find photos without Denoise or Raw Details
Lightroom’s Denoise tool is useful for getting the best from your Raw files. You might like to go through older photos to find any that would benefit from using Denoise. That’s easy with the Filter Bar – go to Metadata and set the first column to Develop > Has Denoise. Set the second column to ISO Speed to find your high ISO photos. You can do with the same with Raw Details, another useful tool.
Filter Bar search #6: Find photos without keywords
If you keyword your photos then it’s helpful to know which photos, if any, haven’t had any keyword tags added to them. You can find them with the following search. Click Text and then under that select “Keywords” and “Are Empty” from the menus.
Filter Bar search #7: Find photos without an embedded copyright status
If you share photos anywhere online it’s a good idea to have your copyright status embedded in your photos. It’s easy to check if you have any photos in your Catalog without any copyright info. Go to Metadata and set the first column to Copyright Status.
There’s an easy way to add your copyright info to those photos that don’t have it, as long as you have already created a preset to apply your personal details to photos.
1. Press Cmd+A (Mac) | Ctrl+A (PC) to select all the photos returned by the search.
2. Go to the Metadata panel in the right-hand panels.
3. Select your preset from the Presets menu at the top of the Metadata panel.
4. Click the All Selected button in the Apply Metadata Preset window.
Filter Bar search #8: Find photos with specific Color Labels
You can use the Filter Bar to find photos with specific Color Labels. For example, when I import photos into Lightroom Classic I use the following Color Label system.
I start by applying the Red Color Label to all the imported photos. This tells me that I haven’t culled them yet.
Once culling is complete I apply the Yellow Color Label to photos that I intend to develop, but haven’t done it yet.
Once I’ve developed a photo I set the Color Label to Green. That way I can see at a glance which photos are marked for developing, and which ones have been developed.
A Filter Bar search is useful to find photos with the Yellow Color Label so I can develop them. Or I can search for photos with the Green Color Label, knowing that they have been developed and are ready to use. To do the search, go to Attribute and click the Yellow or Green square. Make sure that none of the other icons, like the Flags, are selected, otherwise the search will return an incorrect result.
Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module
You can learn more about these ideas in my best-selling ebook Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module.
