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When you use Lightroom’s Library module to edit you photos, as in decide which ones to develop, you can use Survey View to compare similar images. It’s ideal when you have several images to choose from and you want to find the best one to send to the Develop module.
In the screenshot below, for example, you can see that I have six similar photos of the same flower. Survey View helped me find the best one.
What’s the difference between Survey View and Compare View?
You can compare as many photos as you like in Survey View, but only two at a time in Compare View.
Survey View lets you quickly identify which photos are keepers and mark them with a flag.
The only drawback is that the more photos you look at, the smaller they are on the monitor. Compare View, on the other hand, lets you compare as many photos as you want, but only displays two of them at one time on the screen.
Let’s look at the differences more closely using the flower photos I just showed you.
If you select all six photos and go to Compare View (use the ‘C’ keyboard shortcut) you get something like this.
The idea is that the best photo on the left (the Select), and you cycle through the other photos (Candidates) using the arrow keys. If you like a Candidate photo better than the Select, you press the Make Select button (marked below) to swap them over.
Compare View is ideal when you want to identify one photo from the selection as being the best one.
If you go to Survey View (use the ’N’ keyboard shortcut) you can see all the photos together.
Survey View is best when you want to look at more than two photos together on the same screen. It’s also the option to use when you might choose two or more photos from the selection to send to the Develop module. In my example there are six similar photos, so it makes sense to choose one.
But in a different selection, like the one below, I might select two photos to develop. Look carefully and you’ll see that the background is different in the bottom row of photos. So it makes sense to choose one photo from the top row, and another from the bottom row. Survey View is the best tool for that.
How to use Survey View in Lightroom Classic
Start in Grid View and select the photos that you want to compare.
Use the ’N’ keyboard shortcut to go to Survey View, or click the Survey View icon in the Toolbar (press ’T’ to show the Toolbar if you can’t see it).
The Active Photo has a border. It’s important to know which photo in the selection is the Active Photo because it’s the one that you apply any metadata changes to, like flagging a photo as a Pick. It’s also the photo that opens in Loupe View if you press the Space Bar.
In the screenshot below, the top left photo is the Active Photo.
Tip: The border around the Active Photo is easiest to see when you set the background color to Dark Gray, Darker Gray or Black. To change the background color, right-click on the background and select a different color from the menu (see below).
Click any other photo to make it the Active Photo, or scroll through with the arrow keys.
Lightroom displays assigned flags, star ratings or color labels underneath the photos. You can also see the flag, star rating and color label of the Active Photo in the Toolbar.
If you move the cursor over a photo you can assign a flag, star rating or color label by clicking on of the icons underneath. You can do this in the Toolbar as well.
If you’d like to view a photo at a larger size just click on it (to make it the most selected image in the selection) and press the Space bar. Lightroom shows you the photo in Loupe View. Press the ‘Esc’ key or use the ’N’ keyboard shortcut to go back to Survey View.
In Survey View when you move the cursor over the Active Photo you’ll see a white X in a black square in the bottom-right corner. You can click this to remove the photo from the selection. It disappears from the screen and Lightroom rearranges the remaining photos to fit the screen. If you click it by mistake, use the Undo shortcut (PC: Ctrl-Z, Mac: Cmd-Z) to bring the de-selected photo back.
You can rearrange photos by clicking and dragging. This works as long as you are working with photos in a Folder or Collection. It doesn’t work with photos in a Collection Set, Smart Collection, or the All Photographs or Previous Import Collections found in the Catalog panel.
Survey View in a new window
If you have a two monitor setup then you can use Survey View on one and Grid View on the other. Here’s how to do it.
1. Select the images you want to compare in Grid View.
2. Open the Filmstrip and click on the Second Window icon on the left (the one with the number 2 in it), holding the mouse button down to open a menu. Set it to Survey View.
3. Now click the Second Window icon again. Survey View opens in a new window and you can drag it to your second monitor.
Selecting photos in Survey View
The easiest way to mark the keepers is to flag them as Picks by pressing the ‘P’ key or clicking the Flag icon underneath the photos. For this to work you need to make sure all the photos in the selection are unflagged before you start (you can do that by pressing the ‘U’ key).
If you are sorting photos for developing in the Develop module, it’s a good idea to send the flagged photos to a new Collection so you know exactly which ones you’ve chosen to develop.
I went into this process in more detail in my article How To Find Your Best Photos Fast In Lightroom Classic. I suggest you give it a read, you’ll find it helpful.
You can learn more useful stuff like this about Lightroom Classic in my new ebook Lightroom Classic Q&A: 101 Readers’ Questions Answered.
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