alacrity

I would like to be able to keep photos in the collections I have made from the Lightroom library while deleting them in the Lightroom library itself. In other words, I don't need all the photos I have in LR's library folders but want to retain the ones that I moved into a collection within LR that are my "best" from those folders. How do I do this? Will I lose the ones in the collection if I delete those photos in the LR library folders? Thanks.

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

Collections are just 'pointers' to photos, they are not actual copies of the images.
If you delete the photos in the library they will no longer be in the collection.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Collections are completely virtual and internal to LR. Your idea is not technically viable.

But at a more fundamental level, what are you trying to accomplish? LR is a database of pointers to your original images and the edit instructions you've made against these images. And, some of the virtual organization work, such as collections and keywords.

When you say you want to delete images, why? for what purpose? With more details of your purpose, maybe we can identify a better use of LR to accomplish the objective.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Yes, if you delete an image from Lightroom then it is gone from all collections as others have stated.

A Lightroom collection is not a physical set, it is a list of the images basically.

Bret Perry

Assuming you did work on them, if you only want the edited photos, Export the photos in the collection and then delete the Library and re-import the exported collection pics if you want them in Lightroom.

If you want the unedited originals you'll need to delete the unwanted photos in the Library one-by-one
If you never edited the originals, then exporting from the collection should be the same as original if you keep the same format

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Lightroom has NO copies of your photos, just a sort of "road map" to their location on your drive and a small file of edits you have made. If you different edits you do not have two copies of the photo, you have two files of the thumbnail with a record of the edits. If you open a photo to work on it, print, export etc then LR loads a copy of the original photo from your drive and applies all edits done before, and when you finish any changes made are added to the small file but the copy of the photo goes away. LR just keeps the low rez thumbnail with the edits done to the photo. That is a pretty small file compared to the full photo file.
However, on your computer, with windows, in the "Pictures" library is your original down loaded/imported photo - mostly just as it came out of the camera. The term is "nondestructive" editing.
If you ever delete the LR catalog then LR will no longer know where the photos are in your because it drive and will not have your edits history to be reapplied anymore.
If you want to rearrange, rename etc any of the photos or folders in you Pictures Library do it from within LR. Otherwise LR will no longer know where the photo files/folders are or will not recognize them because LR is looking for "Snowman Jan 10" and you renamed it "Frosty Jan 10" or it is looking on "C" drive and you added a "D" drive and moved "Pictures Library" to it.

alacrity

alacrity

Thank you. What I am trying to do is delete unwanted photos in my LR library and save the ones I put in a collection as my "best" of that LR folder. I can see that I will need to just delete only the ones in the library that I don't want, keeping the ones, ie not deleting them, that I had selected as going into a collection as my "best", thereby maintaining them in the collection also. I am just trying to cull out unwanted photos of a shoot, but keeping desired ones having them in a collection also, if that makes sense. Thanks for the explanations. Alacrity

alacrity

Thank you. What I am trying to do is delete unwanted photos in my LR library and save the ones I put in a collection as my "best" of that LR folder. I can see that I will need to just delete only the ones in the library that I don't want, keeping the ones, ie not deleting them, that I had selected as going into a collection as my "best", thereby maintaining them in the collection also. I am just trying to cull out unwanted photos of a shoot, but keeping desired ones having them in a collection also, if that makes sense. Thanks for the explanations. Alacrity

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Makes sense. Alas, from the main library view, there's not a filter for "not in collection". But, there's lots of filters based on edit counts / dates, shooting dates, keywords, stars, colors and similar where you can update those to keep and remove the others that don't have the attribute you've used to identify the "keepers".

You might look at your workflow to see if you can do some maintenance early that facilitates the clean-up later. For example, I import all my images and add keywords and place the whole into the target collection where my keepers from that session will eventually reside. Then, as I edit / cull, anyone that's not a keeper gets a rejected flag (the 'x' key). At various steps during the editing, or simply at the end, I filter for those with the rejected flag set and remove. You can remove from inside the collection, without yet deleting. From the main library, you can filter again by the reject flag and this time perform the delete from both the catalog and remove the actual.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

When you "delete" photos from LR you get a choice, you only delete the LR files or you also "delete from disk". Just pick the option to only delete it from LR and the original image will still be in your Pictures Library.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you delete a photo in the Library using the remove from drive option, it's sent to the trash or recycle bin and it is removed from the folder and removed from any collection it was in.

If you delete a photo from the Library using the remove from Library only option, it will remain on the drive and you will see it at the OS level, but Lightroom will no longer show it in neither the folder view or as part of a collection.

If I understand you correctly, you want to create a new collection called best. So do that. Just don't delete those images from your folders. If they are not in the Library, LR doesn't know about them.

scubadoc Loc: Sarasota, FL

As others have stated, the photos in your Collections folder are virtual copies, and take up virtually no space. The only way to do what you want is to export your edited favs to a folder on a hard drive, either as a Tiff or Hi-res jpegs. You can then delete the originals from your Lightroom catalogue. I’m not sure what you will gain by this, though. Keeping your edited favs in your Collections as a pointer to your original edited photos makes much more sense, as you retain all the versatility of Lightroom.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

You need to be more clear on what you want to be able to do. Not how you want to do it, not, for instance "delete from library but not collection". But rather "access a selected subset of images" or "create an area where I can find what I like more quickly". Describe what you want to be able to do after whatever organizational action is done then someone might be able to give better advice..

BruceT4891

First, make sure you have a good backup - both of your Lightroom library, and your actual photo files.

In Lightroom Classic, select all of your Collections. You can do this by clicking on the first collection, the hold the shift key and click on the last collection.

Make sure you are in Grid view (this may not be absolutely necessary, but I prefer it). Select all of the pictures (<Ctrl>A for Windows or <Command>A ion the Mac s one method).

Set an attribute that will be unique to these pictures. Maybe a star rating, or a color, or maybe just a keyword.

Go back to Folders and select the top folder.

Search for pictures that don’t meet the attribute you set and delete them.