Today’s Question: Lightroom Classic shows 502,248 for the “All Photographs” in the Catalog panel but when I highlight “All Photographs” and look at the bar above the filmstrip, it shows “500,434 of 502,248” being displayed. Why not the full number in the catalog? Can you explain this? I do not knowingly have any filters enabled.
Tim’s Quick Answer: In this case I am quite sure the “missing” photos are really just images that are not being displayed because they are in stacks that are collapsed. If you expand all stacks, the total number of photos displayed should once again match the total number of photos in your Lightroom Classic catalog.
More Detail: The information display above the filmstrip on the bottom panel in Lightroom Classic indicates how many photos are currently being displayed, based in part on which folder or collection you have selected for browsing. If only a subset of all photos are being displayed from the currently selected folder or collection, there will be an indication of how many photos out of the total available are currently being displayed.
For example, let’s assume you have a folder that contains 1,000 photos, and you’ve assigned a five-star rating to three of those photos. If you set a filter for a star rating of five stars, the information display above the filmstrip would show “3 of 1,000 photos” to indicate there are 1,000 photos in the currently selected folder, but only three of them are being displayed.
Understandably, if you don’t have any filters set, it would be confusing why Lightroom is indicating that not all of the photos in the current folder or collection are being displayed. But keep in mind that when a stack of photos is collapsed, all of the photos in the stack are represented as a single thumbnail. In other words, not all images in the current folder or selection would actually be displayed if one or more stacks are collapsed.
Fortunately, you can easily expand all stacks in the current folder or collection. Simply go to the menu bar and choose Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks. This command will only affect the current folder or collection, so if you want to expand all stacks for the “All Photographs” collection you would need to select that collection first, and then use the Expand All Stacks command.
Note, by the way, that I’ve added commas to the larger numbers above to make it easier to read them. Lightroom Classic does not display commas in the numbers for the count of photos, which in my opinion makes it a bit difficult to read those numbers.