Today’s Question: Do you have any documentation that explains what the badge icons are that appear on thumbnails of photos in Lightroom Classic?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes! I’ve published a post on the GreyLearning blog that defines the “badge” icons on photo thumbnails in Lightroom Classic here:
https://greylearningblog.com/meaning-of-thumbnail-badge-icons-in-lightroom-classic/
More Detail: By default, Lightroom Classic displays icons at the bottom-right corner of applicable photos in both the grid view display in the Library module as well as on the filmstrip on the bottom panel. The five badges are used to indicate whether an image has had keywords added to it, has GPS coordinates in metadata, is included in one or more collections, has been cropped, or has been edited in the Develop module.
I find these badges very helpful, especially since you can click on the badges to access specific features as outlined in the article linked above. However, if you don’t like having the badges displayed it is possible to turn them off.
For the grid view display you can update the settings in the View Options dialog, which you can access by selecting View > View Options from the menu. Turn off the “Thumbnail Badges” checkbox in the Cell Icons section of the Grid View tab if you don’t want to see thumbnail badges in the grid view.
For the filmstrip you can turn off the badges in Preferences. Start by selecting Edit > Preferences from the menu on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh. Go to the Interface tab, and turn off the “Show badges” checkbox in the Filmstrip section if you don’t want to have badges displayed on thumbnails on the filmstrip.
