Today’s Question: I noticed that I have a discrepancy in my Lightroom Classic catalog that I can’t explain. I have all filters off, but Lightroom says I have 88,298 of 93,730 photos. I’m not sure why that with all filters off there is a discrepancy. Does that make sense to you, or is there something else I am missing?
Tim’s Quick Answer: In this scenario I’m sure the mismatch is simply due to some of your photos being grouped into stacks that are collapsed within Lightroom Classic. If you expand all stacks (Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks) with the filter set to None then you’ll be viewing all photos within the catalog.
More Detail: In Lightroom Classic you can stack photos together so that when the stack is collapsed a single thumbnail represents the full stack of photos. By default, when you merge photos into a high dynamic range (HDR) image or a panorama, the source photos and the assembled image are grouped together into a stack. You can also stack photos together manually.
If any stacks of photos are collapsed, with a single thumbnail representing the group of images in the stack, Lightroom Classic counts the stack as a single image. Therefore, you would see an indication that you are browsing a portion of the images, such as text that indicates “9,500 of 10,000 photos”. This text is found toward the top-left of the bottom panel, above the filmstrip of thumbnails. If all photos are shown there is simply an indication of the total number of photos currently being browsed.
As today’s question suggests, if you have applied a filter to your images then the number displayed would be less than the total number of photos. You might, for example, set a filter to only see images with a star rating, so you would only be browsing a portion of the images based on how many have the applicable star rating.
If you have selected “None” on the Library Filter bar then you would naturally expect that you would be seeing all photos in the location you’re currently browsing. However, as noted above, collapsed stacks result in some photos being hidden from view, and Lightroom Classic takes that into account when indicating how many photos are being browsed.
You can expand all stacks in the current location by going to the menu and choosing Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks. If you want to collapse all stacks in the current location, you can choose Photo > Stacking > Collapse All Stacks from the menu instead.
