Today’s Question: I was watching your videos on the “cloud” version of Lightroom, and noticed that you didn’t use color labels the way I’ve seen you do in Lightroom Classic. Is there a reason you don’t use color labels to mark images for review in Lightroom the way you do in Lightroom Classic?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The reason I don’t use color labels in the cloud-focused version of Lightroom is that color labels aren’t supported in Lightroom, at least for now.
More Detail: When I import new photos into my Lightroom Classic catalog, I use a metadata preset to update some of the metadata fields for my photos, including adding a red color label to all imported photos to indicate that I still need to review those photos to identify favorites versus outtakes.
In the cloud-focused version of Lightroom, color labels are not currently supported. I’m hoping Adobe will add support for color labels in Lightroom in the future, because I do find them to be very helpful in my workflow. I use color labels to mark photos for a particular status, such as a red color label for photos that need to be reviewed. I then use star ratings to identify favorites, and a reject flag to mark photos as outtakes that I will later delete.
Since color labels aren’t currently supported in Lightroom, I recommend using a workflow that makes it clear which photos still need to be reviewed. For images in cloud-based storage you can create an album for this purpose, with a name such as “Photos to Review”. For photos in local storage you can use a meaningful name for the folder, and also mark it as a favorite so it will appear on the Favorites list and therefore be more noticeable.
I would very much like to see support for color labels added to the cloud-focused version of Lightroom, but in the meantime there are ways you can work around that limitation within your workflow.
If you’d like to learn how to put the cloud-focused version of Lightroom to use in your workflow for organizing, optimizing, and sharing photos, check out my “Mastering Adobe Lightroom” course on the GreyLearning website here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/mastering-adobe-lightroom-cloud-2024