Today’s Question: Is it possible to change the criteria for a smart collection in Lightroom Classic, such as to change the star rating required for an image to be included in the smart collection?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can modify the criteria for a smart collection in Lightroom Classic by either double-clicking on the smart collection or by right-clicking and choosing “Edit Smart Collection” from the popup menu.
More Detail: As noted in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, smart collections can help streamline the process of viewing images matching specific criteria, such as those with a particular keyword and star rating. In addition, smart collections are more discoverable than simple filter criteria, in terms of being on display in the Collections section of the left panel in the Library module.
If you want to modify the criteria for an existing collection, you can go to the Collections section of the left panel in the Library module and either double-click on the smart collection or right-click on it and choose “Edit Smart Collection” from the popup menu. This will bring up the Edit Smart Collection dialog, where you can adjust any of the settings for the smart collection.
For example, if you had used a combination of keyword and star rating for a smart collection, you may later want to increase the star rating requirement to reduce the total number of photos included in the smart collection. In addition to modifying existing rules, you can add new rules or even delete rules to update the criteria for the smart collection.
Depending on the extent to which you’ve modified the criteria for a smart collection, you may also want to modify the Name field to better reflect the purpose of the smart collection. For example, if you’ve changed which keyword is being used as one of the rules for a smart collection, it is a good idea to change the name of the smart collection to reflect that change, since the contents of the smart collection will be different from when you originally created the smart collection.
