Today’s Question: I use star ratings when I initially review in Lightroom Classic to remove rejects and keep desired images. In the past, after adding star ratings, I would filter based on a rating of zero stars. I don’t seem to find an option for no stars on the filter bar. What am I missing?
Tim’s Quick Answer: To set a filter for images that do not have a star rating assigned to them you can set the comparison operator to “Rating is equal to” (=) and then turn off the star selection if applicable.
More Detail: While the interface for setting a filter based on star rating in Lightroom Classic is relatively straightforward, it can be a little confusing when you want to set a filter for images that do not have a star rating assigned, which is the equivalent of zero stars.
To get started, go to the Library Filter bar above the grid view in the Library module. If the Library filter bar isn’t visible you can enable it by choosing View > Show Filter Bar from the menu or by pressing the backslash key (\). Then go to the Attribute tab to find the options for star rating and other attributes.
To the right of the Rating label you’ll see a symbol representing one of the three options, which include “Rating is greater than or equal to”, “Rating is equal to”, or “Rating is less than or equal to”. In this example you would click the symbol to bring up the popup and choose “Rating is equal to”.
Next, you need to make sure that a star rating is not currently selected, which translates to a zero-star rating. When a star rating is selected one or more of the stars to the right of the Rating label will appear white, with the remainder appearing gray. For example, if a three-star rating is selected, three stars will appear white and two will appear gray. Clicking on the rightmost of the white stars will toggle the setting to zero stars.
At that point the images will be filtered so that only those with a zero-star rating in the current folder or collection will be displayed. If needed, you can then set any other metadata attributes based on how you want to filter the images.
