2 Replies Latest reply: Mar 5, 2007 4:38 AM by SimonTindemans RSS

    Auto-stack by name

    SimonTindemans Community Member
      One feature that I feel is currently missing from Lightroom is the ability to *automatically* stack multiple versions of the same images when they are(/were) made outside of Lightroom. Usually, these versions are related to each other by their name. It would be convenient if there were an auto-stack function that would use the file names to determine which files to stack.

      Such a function could split the file names into a base name and a suffix, and stack all images with the same base name. Preferably, there should be a couple of ways to determine the base name:
      1) Use a user-definable suffix delimiter (for example '-').
      2) Use a fixed base name length (n characters).
      3) Use a pattern (such as 'P##??-', where # is any digit and ? is any character)

      I think this simple function would greatly improve the ease of use of stacks, especially when using Lightroom alongside other applications.

      Simon
        • 1. Re: Auto-stack by name
          hillrg Community Member
          As I have suggested before, I think stacking on the original date/time. It is unlikely that two different images willl have an identical cature time to the 1/100 second.
          • 2. Re: Auto-stack by name
            SimonTindemans Community Member
            Yes, that sounds like a good idea. This could be easily implemented by dragging the 'stack by time' slider all the way to the left. Currently, this simply splits all stacks, like the 'unstack' command.

            The only (minor) disadvantage of this method would be images that have no, or inconsistent, time information, such as composites or JPGs with stripped headers. Despite this, stacking by identical date/time would certainly be a good start.