# Hiding sensitive pictures?



## turnstyle (Jan 26, 2011)

Hi all, a very small percent of my photos are not appropriate for all viewers. Is there a simple way to hide individual pictures, while still leaving them in place?

Ideally I'd like to generally run Lightroom only showing the 'appropriate' photos, but also have a simple way to alternatively display all of them if I'd like.

Thanks in advance...


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## b_gossweiler (Jan 26, 2011)

I think the only way of doing that is keeping the sensitive stuff in a separate catalog. All you can do within one catalog is restricted to organizing in collections and folders, and if that's not good enough, you'll have to resort to a second catalog.

Beat


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## DonRicklin (Jan 26, 2011)

There is currently no direct mechanism for this in LR.

However, putting them undercover of stacks or a stack with a benign top image (they need to be in the same physical folder/directory of your drive) might be one way to deal with this, meanwhile. The cover image could then be easly found by a filter or collection, by you.

Don


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## turnstyle (Jan 26, 2011)

Thanks, too bad.  :(

I don't really want to move them to another catalog because I like being able to see them within the larger chronological context, if I want to -- otherwise, I'd just like to hide them from regular view.

I've only had Lightroom a few weeks -- is this a "feature" that gets asked after with some regularity?


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## DonRicklin (Jan 26, 2011)

turnstyle said:


> Thanks, too bad.  :(
> 
> I don't really want to move them to another catalog because I like being able to see them within the larger chronological context, if I want to -- otherwise, I'd just like to hide them from regular view.
> 
> I've only had Lightroom a few weeks -- is this a "feature" that gets asked after with some regularity?


Yes this is regularly requested. Did you consider my suggestion?

Don


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## turnstyle (Jan 26, 2011)

DonRicklin said:


> Did you consider my suggestion?


 
Yes, thank you, though I'm afraid I'll lose track of which are the regular stacks, and which are obfuscational. Other suggestions I've heard are:

* Somehow use filters, but I don't quite see how that would work.

* Yank down the exposure to make the image look black (and I can also keep a snapshot of the proper image)

* Submit a feature request (which I just did)

And I'd love to hear any other tricks/hacks people might use to address this issue...


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## johnbeardy (Jan 26, 2011)

I haven't heard of many ways other than having a separate catalogue, but building on your interesting idea, why not have a preset that disguises the file? For example, I don't use the tone curve very often, so it may be suitable (I would use exposure too often). Here you can see that I've set the curve so it produces a grey picture, and then saved it as a preset. I can then adjust my image, and as a last step apply the preset. Later, when I want to see it, it's just one History step to undo. I'd probably also add a keyword. 

Other ideas might be a grad filter with -100 Clarity. If you drag the grad completely outside the image area, then all of the image would be blurred. Add 2-3 more like it and you'll be safe (it's like my ultra clarity preset http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/punch-the-sky-updates/ but with clarity at -100)

John


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## turnstyle (Jan 26, 2011)

johnbeardy said:


> I haven't heard of many ways other than having a separate catalogue, but building on your interesting idea, why not have a preset that disguises the file? For example, I don't use the tone curve very often, so it may be suitable (I would use exposure too often). Here you can see that I've set the curve so it produces a grey picture, and then saved it as a preset. I can then adjust my image, and as a last step apply the preset. Later, when I want to see it, it's just one History step to undo. I'd probably also add a keyword.


 
Yep, the flat Tone Curve is a great variation. So, I could add a preset ('Blanked Out') that obfuscates the image. imho, it might be easier to use Snapshots rather than History to switch back and forth between the blanked out and regular versions of the image.

Q: will Lightroom ever present the unaltered image as the thumbnail, rather than the processed image?

The main drawbacks to this approach seem to be: 1) the Grid will still display the Blanked Out images, and 2) there's no easy way to turn on/off blanking across all images.


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## erro (Jan 26, 2011)

You could add a keyword "sensitive" to all you sensitive photos, and then create a smart collection where "keywords doesn't contain sensitive". Then work from within that collection.


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## turnstyle (Jan 26, 2011)

erro said:


> You could add a keyword "sensitive" to all you sensitive photos, and then create a smart collection where "keywords doesn't contain sensitive". Then work from within that collection.



I gather the problem with that approach is that it remains a bit too easy to accidentally wind up in "all photos"?


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## erro (Jan 26, 2011)

turnstyle said:


> I gather the problem with that approach is that it remains a bit too easy to accidentally wind up in "all photos"?


 
Of course. There is no foolproof method to "hide" photos, apart maybe from a separate catalog.


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## sysy78 (Jan 30, 2011)

what you can do is create a collection set called "alternate catalogs" in your master catalog.  Under this set you can create a collection called "hide_these_sensitive_pictures", and then you create a smart collection right next to it called "safe_pics_catalog" - set the criteria to <collection doesn't contain "hide_these_sensitive_pictures">.

now, what you do is you add all of your sensitive pics you wanna hide to the former collection.  Automatically your smart collection is updated.  You can then right click that smart collection and export it as a catalog whenever you need to, to the same folder as your master catalog, just make sure that you don't export previews or negatives.  Close lightroom, navigate to where your catalogs are stored, and simply rename the master to something else, and then rename your newly exported catalog to the master.  Restart Lightroom, and you'll have the same catalog as normal just without those images.  When you wanna return to your original catalog, you just rename your files again.  The alternate library can be regenerated quickly whenever it is needed.

This isn't the cleanest method, but I like to keep ALL my photos in one master catalog and just keep multiple alternate libraries as collections for quick generaion for clients, family, work etc..

But I do wish that there was a "hide sensitive photos" option in lightroom that was password protected.   It wouldn't be fullproof, but enough so that while in lightroom, you could let people simply browse without getting embarrassed.


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## markfickett (Feb 13, 2011)

erro said:


> You could add a keyword "sensitive" to all you sensitive photos, and then create a smart collection where "keywords doesn't contain sensitive". Then work from within that collection.


 
My problem with that approach is that, when working in a collection, flagging and deletion don't carry over to 'all photos'. (Flags are local to a collection; pressing backspace removes a photo from the collection as opposed to prompting to delete from disk.)

Since I don't use flag-as-reject in my normal workflow, I have repurposed it to easily show/hide some images. Advantages: they remain in chronological order. Ambiguous: they are somewhat dimmed (harder to work with, but keeps them from accidental viewing to some degree). Disadvantages: I have to lock the filter (flagged or unflagged, excluding rejected), or else they re-appear when navigating between sets.


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