It would be useful to be able to browse the photo library and a thumb nail dsiplay and icon if they are already included in a project.
Similarly an icon could indicate whether a photo has been keyworded or not.
Filtering for either (or for those that have not been…) would be useful to complete cataloging. (using PL8)
How would you anticipate indicating that such an image is included in multiple projects?
All you need to do is look at the keywording panel when you select an image
Several requests to filter the images that have no keywords have already been made.
Hi Joanna, thanks for commenting.
Regarding the first point: tricky but when viewing pages of thumbnails, a marker for those of us that sort using projects (say trips) a single icon would already help. (perhaps I am alone in doing this)
Distinguishing for each project would be too messy.
Regarding keywords, yes but that would mean i would need to visit each photo, rather than “scrolling though” the page with thumbnails. (since we can’t filter by images without keywords)
I know, but since we cannot filter, having a marker on the thumbnail views, would provide some help. My comment on filtering was just a remeinder, I and others have brought this up before - but as no progress on that, I doesnt harm mentioning again in the hope that someone form DXO picks it up…
I’m curious as to your use case for projects. I created a handful of them a few months ago but have found them to be of limited use.
The default organisation for image files is your folder hierarchy. A project allows you to create cross-sections of those folders to produce a single page list of all files based on a theme of your choosing.
However, once an image is exported, I don’t find myself coming back to it in PL until many months later, if ever. Maybe I see it and want to try a different PL recipe on it, but other than that, I found I wasn’t referencing projects at all.
It’s like being back in the dark room with the negative, burning and dodging and cropping. Unless I disliked the way an image was printed, rarely was there ever a need to go back to a negative.
So I’m curious if I am missing some other use cases or work flow applications of projects. Thanks.
my way may be completely daft!
My organisation is folder (by year) and I use the projects to create collections based on a trip or subject.
This way, say, I spent a family holiday in Devon so I have the best ones in my Devon 2025 “album”(Project)
However whilst I was there I also took some macro pics of Dragonflies in the ponds there. So these then also go in my Project folder “Insects”. (or whatever)
This way, i do not duplicate the files, but still have 2 distinct collections (in the shape off “projects”)
The point is, I am able to group photos with some photos belonging to more than 1 group without duplicating them.
But maybe there is a better way.
Of course, eventually a collection (or “project”) is exported to its own folder as a jpg. But, for me that can happen after quite some time. in the meantime, the projects seem useful for this purpose.
Ok got it! That’s a very reasonable use of projects. You can also pull together same-theme images from multiple years with that method.
Awhile back I found an automated way to create projects. With a list of filenames, you can add them all to a project at once. This at least works on Mac. Let me know if you’re interested.
It would have been nice to have the same functionality that smart collections in LR ) I have v6 so rather old) - so Projects could automatically include photos with certain definable criteria (say all 5 stars or 5 star AND a keyword). but it is not a big deal searching and adding a selection of photos.
Not worth the roasting I would bound to be subjected to, if I added it on this forum as a feature request:)
Intrigued how you automate!
In PL create a project. Add a photo to it (or not, it doesn’t seem to matter). Maintain your focus in the Project.
In Finder (MacOS), go look for photos to open in PL. You can select one or many, but be sure it’s a file that has PL as a handler. Meaning, a sidecar or a known raw file, but probably not a .jpg. Open them in finder (Command-DownArrow).
Each file opened will be added to the project.
You can extend this by creating a list of files if you have their full pathnames handy. Again, sidecars or raw files, but not .jpg’s. Put then all in a text file and in Terminal, use
open text_filename
Again, each file will be added to the project. I don’t think this is entirely intended behaviour by PL but it’s been in effect for a few releases now.
Not sure if this works in Windows.
thanks, I am a windows user but i am sure it will be useul for many. 
Even on Windows, you can right-click on one or more image(s) in Explorer and select “Open with…” then choose PhotoLab.
ah yes, i had misunderstood. I was interested in a more automated process to add to a project based on some criteria. manual selection works fine.