Lightroom sorting

I'm sure there's a quick answer to this: I have a bunch of old photos I'm cleaning out in Lightroom 3. In a particular folder (in the Folders view) I have images some of which have been added to collections and/or published to Facebook. Is there a way to sort the images in the folders into a "in collection" and a "not in collection" so that I can delete the ones that aren't in a collection?

I'm not really sure how to put this into searchable terms. My files are like this because I didn't pick up the habit of throwing out non-keepers until recently, hence its a pain to go thru each image individually.

Well, I want to say use the Smart Collection feature, but I'm not seeing a way of setting up a "not in collection" approach. I really haven't worked with Smart Collections, I just know they are there.

So, the approach that I would take would be to apply some kind of rating and/or color scheme -- when you have a batch that you are ready to put into a collection you can apply some star or color to them, then, you can easily find the unrated files either by using a Smart Collection for Rating "is not", or in the Sort Order that is in the tool bar you can sort by Rating or you can set the Filter at the right of that toolbar -- by default there is no filter but you can actually specifiy it to filter only images with no Rating and such.

There are several approaches so just take your time to figure what approach would work best for you!

By the way, you can look at the way Smart Collections are used by going down to the Collections panel and there is a Smart Collections "set" which if you open it will show you a number of ones that were pre-intsalled. You can right-click on one and choose to Edit it to see how it is set up.

tonylong wrote in post #13786466
Well, I want to say use the Smart Collection feature, but I'm not seeing a way of setting up a "not in collection" approach. I really haven't worked with Smart Collections, I just know they are there.

So, the approach that I would take would be to apply some kind of rating and/or color scheme -- when you have a batch that you are ready to put into a collection you can apply some star or color to them, then, you can easily find the unrated files either by using a Smart Collection for Rating "is not", or in the Sort Order that is in the tool bar you can sort by Rating or you can set the Filter at the right of that toolbar -- by default there is no filter but you can actually specifiy it to filter only images with no Rating and such.

There are several approaches so just take your time to figure what approach would work best for you!

By the way, you can look at the way Smart Collections are used by going down to the Collections panel and there is a Smart Collections "set" which if you open it will show you a number of ones that were pre-intsalled. You can right-click on one and choose to Edit it to see how it is set up.

I know about those methods, albeit I don't use them and I should. But is there any way to sort them after the fact that you know of?

Well, you can apply a star rating or a color to every file in a collection or in all applicable collections at once -- Ctl/Cmd select each one (or select the first then Shift-select the last). All the files will show up in the filmstrip and the grid. If you Select All, there are a couple approaches you could take to apply a rating/color to each.

That would take care of the shots that are already in collections, then you could if you wish work with the Smart Collection feature, the sort or the filter to find the ones that are not in collections (no star/color).

That's awesome tonylong!! Thanks a bunch. That should work great!

An alternative: Once you have the collection members marked as Tony says, go back to the general population display and use "Select by ..." and then just invert the selection.