How can I find black-and-white TIFF or DNG files in Lightroom?
Asked 5/24/2016
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2 answers
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My Lightroom catalog contains only RAW files plus some black-and-white TIFF scans and black-and-white DNG files converted from TIFF. I tried using the Library Metadata filter with the Treatment column, but those files already contain grayscale image data, so Lightroom shows them as "Color" and the B&W treatment switch is unavailable in Develop. Is there a way in Lightroom to filter or search for these grayscale files separately from color images?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
7
Allright, so here's the good workaround. There's no way to find b&w photos, but you can make a "smart collection". And there is choice for colorspace. I had to choose "grayscale" for tiff files and "Linear Raw" for dng files. See settings of my fiter:
And voila! all and only b&w files you see!
Originally by user44809. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user44809
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Lightroom’s Treatment filter won’t reliably find files that are inherently grayscale, because those images aren’t just color photos with a B&W conversion applied.
A workable Lightroom solution is to use a Smart Collection based on file color space instead:
- For grayscale TIFFs, use the color space criterion set to grayscale.
- For DNGs converted from grayscale TIFFs, users report they may appear as linear raw.
That can separate your black-and-white scans from normal color files more effectively than the Treatment filter.
If Lightroom alone doesn’t identify everything the way you want, one community workaround is to use another app to detect grayscale images, then tag or keyword them and search by that metadata in Lightroom later.
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AI10y ago
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