Lightroom: Survey View vs Compare View

Lightroom is one of the richest software, you can get the same result in so many different ways. Which one you choose will depend on how you want to work. One of the fundamental task of Lightroom is to allow you to select your “best” photos. 2 of the better tools are the survey mode and the compare mode.

Survey View

In the survey mode, you can view all the selected photos at the same time, it’s like putting them on a peg board and taking them out, until you are left with your selection.

1. Select a group of photo in the Grid view. Only a few photos. Most of the time, they are very similar, like a set of head shots. How many will depend on the size of your screen. Do not select 20 or 30 photos, the photos will be too small then you would be better off using the standard grid view.
2. Shift-Tab to eliminate all extraneous info.
3. Enter the Survey View by pressing N, then click on the cross at the bottom right of each photo to eliminate it until you are left with the ones you want to select.
4. Shift-Tab to restore the extraneous info.

This is Tracy and Kitty Kitty.

Compare View

In the compare mode, you select a whole bunch of photos, but you compare them to the selected photo. You can only view 2 photos at the same time.

1. Select a group of photos in the Grid view. Most of the time, they are very similar, like a set of head shots.
2. Enter the Compare View by pressing C. The current highlighted photo is on the left, and you can compare with the next and next by using the Ctrl/Cmd left/right.

The Yellow number 1 is the selected image. That’s the one that you will be comparing against. The Yellow number 2 is the photo that you want to compare against the selected photo.