How do I filter selections in Lightroom, Capture One, Photo Mechanic, Finder and Explorer?

Many image editing programs allow you to use the file search to display exactly the files of a selection you or your clients made in picdrop. This saves you the trouble of searching for each individual file. Here we show you how to do it:

Copy the filter text to your clipboard

Open the selection in the gallery that you want to filter out on your computer. Or mark the files with the selection tool (blue plus sign in the overview of your gallery).

Click on the "Export selection" icon in the selection, bottom right. When you are logged in to your account you will find the various filter texts to filter out this selection in Lightroom, Capture One or in your Finder / Explorer.

Copy the corresponding file list / filter text to your clipboard.

Now continue on your computer in the program of your choice:

Filtering the files in Lightroom Classic

  • Open the folder of the shooting in Lightroom’s Library mode.
  • Press the "<" key (to the left of the Z) to display the filters at the top.
  • Select the "Text" category there.
  • Select "Filename" and "Contains" from the drop-down menus.
  • Paste the filenames from your clipboard into the search field.
  • Now you will only see the files you have saved in the selection.

You can now save the filtered files in a new collection or mark them with stars / colors for your further workflow.

Filtering the files in Capture One

In Capture One, you can search for your files in multiple places using the exported folter text. To do this, open a folder or collection in Capture One with the files you want to filter. Then you have three options:

1st option: Search in Browser

  • Press cmd-F or ctrl-F to open the search in the browser. 
  • Paste the text from the clipboard directly next to the magnifying glass. 
  • The files you searched for will be displayed in the browser.

2nd option: Filters tool

  • Open the Filters tool in the toolbar.
  • Paste the text from the clipboard next to the magnifying glass. 
  • Only the searched files will be displayed in the browser.

3rd option: Select by file name list

  • Open in the menu bar the item Select > Select by > File name list ...
  • Paste the text from the clipboard into the search field. 
  • Select "Space" as separator under the search field and "Ignore file extension".
  • Click OK. 
  • Only the searched files will be displayed in the browser.

Done! You can now save the displayed files as your own collection or mark them with a color / stars.

Filtering the files in Photo Mechanic

Open the corresponding project folder in Photo Mechanic.

Paste the filter text from your clipboard into the search box (via Edit > Find... menu or cmd-F on Mac or Ctrl-F on Windows) and set the following search options:

  • Find: Any of the words

  • In: All items

  • Searching: Filenames

After clicking "Find" in the lower right corner, Photo Mechanic will now select all files of your choice from picdrop and you can continue working with them.

Please note that the search in the upper left corner of Photo Mechanic ("Search my Mac") cannot be used for these steps.

Filtering your files in macOS Finder and Windows Explorer

  • Open the folder containing your files

  • Click into the regular search field

  • Copy the list of filenames into the search field

  • You will now only see the files that were previously saved in the selection.

Please note that the filter text in Explorer can only hold a maximum of 259 characters.

The filter text in Finder is limited to 2048 characters or 99 files.