4x6 Photo Calendar Gifts - Photo Selection Process Using LightRoom Quick Collections

Each month this year, I have featured a free Desktop Calendar download - like December's:

I started making these calendars four years ago to give away as small gifts to my kids' teachers and my friends - they are printed as normal 4x6 prints so they are super easy to create and reproduce.

I am going through the process of creating 2013's monthly calendars. The photo selection starts by perusing each month's photos. I keep my photos organized in Lightroom and they are organized by month, so it is easy to quickly view and select the photos I think would be nice to use.
I select the photos by clicking on the Add to Quick Collection Circle, highlighted in the screen shot below


I don't keep count of what I select and it's usually more than the 12 needed for calendar! I can then view all the photos I've initially selected by going to the Quick Collection:

All the photos selected will be displayed in the grid. If I decide I don't want one of the photos in that collection, I deselect the Quick Collection circle and it will be removed from that Quick Collection View. Note that the original image file remains in its original folder - I've only removed it from this View.

This is a simple way to view groups of photos without copying or moving the actual image files into a new folder (like I've done in the past).

Once the photos have been chosen I export them to Photo Shop Elements and add in calendar elements - those details in tomorrow's post (I promise!).

Until then, I'm sharing some photos that didn't make the cut for 2013's Monthly Photo Calendar:









* NOTE: I won't post the photos I used for 2013's Calendar, as some of my friends want to be surprised each month *