Collections & Curation

✦ Understanding Collections

In Aegis Photo Voyager, a Collection is a virtual container used to group photos and videos together. Unlike physical folders on your hard drive, collections do not copy, move, or duplicate your files. Instead, they are logical metadata mappings stored in your local SQLite database.

Core Advantages

• Zero Storage Overhead: Adding a 50MB RAW image to ten different collections takes up virtually zero additional disk space.
• Many-to-Many Relationships: A photo can belong to multiple collections simultaneously (e.g., a photo can reside in "Summer 2025", "Family Portrait", and "Website Portfolio" at the same time).
• Non-Destructive Management: Deleting a collection, or removing a photo from a collection, will never delete the original files from your hard drive.

1 Creating & Populating Collections

You can create a collection at any time using one of three quick methods in the Library Grid view:

1. The Collections Manager: Click the Collections button on the top toolbar, then click + New Collection. Type in a name and description, and click save.
2. Right-Click Context Menu: Select one or more photos in the grid, right-click any of them, hover over Add to Collection, and select + New Collection....
3. Selection Toolbar: Select photos in the grid. Click the + Add to Collection button on the inline selection bar that pops up at the top.

Active Collection vs. Filter by Collection

To use collections effectively, it is critical to understand the difference between these two states:

2 Curation via the Trip Builder

The Trip Builder is an intelligent helper tool that uses a chronological clustering algorithm to automatically group your photos into event-based collections.

How It Works

The Trip Builder analyzes the capture timestamps of all photos in your library. If two consecutive photos are taken within a user-defined threshold (e.g. 3 days), they are grouped into the same candidate trip. If the group has more than a minimum number of photos (e.g. 10), it is flagged as a trip event.

Step-by-Step Trip Curation Workflow

1. Open Tools (left sidebar accordion) → Trip Builder.
2. Configure the parameters:
   • Max Gap between Photos: The maximum allowable time gap between consecutive photos (e.g., 3 days).
   • Min Photos per Trip: The minimum size of the photo group (e.g., 10 photos).
   • Date Range: The start and end dates to scan.
3. Click Analyze Library. The tool displays a list of candidate trips, showing start/end dates, photo counts, and camera sensors detected.
4. Click Select Candidate to inspect details. You can refine the name, description, date bounds, and toggle checkboxes to exclude photos taken by specific cameras (e.g., keeping only DSLR shots while excluding mobile snaps).
5. Click Make Collection. Aegis Photo Voyager will create a registered trip event and automatically generate a corresponding collection prepopulated with all the matched photos.

3 Removing Photos from Collections

Removing items from a collection is simple and does not affect the physical files on disk:

Single Photo Removal

• Quick-Toggle Badge: If the collection is set as the Active Collection, hover over the photo tile and click the minus badge.
• Context Menu: Right-click the photo in the grid and select Remove from '[Collection Name]'.
• Detail View Panel: Open a photo in Detail View (double-click). Locate the Collections list on the right-hand panel, and uncheck the corresponding collection box.

Batch and Dialog Cleanup

• Selection Toolbar: Select multiple photos in the grid. Ensure the collection is set as the Active Collection, and click the - Remove from Collection button on the toolbar that appears at the top.
• Collections Manager: Open the Collections Manager from the top toolbar, select the collection, browse the list of files, and click Remove Selected or delete the entire collection.

4 Quality Filtering & Curation

Before sharing a collection or exporting it, you should audit its quality. Aegis Photo Voyager makes it easy to weed out blurry, low-contrast, or poorly composed photos:

Method A: Stacking Quality Filters

1. Filter the library grid by your collection using the sidebar.
2. Apply the Quality Tier filter (e.g., select "Low Quality" to display only misfires).
3. Further narrow results using the technical sliders (e.g. show photos with a Focus score below 40).
4. Select all the filtered results.
5. Set the collection as your Active Collection and click - Remove from Collection on the top selection toolbar. This instantly prunes the poor-quality shots out of your collection.

Method B: The Photo Quality Sorter

1. Apply a filter on the library grid to display only your collection.
2. Open Tools → Photo Quality Sorter.
3. The tool will automatically operate in Filtered Scope, loading only the photos belonging to that collection.
4. Use the interface to quickly review side-by-side shots, rank them, and remove low-tier or duplicate images directly.

5 Using Collections in Core Workflows

Curated collections serve as the input for several key features in Aegis Photo Voyager:

6 Advanced Curation Workflows

Combining the **Filter by Collection** and **Active Collection** tools simultaneously unlocks professional-tier curation workflows:

1. Cross-Collection Sorting & Copying

Use this when you want to look through a broad album (e.g. an entire vacation) and select highlight shots to copy into a specialized showcase (e.g. a portfolio):

1. Set your source collection (e.g., "Europe Trip 2025") as the active Filter by Collection in the sidebar. The grid now displays only the photos from this trip.
2. Set your target collection (e.g., "Portfolio Highlights") as the Active Collection.
3. Scroll through the grid. When you spot a photo you want to copy, click its quick-toggle collection button (the plus sign).
4. The photo is instantly added to the target collection while remaining visible in the source collection.

2. In-Place Collection Pruning

Use this when you want to audit a collection and rapidly weed out photos that do not fit:

1. Set the collection (e.g. "Summer Highlights") as **both** the active Filter by Collection and the Active Collection.
2. Scroll through the grid.
3. When you see a photo that should be removed, click its quick-toggle collection button (the minus sign).
4. Because the photo is immediately removed from the collection, and the grid is actively filtered to only display that collection, the photo **instantly disappears** from the grid. The remaining photos flow upward, enabling extremely rapid single-click auditing.