Help: Find Similar Images
The Find Similar Images workflow lets you select one photo and find other visually or perceptually similar photos across your indexed catalog. Results are placed into a new Lightroom collection for easy review.
How to use it
Library → Plug-in Extras → Find Similar Images...
- Select a single photo in the Library grid.
- Open Find Similar Images from the menu.
- Choose your search options in the dialog.
- The plugin queries the backend and creates a new Lightroom collection with the results, sorted by similarity.
Search options
Find by
| Mode | What it finds |
|---|---|
| Near duplicates (visual match) | Visually nearly identical images — same scene, slightly different crop or retouch. Useful for finding exact or near-exact duplicates. Uses a perceptual hash. |
| Similar content (AI) | Semantically similar images — same subject, style, or scene even if taken at a different time or place. Useful for finding shots “like this one”. Uses the SigLIP embedding. |
A perceptual hash compares how the picture looks, so it does not survive a large exposure change: the same frame at +2 EV reads as a different image. Use Similar content (AI) to find other frames of the same scene across a bracket.
Search in
- All indexed photos — searches the entire backend database.
- Current view — restricts the search to the currently open folder or collection.
Max results
How many similar photos to return. Default: 100.
Similarity (near-duplicate mode only)
Controls how closely two images must match to be included:
- Strict (near duplicates) — only very close matches.
- Normal — balanced default.
- Loose (more variety) — broader matches, useful for finding related variations.
Tips
- Use Near duplicates to find forgotten duplicates before deleting or archiving a shoot.
- Use Similar content (AI) to build collections of photos sharing a visual theme — useful for portfolio editing or creating consistent series.
- Photos must be indexed with Enable smart photo search for the AI mode to work. Near-duplicate mode needs indexing too, but compares perceptual hashes rather than embeddings.
- Set the Lightroom collection sort order to Custom Order after the results collection is created to see the best matches at the top.