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 (phash) | Visually nearly identical images — same scene, slightly different exposure, crop, or retouch. Useful for finding exact or near-exact duplicates. |
| Similar content (CLIP) | Semantically similar images — same subject, style, or scene even if taken at a different time or place. Useful for finding shots “like this one”. |
Search scope
- All indexed photos — searches the entire backend database.
- Current view — restricts the search to the currently open folder or collection.
- Selected photos — searches within the current selection.
Max results
How many similar photos to return. Default: 100.
Similarity strictness (near-duplicate mode)
Controls how closely two images must match to be included:
- Strict — only very close matches (nearly identical images).
- Normal — balanced default.
- Loose — broader matches, useful for finding related variations.
Tips
- Use Near duplicates (phash) to find forgotten duplicates before deleting or archiving a shoot.
- Use Similar content (CLIP) to build collections of photos sharing a visual theme — useful for portfolio editing or creating consistent series.
- Photos must be indexed with Create search embeddings enabled for CLIP mode to work. Near-duplicate (phash) mode also benefits from indexing but uses perceptual hash comparison.
- Set the Lightroom collection sort order to Custom Order after the results collection is created to see the best matches at the top.