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.
The collection is named Similar images @ <timestamp> and goes into the
Similar Images collection set. When it is done, a dialog says how many photos
were added. If fewer photos ended up in the collection than the search found,
a Not in the collection line says why: matches that are not in the current
catalog, photos in the current view that have no photo ID and so were not
searched, or result rows the backend sent without a photo ID. Matches that are
not in the catalog are usually photos you deleted from Lightroom: when the
automatic index cleanup is on, the line also says that a cleanup has started
in the background, and the next search no longer finds them (see the
FAQ).
If the selected photo has not been indexed for the mode you picked (no embedding for Similar content (AI), no perceptual hash for Near duplicates), a warning says so, and no collection is created. Run Analyze & Index Photos on it first.
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.