Lightroom Classic quick start

Echoes Quick Guide

A short, safety-first workflow for scanning probable duplicate photos, reading the reports, and choosing when to apply Lightroom markings.

Echoes is Advanced Duplicate Finder for Lightroom. It helps you find probable duplicate photos in Lightroom Classic by comparing catalog metadata such as capture time, filename, camera model, image dimensions, file size, rating, labels, GPS, and optional advanced fields.

It is a review tool. It does not compare pixels, delete files, move files, rename files, or remove photos from Lightroom.

The Safest First Scan

  1. Select a small group of photos in Lightroom Classic.
  2. Open File > Plug-in Extras > Find Duplicate Images....
  3. On Scan Setup, choose Selected Photos.
  4. Leave Duplicate Detection Preset set to Balanced.
  5. On Advanced Settings, leave Mode set to Dry Run.
  6. Choose a log folder you can find easily.
  7. Click Run Scan.
  8. Review the summary, image log, and audit log.

What The Main Modes Mean

  • Dry Run: scans and writes reports only. It does not change keywords, collections, rejected flags, or files.
  • Report Only: also writes reports only. Use this for review-only workflows.
  • Apply Marking: writes reports and applies the enabled Lightroom markings, such as duplicate keywords, keeper keywords, review collections, or rejected flags.

Start with Dry Run until you trust your settings.

Choosing What To Scan

  • Selected Photos: best first choice and safest for testing.
  • Selected Photos Against Current Source: checks selected photos against the current folder, collection, or source.
  • Current Collection: scans the active collection.
  • Current Folder: scans the active folder.
  • Current Source: scans the active Lightroom source.
  • Entire Catalog: scans everything. Use only after testing on smaller sets.

Use Skip virtual copies when virtual copies are intentional edits you do not want compared.

Use Skip stacked photos when Lightroom stacks represent intentional groups, bursts, HDR source frames, panoramas, or variants you do not want reported as duplicates.

Understanding Match Criteria

Match criteria decide when two photos look like probable duplicates.

  • Use Required only when a field must match.
  • Use Strong, Medium, or Weak when a field should support the decision but should not be mandatory.
  • Avoid using only broad fields such as camera model, lens, folder, rating, or label.

Good first settings are usually the Balanced preset with no extra changes.

Understanding Keepers

The File Handling tab chooses which file should be suggested as the keeper in each duplicate group.

Default keeper preferences favor originals and higher-quality files, such as RAW files, higher ratings, larger resolution, edited photos, non-rejected photos, and larger files.

Keeper suggestions are not final decisions. Always review them before deleting, removing, or archiving anything manually.

Reading The Results

Each scan writes reports to the selected log folder.

  • The image log lists every scanned photo and its result.
  • The audit log explains why pairs did or did not match.
  • The summary report shows totals, effective mode, license status, and log paths.

Important result values:

  • Keeper: suggested file to keep.
  • Additional Keeper: extra protected keeper when multiple keepers are enabled.
  • Duplicate Candidate: file to review as a likely duplicate.
  • Unique: no duplicate group found for that photo.
  • Reference: used for comparison in Selected Photos Against Current Source.
  • Skipped: Virtual Copy: excluded by the virtual-copy skip option.
  • Skipped: Stacked Photo: excluded by the stacked-photo skip option.

When To Use Apply Marking

Use Apply Marking only after a successful dry run.

Before applying markings, confirm:

  • The scan scope is correct.
  • The duplicate groups make sense.
  • Keeper choices look reasonable.
  • The enabled marking actions are exactly what you want.

Depending on your settings, Apply Marking can add keywords, create review collections, and mark duplicate candidates as rejected. It still does not delete files.

Trial Limits

The trial allows full processing for up to 50 photos per scan during the 14-day trial.

If a scan exceeds the trial limit or the trial has expired, the plugin still writes reports, but cleanup and Lightroom marking actions are disabled until a paid license is active.

Best First Workflow

  1. Run Selected Photos with Balanced and Dry Run.
  2. Review the logs.
  3. Adjust criteria only if needed.
  4. Try a folder or collection with Report Only.
  5. Use Apply Marking only after the reports look right.
  6. Review duplicate candidates in Lightroom before taking any manual cleanup action.