Smart collections - different from 3.4 and 5.3?

Question

Hello,
This is really simple, I used to be able to select a folder (say, all images in 2013) and then control click a smart collection I had created (rated > 1 star) and that would filter my images from 2013 and only display the ones that were rated higher then one star.
Odly, I cannot seem to get this to work in 5.3 (win7 pc fwiw).  When I do this, it shows images that aren't from 2013 (the folder I selected).  Can anyone explain or enlighten me as to what is going on? 
To be clear, I expect to see images from 2013 that are rated > 1 star.  If I select a folder with a single unrated image and then control click a "> 1 star" smart collection, it shows the image still.  It doesn't seem to filter, it's showing both the contents of the smart collection and my one image.
Any help is greatly appreciated, this is starting to annoy me as this worked in 3.4 and it's something I thought was very useful and intuitive.  
Thanks so much!

Answer 1

Adobe changed the behavior in LR 4.  Here's what employee Benjamin Warde said about the change:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/multi_selecting_smart_collections_an d_folders_in_library_module_has_changed_for_the_worse
In Lightroom 3, multi-selecting various folders and collections would sometimes show the union, and sometimes show the intersection. The inconsistencies in the behavior were confusing to a lot of people, and caused various problems as well. In Lightroom 4, all such multi-selects now show the union. We certainly recognize that any change (even an ostensible bug fix) can potentially be detrimental to certain workflows, and we appreciate getting this feedback. In the case of the particular use cases described in this thread, it should be fairly easy to do what you want to do using Filters.
That thread has a lot discussion about which behavior was preferrable.   Here's how LR 4 and later behave:
- Selecting multiple sources (folders, collections, smart collections, publish collections) in the left-hand panel unions them (combines them).
- Filters in the Library Filter Bar intersect with (restrict) the selected sources.
- In the Library Filter Bar, in general, different criteria intersect with each other.
- An exception to the previous rule: Selecting multiple items in a column in the Metadata browser unions them, while multiple columns intersect.  E.g. selecting two keywords from the same Keyword column filters for photos that have either keyword assigned; adding a Camera column and selecting a particular camera filters for photos taken with that camera and have either keyword assigned.
For many common use cases, including yours, using the Library Filter Bar instead of smart collections can solve your issue.   E.g. select the desired folder and in the Library Filter Bar, add a Label column in the Metadata browser and select the label Blue.  Save those filter settings as a preset to make it more convenient to recall them.
Filters don't have the full search capabilities that smart collections do -- they're missing criteria and comparison operators and you can't form full boolean expressions. When you need those extra search capabilities to intersect with sources, workarounds include:
- See Dorin Nicolaescu-Musteață's post in the thread referenced above for a multi-step method that gets the job done with many more clicks.
- Use the Any Filter plugin.