Lightroom Catalog Management Question

That's exactly how I have my catalog organised. That's how I had my folders organised long before Lightroom ever surfaced too. Since December 2000 in fact. Works for me. :)

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Lightroom has to import image files to somewhere. I choose to have a standard default folder that everything gets dumped into and then I will move images out to their final destination folder at my leisure. (Many of them never make it beyond the "Imported" folder before hitting the bin.) That means I don't have to keep inventing folder names every time I import any old photos, test shots etc..

The dated folders are useful for "events" such as holidays, TP outings and anything where I want things grouped together by a time period. The Misc folder is for stuff accumulated over the months and years, such as birds and wildlife, for which there is no special "event" that makes it worth reserving a whole folder for a special date, especially if all it will contain is one image. I have another misc folder for photos of my dog, for example, which I take sometimes when out walking her. etc. etc..
 
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Very similar set-up to me.
But I use just dates only. So;
2010/040810/IMG_0001.CR2

Works well for me, and then I keyword the entire collection if required.
So if I need to find a specific thing or person I can just use the search function in LR, Also means I dont need two folders for the same date if I cover two events :P

Also means that if I shoot the same location twice then it'll be all grouped together in a keyword.
 
/yyyy/mm/dd/yyyymmdd_0001.CR2

I don't bother with naming the folders as I just use keywords. Everything gets indexed ASAP.

If there's a particular shoot, I'll add the relevant metadata en masse during import. LR's search facility does a fine job to find things.
 
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You can organise your catalogue in any way that suites you. Mines is similar, but provided you can find the images you are looking for then, that's fine
 
Cick the little downward pointing triangle to the left of each expanded folder name and it will collapse that folder. However, if you have the Library view set up to show images in subfolders it will still try to render all the contents of "03 March" for example, if you were to click onto that folder. If you don't want to see child images you need to go into the Library tool from the toolbar and untick the subfolders option.
 
Don't reimport. You will lose any adjustments you have made. The option from the Library menu dictates whether or not images from subfolders are displayed when you click onto a parent folder. You can enable and disable that as much as you like.

You can collapse and expand nested folders within Lightroom just as you can in Windows Explorer.

The two facilities are independent. Collapsing folders will not make the images disappear from that folder and children. To make the images from child folders vanish you need to turn off the subfolders option from the menu.

I don't think I'm making this very clear, but just fiddle and you will see. Just don't reimport - there is no need.
 
oh and I only lost two photo adjustments as I accidently removed and re-imported one of the folders (sorry I know you told me not to :D) I am glad I have it sorted and only lost two photo adjustments which I can remember what I did with them, so nothing lost there, awesome!!
 
tdodd said:
Lightroom has to import image files to somewhere. I choose to have a standard default folder that everything gets dumped into and then I will move images out to their final destination folder at my leisure.
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Be a little careful about how many files you allow to gather in that folder. it's not commonly known but Windows gets antsy when the file count in a folder gets high. There isn't a fixed number but it's usually around the 1000,1200 mark. What happens isn't anything you can put your finger on either; nothing sensible like, 'too many files' warnings, Windows just starts doing weird stuff.

High file numbers also impacts performance quite badly. Windows just isn't good at handling large file counts in directories.
 
kimaldis said:
Be a little careful about how many files you allow to gather in that folder. it's not commonly known but Windows gets antsy when the file count in a folder gets high. There isn't a fixed number but it's usually around the 1000,1200 mark. What happens isn't anything you can put your finger on either; nothing sensible like, 'too many files' warnings, Windows just starts doing weird stuff.

High file numbers also impacts performance quite badly. Windows just isn't good at handling large file counts in directories.
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Kim, I'm sure you mean well, but with respect I think that's complete *******s.

In my Windows\System32 folder there are over 2,500 items, of which 2,469 are files as opposed to folders.

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The computer (a 3.5 year old laptop) runs just peachy. Consider as well that the System32 folder has been running like that for months, because that is how these things are designed and expected to work, and you should understand that having a "large" file count in one folder is not an issue.

EDIT : Remove superfluous additional point makers since Kim has now admitted to a significant typo in his previous post.
 
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tdodd said:
Kim, I'm sure you mean well, but with respect I think that's complete *******s.
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With respect, you should read my resume before deciding whether I do or don't know what I'm talking about.

Windows does not handle large quantities of data well. Anyone who knows anything wrangling large amounts of data will tell you the same thing. He will also tell that that's one of the reasons he uses Linux file servers rather than Windows.
 
TurnipFarmer said:
what's the best way to store the files? in separate folders, rather than just one?
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yeah. By date as mentioned above is as good a way as any. Lightroom does a nice thing where it stores in folders by date taken, which is near as dammit by session. Unless you're shooting tiny jpeg the file count shouldn't get too high.

dated folder; if you name folders <YYYY>_<MM>_<DD>, ensuring single digits are zero padded, an alphabetic sort will also be a sort by date.
 
kimaldis said:
There isn't a fixed number but it's usually around the 1000,1200 mark.
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Apologies, that should have read, 10,000 12,000 mark.

I googled around a bit to see what others thought, there seems to be a consensus that the soft limit might be between 30,000 and 65,000 files. My limit is cautious but reasonable and may have something to do with size of files. My experience - of many years - is with large numbers of large image files generated for digital movie effects and TV animated programmes and graphics, of later years often in the several millions.

Aside from the above, it's just good practice and common sense to organise your data.
 
kimaldis said:
Apologies, that should have read, 10,000 12,000 mark.
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Apology accepted.

I'm sorry I overreacted to your earlier post, but the Windows community would be playing on a pretty sticky wicket if folders of "only" 1,000 files or so brought it crashing to its knees. At home I've got two Windows PCs and three laptops running Vista 32 bit and one laptop running Windows 7 x64. One of the PCs operates as a media server for the house and has a backup of all my personal data, including photos and Lightroom catalogs, plus videos, including HD stuff, and large ISO images etc. etc.. Some of those structures are also replicated out to portable external drives, which again operate just as one would expect. All of the machines run as sweet as a nut and all have folders with in excess of 2,000 files in them. I hope you can understand why I reacted to your warning as I did.

I have never got knowingly close to having anything like 10k-20k files in a single folder. Maybe there is a different story to be told when you get to that level - but in one folder?
 
kimaldis said:
Not really. i've never understood why people get so protective of an OS. It all seems a bit silly to me.
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I'm not protective of the OS. I'm protective of the facts. Your original post was misleading and alarmist. I might also add that your original post was made in direct reply to something I said, and it appeared very much to be directed at me and my modus operandi.

You have now corrected your mistake and apologised for it. We can get on with our lives.
 
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tdodd said:
I'm not protective of the OS.
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Yes you were. very much so. You were also rude and condescending.

You have now corrected your mistake and apologised for it.
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Let's be absolutely clear here. I didn't apologise to you. I possibly would have done if you hadn't been so unnecessarily snippy, but you were and I didn't. Nor will I.

I'm done here now, this thread needs to get back on topic and I've no intention of hijacking it any further. If you've anything else to say you can say it to me privately.

As you were, folks.
 
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