Lightroom organisation

J

jimmy83

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,154
Name
James
Edit My Images
Yes
Been using LR3 for a while now for basic edits, and ive been meaning to organise all off my photos on my PC for awhile now. Mainly as I REALLY need to backup! Its been far too long! *touches wood*

Ive setup a a Catalog in

E:/Lightroom 3 Catalog

I think the best way is to organise by date? Although ive got a few wedding and parties etc, not sure what is best here maybe a keyword?

Can you can LR to scan your whole PC and organise your photos into folders via the date from the EXIF data?

Thanks for any help on this :)
 
I've just posted this on another thread about Lightroom organisation:

Craikeybaby said:
First of all, Lightroom is the best tool for organising images. I recommend taking a look at Adobe.tv for tutorials, it isn't exactly a cheap piece of software, so you are as well using its pull potential!

My advice would be to import the files into Lightroom a folder at a time (moving them to the new file structure) and adding keywords, such as Autosport show/Gemma's birthday on import, so that data stays with them. Correctly keywords images will be easier to find than using Explorer.

With regards how to organise your image folders, it doesn't really matter, they can all be in one folder if they're keyworded, however my preference is YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD, probably as a throwback to my pre Lightroom days.

Two key points to bear in mind are:
- Backup your system before moving things around!
- when all your images are in Lightroom, don't use explorer or anything other than Lightroom to manage them, as that will break the database links in Lightroom.
Click to expand...

One thing to bear in mind is do you want your new images to also be in your new folder, or left where they are? The Lightroom catalog is separate to the photos referenced by Lightroom.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I've just posted this on another thread about Lightroom organisation:

One thing to bear in mind is do you want your new images to also be in your new folder, or left where they are? The Lightroom catalog is separate to the photos referenced by Lightroom.
Click to expand...

Thanks Craikeybaby, how do you have your folders laid out?
 
For what it's worth I have them laid out YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD, but I can honestly say I never go into the file system to look for images, everything is done through Lightroom.
 
I use a date based system, meaning that the latest photos go at the bottom in order. then as I use a description I can see what's in the folder

Date based file saving

2010 (folder)

20101006_Description (folder)

20101006_4932.jpg – (4932 is original camera file number)
 
I also use the YYYY/DD/MM/YY format

I then use keywords to help me find photos (albeit I need to key word more than I have done to date)

I have one or two 'projects' that I have separated into specific files I.e. Car or House to keep them out of the main folders. (just my preference)

If yo want to wholesale change your files then take a full back up

You can then set up a new catalog and set up your file structure as you want.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top