LightRoom conventions

Sam

OK, I just bought Lightroom 2, and Scott Kelby's book. I am in the process of sorting / culling through my existing images. Once this is complete I will import them into Lightroom.

I am trying think through a file naming system, and get it straight in my decrepit brain how Lightroom works.

My thoughts are to have a main folder Lightroom 2. Sub folders by year. I would then import images into the appropriate year folder and name them simply by date. IE: 2009-01-01-SL-(camera file number).crw I will learn how to tag / keyword / etc. so hopefully I will be able to find them later.

Right now my file system in Bridge is falling apart. I am having a lot of trouble finding images I want. I know Lightroom will fix this once I understand how it works and if I start out with a good system.

So how do you guys do it?

Sam

colourbox

I simply continued using the folder and image naming system I had been using since I started scanning film a few years ago. I chose the option for Lightroom to leave all the existing photos where they are and not move or copy them at all. So for me, it's just the same as it has always been. It also means that if I browse the archive with Bridge or on the desktop, it's the same structure.

When I get a new card I have Lightroom set to import them into a folder by date, but that's not the final folder. It's just the folder where I cull and sequence them before I move the survivors into the final folder within my system.

My hierarchy is
Photo hard drive/year/shoot number/frame number

I don't make it Lightroom specific for the reason already stated: so I can browse it with any app, even one that succeeds Lightroom some years down the road.

jogle

I like a flatter file structure, I use a single level of folders named with the year-month_shortDescripton so one created this month will be 09-09_someEventSomewhere

you can then keep the same name for events that happen every year and you can filter based on that and get them all.

The files in that folder I don't rename. I leave the camera names on them,

RicherSea

Personally i have folder by year, and within each a folder for different subjects or types of image, such as events, sports, landscapes, etc . I actually leave the filename as the default generated by the camera with a camera prefix (30D_1_xxxxx.CR2, 5D_xxxxx.CR2, etc)

With lightroom the file structure you choose isn't massivly important since you can filter by metadata, and also make collections and sets that contain images but don't move the original files on disk. I have collection for images that are or may be uploaded to stock sites, advertising images, a portfolio of my best sports photos and other groups sorted by use. The reason i thus have my image folder organised by year is that it is convenient for backup and archiving since these operations are done outside of lightroom.

I guess my overall advice would be to choose your file structure based on how you use your image files in other programmes since Lightroom has enough search and organisational tools to work around your actualy folder structure.

Art Scott

I follow Scott Kelby's method in YOUR Book.....I think it is the easiest that way you only have a max of 2 or 3 folders max and actually you can get away with only one folder as long as you tag the images with keywords in LR when you impost them.....also LR2 allows you to add a full copyright message (copyright2009ArtrhurScott) with extra lines containing full contact information.......
REad your book and if you like his extremely simple method follow it......my hard drives look so much cleaner......
My hard drives get funky names like: SNEZKA or VTALVA, OR WEISBATTEN,or KARLSTEJN (main hard drive), SNEZKA 1, 2 OR 3 for the clone copies and gives me a total of 4 drives with exactly the same files and I do drag and drop up dates......yes it is a bit slower than a back up software.....but I do not have to contend with making sure I can get to a .bak file.......

Richard

The advantage of using a database to keep track of your pics is that you don't have to rely on a folder hierarchy or naming convention to find pics. You use the database search function to find stuff by keyword, date range, location, or whatever and the database tells you where it is located. I don't use LightRoom, but I do have a catalog database. My external archive consists of one folder which contains sub-folders that correspond to a full DVD's worth of data. I only move to the external archive when I have enough to burn a new DVD, so I always have two copies on separate media. I use a file-naming convention that guarantees unique names, based on upload date and sequential suffix. Colourbox makes a good point about making sure that you can also navigate easily with other apps that you are likely to use, but so far, that has not been an issue for me, as I can use the database app to locate any subset of pics and copy or move them to another location. In the long run, I have to make sure that I always have a database, but then I wouldn't have it any other way.

adbsgicom

I use year folders, with shoot-date sub folders. In LR you can display all subfolders if you want, so just clicking on 2009 brings up everything from this year, then I can use keywords and metadata to extract from that, or I can have just a list of dates down the left side of the screen and go to where I want. I generally rename the date folder with an appended "-- event name" to make remembering what happened on a given day a bit easier.

Miguel Delinquento

Sam,


There are numerous ways to organize your photographs both within Lightroom and within your Mac’s filing system.

Each of us has a somewhat different approach that reflects our personal systems and quirks. The key is to match your personal workflow with the tool's capabilities so that there is some kind of improvement.

Allow yourself to better understand Lightroom’s capabilities—it’s different from your prior tools.

I leave my images within my existing Finder-based staging system and then organize them to a fair amount of detail within Lightroom using collections.
This is as much of a workflow issue as anything.

In the Finder I have high-level folders broken down by year. Within the 2009 folder I have subfolders that square with the date that each image was shot. I have a little Applescript create a new folder with today’s date. So using today, my finder file structure example would be Shots/2009/20090917.

This breakout makes it easy for me to archive the images (they all roll up to a single Shots folder) and helps recovery, because I think in terms of dates first when I’m looking for something.

I then import (by dragging) the contents of the 20090917 folder into Lightroom. There I perform a quick in/out sort that leads to immediate trashing of the discards.

The remaining keepers I then assign to the appropriate collection based on image content. Some people tag images, some use folders. I’m of the latter type. The only thing I tag an image with is copyright, contact information, and, on export, a title.

Within Lightroom I have a hierarchy of information that fits my needs and I suggest you create a structure that fits yours too. Maybe you can replicate what you have in Bridge?

Basically I break down the universe into Art, People, Places, Documentation, and Work. Within these collections are clusters of projects, events, trips, clients, and things. It works well for me. Within each of these collections I assign a Red label to the really good images and 5-stars to the really good images. I use flags to denote preferred images within a series, especially when I’m comparing bracketed shots and the like.

The key thing I recommend you do is take advantage of Lightroom’s ability to organize images and use metadata pointers. For example if I take a shot of my family at sunset on the Oregon coast, I can stash that image (or really a pointer to that image) within the Family 2009 collection, the Sunsets collection, and the Oregon coast 2009 collection.

Hope this helps.

M

Pupator

I just want to agree with what Richard said. The point of using a DB system like Lightroom is that you aren't spending your time organizing your files in a static file structure. Instead, you don't really care where the images are stored. You care that they are tagged properly and that you associate as much information with them as possible. Then LR can find them in a flash by any criterion you desire.

RRSPhoto

I am with Andrew. I use one “photo” folder and keep sub-folders for the last two years on my hard drive. I keep the previous years on an external drive. I let LR import by date into the year folder and onto a 2nd “backup” hard drive.

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With LR, I would not worry about the file structure. Spend the time getting your key word structure down. I have been at since the 1st beta and still feel that I can improve my key word use. It is wonderful to type 3 or 4 words and get what you were looking for from all you photos. I set my key words going forward after I started using LR. It is too hard and frustrating to go back.

Sam

I want to sincerely thank everyone for their thoughts on this.

I am at the point where I have culled through one old hard drive and copied the images to the Mac. I have put these in a folder under the main folder Lightroom 2. I have used the old file system from bridge (PC).

I have called this folder Pre Mac.

Tomorrow I plan to start learning about importing the images into Lightroom, along with all the tagging name calling, meta stuff. I plan to keep all the old images transfered from the PC in the same file structure they are in on the PC.

Right now for new stuff I think I am going to go with date-SL-(event name)-(camera file #), and keep them in folders by year.

Switching to the Mac is somewhat time consuming. It don't work none like a windows machine. Snow Leopard has some compatibility issues. I am still trying to get the Lightscribe burner / software to work. Still have to get the External RAID box up and running. Have a UPS, and tested it on the PC. Pulled the power plug and it just kept working without a blink.

Finally after a couple of hours have aqua open office installed.

Firerfox, and thunderbird went without a hitch.

I am just a little paranoid here with, at least for me, is a very expensive purchase, and I let the PC get totally away from me and sooooo......bloated with everything under the sun, and I have vowed to not let that happen even though I have a fair amount of hard drive. I have 4 TB in the Mac and 2 TB in a RAID 0 for data. I have an external box with (2) 2 TB drives in a RAID 1.

I am hoping this will last until the Obama heath care czar cuts off any further treatment because I am over 100 years old.

Again, Thanks!!

Sam