At What Point in Your Lightroom Workflow Do You Name Your Images

Tom Potter

Hi All,

Can you please answer this question for me?:

At What Point in Your Lightroom Workflow Do You Name Your Images?
I assume you name your RAW & Jpeg files??

Thanks.....Tom

Oso

First thing I do is name the folder with the images, second thing is I rename all the photos from a shoot. If, for example, the photo are of Morro Bay and were taken March 20, I rename then MorroBay20March2014. I figure that keeps me from duplicating the file name later -- thus the unique date -- and makes it a little easier for me to hunt them down at a later date.

Jim McClain

I hope it's okay to reply to a 5 month old thread. This is my first post on DGrin, so forgive me if I missed the rule about thread age for replies.

My interest in photography goes back many years, so when I got my first computer in 1991, I learned directory (folder) and file naming structure back then. It evolved a little over the years, but I continued to use a logical (to me) system of naming and storing my pictures as I got involved in digital photography. In my earliest experiences with digital images, I would transfer them to my computer, into a "sort" folder. Then I would view every image and delete those I didn't want to keep. After the initial gauntlet, I would name my images according to subject/scene. I didn't begin to add date info to the file name until relatively recently. The newly named image files would then be moved to their permanent location in an appropriately named directory/folder. In some of those folders, I created sub-folders that further defined the content.

This was pretty much how I did it for 20+ years, until Lightroom and Lightroom experts came along. I love Lightroom. I wish I had discovered it in 2006, but I guess that was one of those periods I was not as interested in digital photography - something else in life grabbed most of my attention. So, I got serious about making pictures again earlier this year and found Lightroom.

Lightroom just doesn't work the way I have been used to for 20+ years. It couldn't find your pictures unless you pointed directly to them. It wants you to do all your image management in Lightroom, but it doesn't handle all file types and you have to keep pushing it - and working harder - to find your images. I s'pose if you import directly from your camera into LR and use all the catalogs and such, it works just fine. But I just wasn't used to working that way.

Today I am comfortable using ACDSee to manage all my images, as far as I can up to the point that I am finally ready - after the initial sorting, re-naming and categorizing - to use Lightroom for what it does best (in my opinion). Once I import pictures into LR from the folder I want to store them in, I never touch the images again with ACDSee, unless it is just to view or upload them to a website. I will continue to use LR to manage those images, but only because the LR database throws fits if you happen to delete a file, move or rename a file with another program. All of a sudden it can't find the image anymore and lets you know in no uncertain terms.

Of course, Lightroom experts tell me I am doing it all wrong. But I haven't talked to many of them that have been doing it one way for 20+ years and could immediately switch to the LR way of doing things. I'm comfortable doing it this way. My hope is that LR will evolve to a program that can "see" your images even if you have used a different program to move them. I understand there are problems if you rename, but you should not have to re-import... or import at all, unless it is from someplace other than your computer. If LR is installed on your computer, then it should be able to automatically see all the folders and image files you navigate to on your computer, without you having to jump through hoops.

It feels so good to rant about this. I figger, if I'm gonna get run outa town, might as well do it with my first post.

Jim

pathfinder

I name my images as I import them, and I may rename them later if/when I export an image for printing or display. I may even go back and rename the folder they are in after they are imported. But I do key word them too.

Most of us grew up using folders to identify images stored on our hard drives, and this works fine if you only have a few hundred images, or a few dozen folders. I did it this way for 25 years or so, but it gets harder and harder as the years go by to find a specific image quickly.

And what do you do when you have more than 125,000 images scattered across a dozen different hard drives?? - you finally accept that you need a database, like Lightroom. I finally switched with Lightroom 2, and haven't looked back.

Quit worrying about folder names, and let Lighroom remember where your images are, that is what it is for. Just keyword, and custom name your images as you import them, and things will sort themselves out. One catalog and a very large Raid Array. Do not use multiple catalogs, unless you have a specific reason/need. With one Catalog and one large disc array, you always know where your catalog is, and where your image files are. Remember to back up your large hard drive or raid array with several copies, on and off site as well. Basic IT stuff.

Richard

I use a custom-built database to manage my pics, not LR, but the principle is the same. I rename everything in batch mode using Bridge when I first upload to my computer. My naming convention is based on the upload date, YYMMDD_nnnn, where nnnn is a sequence number supplied automatically. This guarantees unique filenames. At the same time, I add IPTC data on location, copyright and a few other things to the whole batch. After culling, I add keywords. Like LR, my database can extract all of this information at import time, so I can search on any arbitrary combination of EXIF, IPTC or keywords. It doesn't matter where the photos are physically stored, though as with LR, I have to use my database manager to move them around once they have been imported. In practice, everything is on external storage in one large directory, and I have two copies of the the drive.

Richard

Jim McClain wrote: »

Of course, Lightroom experts tell me I am doing it all wrong. But I haven't talked to many of them that have been doing it one way for 20+ years and could immediately switch to the LR way of doing things. I'm comfortable doing it this way. My hope is that LR will evolve to a program that can "see" your images even if you have used a different program to move them. I understand there are problems if you rename, but you should not have to re-import... or import at all, unless it is from someplace other than your computer. If LR is installed on your computer, then it should be able to automatically see all the folders and image files you navigate to on your computer, without you having to jump through hoops.

It feels so good to rant about this. I figger, if I'm gonna get run outa town, might as well do it with my first post.

Jim

Hi Jim and welcome to Dgrin

Well, like most things in life, there are no free lunches when it comes to managing images. In principle, one could have a program automatically keep track of every image on your computer's hard drive. Some image database managers offer this as an option (or at least, they used to). There are two problems with this: it takes a lot of computer resources (disk and cpu) to keep up to date, and two, it will keep track of many, many images you're not interested in--stuff from your Web browser, for example. One could, in theory, supply a whitelist of folders to watch, but that takes you one step removed from the "do what I want automatically" interface that we all dream of. Once you get used to using a database manager for your images, you can have a fairly simple physical storage scheme which still provides quick access to any image you want.

basflt

Jim McClain wrote: »

If LR is installed on your computer, then it should be able to automatically see all the folders and image files you navigate to on your computer, without you having to jump through hoops.


Jim

Just right-click on the folder and select Synchronize , no jumping needed .

Jim McClain

Richard wrote: »

Once you get used to using a database manager for your images, you can have a fairly simple physical storage scheme which still provides quick access to any image you want.

I do and always have. I used Thumbs Plus for years, which is database driven, and now I use ACDSee, which is also database driven. These programs have many of the same features Lightroom has in Library mode, except they are able to detect all the folders on your computer. The images only get added to the database when you navigate to a folder with images.

I am not just an amateur photographer. I also build websites and create many of the graphics used in the designs and advertisements. Lightroom does not recognized some file formats, so it can't be used to manage all the image files on my computer. I don't appreciate having to go to multiple programs just to manage files.

basflt wrote: »

Just right-click on the folder and select Synchronize , no jumping needed .

Not sure I understand you correctly. The LR I am familiar with won't even see a folder on my computer unless I go through the steps of importing and pointing it directly at a parent folder.

Lightroom is not like any file manager I have ever used. I don't understand why it doesn't have similar characteristics that every file manager type program I have ever used has. It doesn't have to have the same features, it just needs to be as intelligent as every other image file tool I've used in the past. I just don't understand why one has to actually tell LR there is a folder there. It should know that already. I wouldn't mind so much if it needed to be told when to add the images it finds to the database, but it should not need that much hand-holding.

I have nearly 200,000 images and graphics on my computer. ACDSee was a little bit of a learning curve because I used Thumbs+ since beta in 1993. But even the free version of ACDSee prob'ly doesn't have to be told where a folder on my computer is. The only "import" I have to do with it is when grabbing pictures off my camera or a memory card/stick attached to my machine.

I'd be lost without the LR Develop mode, but LR is lost in Library mode unless I hold its hands. There's no reason to work that hard.

Jim