Lightroom Organizing Disaster...Need Suggestions

[Dillard]

I began creating a new catalog for each shoot, and a few random (dog, family, etc). When I start lightroom, it prompts me to select a catalog to open, instead of just uploading the last used. Is it the best method? Probably not. But it works for me, and I enjoy I can always find what I'm looking for

 

[nerwin]

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how I should organize all the random shots I've taken around the house. Ugh.

 

[nerwin]

@Dave442 Are you talking about a keyword system kind of like this?

 

[Dave442]

I browse by keywords and, like I mentioned earlier, not all my photos have complete keyword listings. As the rated photos or photos that were Exported have the most keywords my search will bring those up and then I know there are some alternates in the Folder and if I find something close with the search I may jump to the Folder that is by date to see if there is an alternative that better meets what I need right now.

An example could be that I need the subject on the right of the frame and my current photo with a one star rating and fully processed has the subject on the left. I find that photo, go to the Folder that has all the session shots and see if there is one that better meets the current need.

When I had first started using LR I quickly had a dozen Catalogs. Later I found that was like having a business that had multiple databases for their product line. My first step was to Import all the catalogs into just one, but then I found some duplicate file names so that led me to adding the date in front of the filename. That file naming also resolved the issue of having a photo and being able to quickly identify both its Folder and its physical location just by looking at the name.

 

[nerwin]

I created a smart collection for car shows and I must say, I kind of like this setup. I can easily find a particular car show.

The other problem though, what do I do with random car shows that don't really have name, should I just dump them under the parent keyword?

 

[Dave442]

@Dave442 Are you talking about a keyword system kind of like this?

View attachment 113180

Yes, like that. But say at the car show there is an Impala I like and take 10 shots, however my Keywords on the import are only Car Show and the name of that car show. When I select my favorite shot of the Impala I would add that name to the Keywords. Later I may need the shot of an Impala and may come up with three from different shows, but then I can go to each of the Folders that are by date and see more shots.

Basically my Keywords are like part numbers and I am trying to balance the quantity of part numbers in my system so that it is manageable and at the same time is expandable to meet new business opportunities.

I use the product part number analogy as that is where I have had experience. The best thing is to spend time initially deciding on the best way to lay things out so it will be easy to use and will hold up to time and size. My current setup had to go through a couple iterations and combines in any number of tips and pointers from other LR users. There is certainly room for improvement.

Right now I know things are easy enough that a first time LR user could open my LR and do an Import and could find photos using Keywords with about five minutes of instruction. That's also important to me so that if I don't use the program for some time I can quickly get up and running again.

As a final note, as we near 2016 it's time for me to update the copyright metadata that I apply during Import. And make a 2016 Folder with its one photo so that LR will automatically place 2016 photos inside that directory.

 

[nerwin]

@Dave442 Are you talking about a keyword system kind of like this?

View attachment 113180

Yes, like that. But say at the car show there is an Impala I like and take 10 shots, however my Keywords on the import are only Car Show and the name of that car show. When I select my favorite shot of the Impala I would add that name to the Keywords. Later I may need the shot of an Impala and may come up with three from different shows, but then I can go to each of the Folders that are by date and see more shots.

Basically my Keywords are like part numbers and I am trying to balance the quantity of part numbers in my system so that it is manageable and at the same time is expandable to meet new business opportunities.

I use the product part number analogy as that is where I have had experience. The best thing is to spend time initially deciding on the best way to lay things out so it will be easy to use and will hold up to time and size. My current setup had to go through a couple iterations and combines in any number of tips and pointers from other LR users. There is certainly room for improvement.

Right now I know things are easy enough that a first time LR user could open my LR and do an Import and could find photos using Keywords with about five minutes of instruction. That's also important to me so that if I don't use the program for some time I can quickly get up and running again.

As a final note, as we near 2016 it's time for me to update the copyright metadata that I apply during Import. And make a 2016 Folder with its one photo so that LR will automatically place 2016 photos inside that directory.

I am so overwhelmed at the moment...

So what would you do with stuff like 4th of July parade photos? Dump them all under one "4th of July" keyword or would you separate them by date or location?

 

[Dave442]

Ran

I created a smart collection for car shows and I must say, I kind of like this setup. I can easily find a particular car show.

View attachment 113181

The other problem though, what do I do with random car shows that don't really have name, should I just dump them under the parent keyword?

For random car shows I would probably still have in the Caption box something like date/location. That way you can at least make a filter based on something like Joes Parking Lot from inside the Car Shows Collection. Of course you can always have Joes Parking Lot as a Keyword and filter with that from within the Library Filter so you don't need to make too many Collections under your Car Shows Collection Set.

Most of my Collections are sets of photos that are part of a job and are all photos that have been fully processed. You could say the name of the car show is the Project name or customer name and all the photos in the Collection are what I expect to send to the customer. I color code the shots sent to the customer (as new shots will be added to the collection over time).

 

[Dave442]

When I look f

@Dave442 Are you talking about a keyword system kind of like this?

View attachment 113180

Yes, like that. But say at the car show there is an Impala I like and take 10 shots, however my Keywords on the import are only Car Show and the name of that car show. When I select my favorite shot of the Impala I would add that name to the Keywords. Later I may need the shot of an Impala and may come up with three from different shows, but then I can go to each of the Folders that are by date and see more shots.

Basically my Keywords are like part numbers and I am trying to balance the quantity of part numbers in my system so that it is manageable and at the same time is expandable to meet new business opportunities.

I use the product part number analogy as that is where I have had experience. The best thing is to spend time initially deciding on the best way to lay things out so it will be easy to use and will hold up to time and size. My current setup had to go through a couple iterations and combines in any number of tips and pointers from other LR users. There is certainly room for improvement.

Right now I know things are easy enough that a first time LR user could open my LR and do an Import and could find photos using Keywords with about five minutes of instruction. That's also important to me so that if I don't use the program for some time I can quickly get up and running again.

As a final note, as we near 2016 it's time for me to update the copyright metadata that I apply during Import. And make a 2016 Folder with its one photo so that LR will automatically place 2016 photos inside that directory.

I am so overwhelmed at the moment...

So what would you do with stuff like 4th of July parade photos? Dump them all under one "4th of July" keyword or would you separate them by date or location?

When I look for 4th of July photos I search for that Keyword from my root directory that includes all years. So now I have five years of these shots together. Usually I have already rated the best ones so will filter to one star rating and look at those. If there is one I particularly like from a certain location I will either filter to that location or will go to the Folder that is by date to see the full set from that day as this can have shots that were not Keyworded. I also take time when doing this to lower a rating of a shot. I may have given 10 shots a 1 star rating five years ago and now with the new shots I can drop a star on a few of those as there are probably newer shots that are better.

Usually just in my dreams I go back to old shots and find something amazing that I had previously overlooked. Most the time I go back and find shots that are overrated compared to a current shot I put next to them.

 

[nerwin]

What about photos you don't remember where you took them? Do you add location data to EVERY photo in your catalog even if it's a picture you took at your desk? Or just larger shoots?

I'm sure you have a lot more pictures than do as I don't do photography professionally yet..but it just seems an overkill to me and very complicated system. I probably watched 200 YouTube on this subject and still don't know what to do. I know everyone has "their" way to doing this while it works for them, it may not work for me. So I guess I just need to find my own way of doing it that works for me because that's all that really matters.

I really thank you for help me on this Dave.

 

[Dave442]

I usually give a location keyword at Import and whatever other general keywords are applicable to the full import. Outside of that I generally do not expand on keywords for shots that do not get a star and/or Exported. Exported shots usually have a Title and Caption added.

Sometimes you never know what you might want to find. Had some friends that my wife and I got to know at a time when their father was up in age but active. We did a number of things like boat rides and such. A year later he gets cancer and dies and one of the daughters asks if I have a photo of her dad to have at the funeral home. It would have helped to have his name as a keyword, but a search of the trip names turned up some shots with him and then went to the Folders by dates and added his name as a keyword on the shots with him, then did a filter using his name and from that selected the best image that could be photoshopped for their needs. So while it would be nice to keyword everything, you may find it is not economical time-wise as some basic info can get you close enough later on when you can justify looking for the shot.

Also, before going off and adding a bunch of metadata you want to read up on that so you include information that people who search for photos look for and to standardize on words so you don't end up with things like Robert and Uncle Bob when it's the same person, I have plenty of cases like that. And use plural form for most keywords; i.e: Desks is better then desk because if someone asks you to bring them some pictures of desks you will not find anything if you only search for desks when your keyword was desk, however if your keyword is desks and you search for desk you will have results.

 

[nerwin]

I don't export any of the keywords because I like to add those myself when uploading a photo to Flickr.

Right now, I have about 800 photos in a folder for home renovations and half of them were raw files (whoops) so I imported them into Lightroom and during the import screen I added a "Home Renovations" keyword to the photos because I want to make a collection of all the projects that have been done around the house. From there I'll probably go through them and delete any useless ones like out of focus shots or ones that are no longer needed.

I have another folder that has yet been imported and its full of pictures of my dog Clyde, what tags would you use? "clyde, dogs" Or "clyde, dog, pet"?

Hmm.

 

[Dave442]

My dogs usually just get: animals, pets, dogs, and their name.

For the home renovations I don't see a problem that it was RAW. I think it is faster to just bring into LR, flag those to delete, rate the keepers. For the keepers I would add a specific Title (i.e.: front entrance, old bathroom, new bathroom, etc) and a general Caption for all, and then in Export I would use the Filename_Title in my Custom Setting for the file name and also check the Put in Subfolder box and put Home Renovations and then export the small jpgs to that directory in my Developed/Year parent directory.

 

[nerwin]

My dogs usually just get: animals, pets, dogs, and their name.

For the home renovations I don't see a problem that it was RAW. I think it is faster to just bring into LR, flag those to delete, rate the keepers. For the keepers I would add a specific Title (i.e.: front entrance, old bathroom, new bathroom, etc) and a general Caption for all, and then in Export I would use the Filename_Title in my Custom Setting for the file name and also check the Put in Subfolder box and put Home Renovations and then export the small jpgs to that directory in my Developed/Year parent directory.

The renovation pictures are not even worthy of a rating, most of them are just snapshots I took, some were with a DSLR but only a few. 80% of them were cropped to 1000px previously so there really isn't much to do with them. I also have similar photos that me and other people took during the restoration of car. They are photos that I don't plan to edit they are pretty much for documentation and to look back on. So I'm thinking about creating a folder that's called "Legacy Photos" and put them all in there and not bother having them inside of Lightroom.

Is your keywords list setup as a hierarchy?

In case you didn't know, I have very bad OCD. Hahaha

 

[nerwin]

@Dave442 I have a few pictures of this really nice looking barn here in VT during the summer. I tagged it with "Barns, Vermont, Summer". Would you take it like this? Should I add a Landscape tag as well?

Here's the picture of the barn by the way..one of my very first pictures! Took this with a crappy Sony superzoom p&s.