Using LR to organize ALL of your photos or just "new" ones.

[flameshots]

Do you guys use LR to organize all of your photos? I guess what I'm asking is, when you bought LR did you "import" all of your files or did you just use it for the new shots moving forward?

One other thing. Can you use lightroom to manage your folders or can you only "import" form their current location and that's it?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Me.

 

[Robin Usagani]

you have 3 options:
Copy, Add, or Move

Copy: I use this if I want to copy files from my memory card and tell lighroom to copy it to my hard drive and organize it (/Year/Date or however you want)
Add : If you already have the files on your hard drive and you want to add it to the library without making a copy. The files will stay where they are.
Move: Similar to Add but you move it from one folder to another. You tell LR to organize it (/Year/Date or however you want

If you started using LR, I suggest using the Move. Tell LR to move all of your messy photos in "my pictures folder" to more organized folder in another folder. My favorite is organized with /Year/Date/. Once you have this organized us use copy function to add new photos from you card and keep the same filing system.

 

[KmH]

Lightroom's main function is image database management (DAM - Digital Asset Management). Lightroom can only open one catalog at a time.

So to use Lightroom effectively for DAM all your photo folders need to be in that single catalog if you want them to be part of the database.

You might want to get the inexpensive book The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers that explains best practices for managing digital images.

 

[Big Mike]

I imported all my DSLR photos when I switched to LR. But not my archive of scans from 35mm film.

One other thing. Can you use lightroom to manage your folders or can you only "import" form their current location and that's it?

You can use LR to manage your folders...and anytime you are moving folders (that have already been imported) it's highly recommended that you do so from within LR.

But you should still have a structure/plan in place. For example, don't dump all the photos into a single folder and then only worry about them in LR. Put them into a structured folder scheme and then import them.

 

[flameshots]

Thanks guys. That is what I felt like I should do but I just hadn't felt comfortable letting LR be my only management tool. I already have most of my shots organized but when moving them to my new computer some of them were duplicated for some reason. Not only were they duplicated but they were randomly "organized" for whatever reason. With all that said when I sat down to try to reorganize them, it occurred to me that I could and probably should use LR to organize them.

KmH I will definitely look in to the DAM book.

Thanks again for the help guys.

 

[orb9220]

Yep as Big Mike mentioned. Start with a plan. Mine I setup the Import dialog ahead of time. Had have it import pics by Camera Model>Year>Month>Day.
Also good use of tags. When I open the last session I am usually in library and a picture is selected with tags showing in right pane. Then I just highlight the tags and right click copy. Nikon D90 Portland Oregon 55-200vr and then on import images right click paste into the keywords box. Now have my generic tags inserted before importing. After importing then can add additional specific tags depending on subject matter.

So comes down to a timeline folder structure with tags making images searchable by good use of tags.
.

 

[mikehaugen]

I was told about a program a few years ago that is relatively inexpensive, but supposed to be good. It's called "cumulus" ( I think). I have never used it but thought I would throw it out there in case someone here has and wants to share their thoughts. It may even be way out-dated by now.

 

[sanderso]

.... Not only were they duplicated but they were randomly "organized" for whatever reason. With all that said when I sat down to try to reorganize them, it occurred to me that I could and probably should use LR to organize them.

KmH I will definitely look in to the DAM book.

Thanks again for the help guys.

Sounds like I was at a similar spot as you. Before LR, I used folders for master images by event. Then in addition, I used separate folders to hold copies of the images which had been distributed to various person(s).

When I went to LR, I imported everything. However, since I had separate folders holding distributed images, I had several duplicate images in LR...especially the popular ones which had been distributed to multiple folks. I didn't want multiple images in LR because, if I edit an old image, I want the edit to apply universally...not to just one of the duplicates. So, in my "free time", I'm cleaning up the duplicates by creating LR Collections for each folder of distributed pix. Instead of having, say, 3 copies of an image, a master and two distributed duplicates, I have one master image which is then included in 2 collections: one collection for each distribution list.

It's taken a little time to do this clean up...and there's probably a better way of doing this (the DAM book is on my reading list), but I'll feel better that in the end that my pix are well organized and easily accessible...especially for that Uncle who calls to say "can you resend those shots from two years ago??"