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Navigating Lightroom
Feb 27, 2016 16:09:09 #
steve_stoneblossom
Loc: Rhode Island, USA
jerryc41 wrote:
Ah, so when LR looks, all it sees is your pictures. Got it.
Sort of. It sees everything on the drive. I have other folders, documents, etc. that LR 'sees' as well, but YOU could use one drive exclusively for photos.
Feb 27, 2016 18:13:57 #
jerryc41 wrote:
So I have to decide if I want to manage or monkey. Tough choice. :D
I began importing everything into LR a few months ago, and I now have almost 20,000 in the catalog. I'll have to get a better system for importing, processing, and saving the new images - both raw and those that I process and want to post. My mistake was exporting them, a JPEGS and then deleting the raw.
I began importing everything into LR a few months ago, and I now have almost 20,000 in the catalog. I'll have to get a better system for importing, processing, and saving the new images - both raw and those that I process and want to post. My mistake was exporting them, a JPEGS and then deleting the raw.
Definitely export as JPG, but keep the raw the raw is the starting point with all the data, the exported JPG is missing what was cut out and has any adjustments baked in.
Feb 27, 2016 18:16:57 #
jerryc41 wrote:
When I click on Library > Import, it tells me to select a source. I select the D drive > My Pictures > Eye-Fi. Is there a way to prevent the entire D drive from showing up there?
When you select a source you are browsing the drive, by selecting a single folder that is what you import from, by selecting a top level folder you will get everyone in it and below it - normal folder structure.
Lightroom can be set to import duplicates or NOT to import duplicates.
Check out Photo Critique Section section of our forum.
Feb 27, 2016 18:17:52 #
steve_stoneblossom
Loc: Rhode Island, USA
Dngallagher wrote:
Definitely export as JPG, but keep the raw the raw is the starting point with all the data, the exported JPG is missing what was cut out and has any adjustments baked in.
:thumbup:
If it's being kept, ALWAYS keep the raw.
Feb 27, 2016 18:24:06 #
Bit of a long text but I copied the following from another forum as it does seem to sum it all up and hope it proves of interest.
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm.
Computer operating systems encourage us to think about organising ourselves in terms of folders and filenames.
And, as long as one can unambiguously define a file (in our case an image file) in terms of a single filename and unambiguously place that file in a single folder, with a hopefully descriptive folder name, then all is good.
However, this all falls apart the moment any ambiguity is introduced. If one has folders for events and other folders for family what happens when a family wedding is recorded? Where do the images go?
Does one consider duplicating the files and placing them in both folder locations? (By the way this is a very bad solution and Lightroom will try as hard as it can to prevent one from duplicating images in its system of doing things.)
Apart from potential ambiguity there is also the question of scale. When one is dealing with only a few files and folders pretty much any system can be made to be manageable. As soon as the issue is magnified to thousands of folders and, potentially, millions of files, most systems simply fail.
Many amateur photographers fail to recognise how quickly their efforts accumulate, and therefore how many images there could, potentially, be in their collections in twenty years time.
How does one deal with the issue?
Firstly one needs to distinguish conceptually between storage of images and then the subsequent issue of finding images that have been stored.
With respect to the storage of images a helpful analogy to think of are bricks in a wall.
Bricks are consistent with regard to size weight and dimensions (although in reality each is an individual) and so as a wall is built can be placed interchangeably.
So each brick can be placed in the wall without regard for its undoubted uniqueness because each brick has important consistent characteristics.
And so it is with image files and folders.
What one is looking for when it comes to managing files and folders is to have a system that is simple, practical, repeatable, and scalable.
The reason why others in this thread have advocated a date-based folder system is that it fulfils the above criteria admirably.
It is also true that there are other systems of folder organisation that also tick the boxes but I would advocate using a date-based system unless one has a particular edge-case where another system is clearly superior.
In my folder construct the date is followed by location or event like this: 20160212-gr_sandy_np.
I standardise any abbreviations in location or event to make it easy to decode - so gr_sandy_np is Great Sandy National Park, which happens to be a fabulous area not far north of where I live in Brisbane Australia that also incorporates Fraser Island.
Any images that reside in that folder are named identically along with a sequence number like this: 20160212-gr_sandy_np-0001.CR2.
Renaming images like this ensures that each image unequivocally has a unique filename, is also sensible to a human reader, and, because it has a very similar name to the folder in which it should reside any misplaced files are easily identified.
(If one have any knowledge about how computers work then one is also aware that, as far as the computer is concerned, a filename is the full root address of the file, and so, the file my_dog_spot.JPEG in one folder is not regarded as the same file as my_dog_spot.JPEG in another folder because the root addresses are different. Most modern operating systems are also able to distinguish between the two files even if they end up in the same folder and will usually warn the user that two files with an identical name exist int he same folder. The problem will be at the user level where it is incumbent on the user to correctly interpret the situation and take appropriate steps to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, it will often happen that the user will inadvertently delete the second file, perhaps incorrectly assuming that one is a copy of the other, when in fact, they are not.)
As an aside many individuals appear inordinately fond of camera-generated filenames. This thread has not raised the issue directly but is worth expanding on.
Camera-generated filenames are very poor names for files for several different reasons.
Firstly, they are meaningless to a human being.
Secondly, these filenames are not unique but are rather random, which means that they they can and do repeat.
Unless your photography is of the legal forensic type it is very unlikely that the camera-generated filename has any significance whatsoever.
So, particularly if one is renaming image files, do not re-incorporate the camera-generated filename into the new name.
The only thing that random combination of digits and letters is doing is taking up space.
(The edge-cases that do exist for retaining the original camera-generated filename are not applicable to 99% of photographers.)
So working from the bottom up, one now has image files usefully renamed to be both unique and sensible to a human being and will reside in folders that are similarly named with the date being the primary part of both filename and folder.
It is further useful to place those folders in a year based folder: 2016 for this year.
(Some people will also have an intermediate folder for each month but this is overkill in my book.)
The year folders need to go into a single overarching folder representing one's entire image collection appropriately named.
A system such as this is easy to initiate and maintain (and retrofit if required). Once the structure of the folders is settled do not change it.
A helpful hint to allow easy backups is to have an entire drive dedicated to one's image collection (and catalog if desired) with no other data on it. Backing up one's image collection is as simple as backing up the drive in question.
So, now we come to the issue of finding one's images.
Although, as hinted at by the bricks in the wall analogy, each folder (and image file contained within) are unique, they are also very similar, and finding individual files and folders in a large image collection is very similar to trying to find a particular brick that is part of a very large wall - it is in there somewhere - but where!
This is where metadata comes into play.
Broadly speaking metadata is divided into two types:
EXIF (EXchangeable Image File) metadata - this comprises all the camera-related metadata such as capture time, lens type and settings, exposure information, whether a flash was used, and GPS metadata (if available). This metadata is automatically recorded in-camera at the time that the image file was created. Mostly we never alter this metadata apart from the capture time and date when we forget to correctly set up the time and date in our cameras.
IPTC (International Press and Telecommunications Consortium) metadata: This metadata we do want to alter (usually add to). Most images on import have very little or no IPTC metadata captured. Most cameras allow one to add copyright and author metadata, but, unless one has specifically set the camera up to do this, these fields will be empty. In Lightroom one can scroll through all the fields and they can be extensive, and sometimes redundant (if one is not selling images of identifiable people then the fields covering model releases are not useful.). Keywords are part of the IPTC metadata family.
Lightroom has the capability to use metadata presets allowing the application of metadata, and keywords, to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of images at a time with a couple of keystrokes. I use a preset that contains my contact information and copyright info in a single preset that is applied to every image I shoot as matter of course on import. I have a lot of other presets dealing with other categories of metadata that can be applied singly or in combination as required to as many images as required.
When one considers that keywords can be applied to many images simultaneously as well one can quickly do a lot metadata capture very easily.
Although metadata capture in general, and keywording in particular, is a vast topic in itself, and cannot be usefully covered in this post, suffice to say that appropriate metadata capture is the key to finding ones images.
You may know that you have shot images of a penguin wearing an yellow polka-dot bikini at some point in time with two different camera and lens combinations.
You may also remember that one particular image was shot at sunset.
The exact date and time may be lost to your memory.
In Lightroom, as long as these image were appropriately keyworded then finding these images, even in an image collection numbering in the millions, is a trivial, and very quick (measured in milliseconds), exercise.
Using the filter bar gives one a volatile result but using a Smart collection not only has the advantage of persistence but also automatic extensibility - what this means is that once the Smart collection is made, then, in the future, any image that fits the same criteria will be automatically added to the Smart collection. Consequently, Smart collections are very powerful, and I use them extensively.
Really getting a grip on the whole exercise of folder structure and naming, file naming, metadata capture, and more specifically keywording does require a bit of research and thought. This is particularly so when one considers the differing rationales for each process. Confusing them will really damage your workflow. Conversely, understanding what each of these interventions offers, or does not offer, really will catapult one into a very powerful and robust workflow.
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm.
Computer operating systems encourage us to think about organising ourselves in terms of folders and filenames.
And, as long as one can unambiguously define a file (in our case an image file) in terms of a single filename and unambiguously place that file in a single folder, with a hopefully descriptive folder name, then all is good.
However, this all falls apart the moment any ambiguity is introduced. If one has folders for events and other folders for family what happens when a family wedding is recorded? Where do the images go?
Does one consider duplicating the files and placing them in both folder locations? (By the way this is a very bad solution and Lightroom will try as hard as it can to prevent one from duplicating images in its system of doing things.)
Apart from potential ambiguity there is also the question of scale. When one is dealing with only a few files and folders pretty much any system can be made to be manageable. As soon as the issue is magnified to thousands of folders and, potentially, millions of files, most systems simply fail.
Many amateur photographers fail to recognise how quickly their efforts accumulate, and therefore how many images there could, potentially, be in their collections in twenty years time.
How does one deal with the issue?
Firstly one needs to distinguish conceptually between storage of images and then the subsequent issue of finding images that have been stored.
With respect to the storage of images a helpful analogy to think of are bricks in a wall.
Bricks are consistent with regard to size weight and dimensions (although in reality each is an individual) and so as a wall is built can be placed interchangeably.
So each brick can be placed in the wall without regard for its undoubted uniqueness because each brick has important consistent characteristics.
And so it is with image files and folders.
What one is looking for when it comes to managing files and folders is to have a system that is simple, practical, repeatable, and scalable.
The reason why others in this thread have advocated a date-based folder system is that it fulfils the above criteria admirably.
It is also true that there are other systems of folder organisation that also tick the boxes but I would advocate using a date-based system unless one has a particular edge-case where another system is clearly superior.
In my folder construct the date is followed by location or event like this: 20160212-gr_sandy_np.
I standardise any abbreviations in location or event to make it easy to decode - so gr_sandy_np is Great Sandy National Park, which happens to be a fabulous area not far north of where I live in Brisbane Australia that also incorporates Fraser Island.
Any images that reside in that folder are named identically along with a sequence number like this: 20160212-gr_sandy_np-0001.CR2.
Renaming images like this ensures that each image unequivocally has a unique filename, is also sensible to a human reader, and, because it has a very similar name to the folder in which it should reside any misplaced files are easily identified.
(If one have any knowledge about how computers work then one is also aware that, as far as the computer is concerned, a filename is the full root address of the file, and so, the file my_dog_spot.JPEG in one folder is not regarded as the same file as my_dog_spot.JPEG in another folder because the root addresses are different. Most modern operating systems are also able to distinguish between the two files even if they end up in the same folder and will usually warn the user that two files with an identical name exist int he same folder. The problem will be at the user level where it is incumbent on the user to correctly interpret the situation and take appropriate steps to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, it will often happen that the user will inadvertently delete the second file, perhaps incorrectly assuming that one is a copy of the other, when in fact, they are not.)
As an aside many individuals appear inordinately fond of camera-generated filenames. This thread has not raised the issue directly but is worth expanding on.
Camera-generated filenames are very poor names for files for several different reasons.
Firstly, they are meaningless to a human being.
Secondly, these filenames are not unique but are rather random, which means that they they can and do repeat.
Unless your photography is of the legal forensic type it is very unlikely that the camera-generated filename has any significance whatsoever.
So, particularly if one is renaming image files, do not re-incorporate the camera-generated filename into the new name.
The only thing that random combination of digits and letters is doing is taking up space.
(The edge-cases that do exist for retaining the original camera-generated filename are not applicable to 99% of photographers.)
So working from the bottom up, one now has image files usefully renamed to be both unique and sensible to a human being and will reside in folders that are similarly named with the date being the primary part of both filename and folder.
It is further useful to place those folders in a year based folder: 2016 for this year.
(Some people will also have an intermediate folder for each month but this is overkill in my book.)
The year folders need to go into a single overarching folder representing one's entire image collection appropriately named.
A system such as this is easy to initiate and maintain (and retrofit if required). Once the structure of the folders is settled do not change it.
A helpful hint to allow easy backups is to have an entire drive dedicated to one's image collection (and catalog if desired) with no other data on it. Backing up one's image collection is as simple as backing up the drive in question.
So, now we come to the issue of finding one's images.
Although, as hinted at by the bricks in the wall analogy, each folder (and image file contained within) are unique, they are also very similar, and finding individual files and folders in a large image collection is very similar to trying to find a particular brick that is part of a very large wall - it is in there somewhere - but where!
This is where metadata comes into play.
Broadly speaking metadata is divided into two types:
EXIF (EXchangeable Image File) metadata - this comprises all the camera-related metadata such as capture time, lens type and settings, exposure information, whether a flash was used, and GPS metadata (if available). This metadata is automatically recorded in-camera at the time that the image file was created. Mostly we never alter this metadata apart from the capture time and date when we forget to correctly set up the time and date in our cameras.
IPTC (International Press and Telecommunications Consortium) metadata: This metadata we do want to alter (usually add to). Most images on import have very little or no IPTC metadata captured. Most cameras allow one to add copyright and author metadata, but, unless one has specifically set the camera up to do this, these fields will be empty. In Lightroom one can scroll through all the fields and they can be extensive, and sometimes redundant (if one is not selling images of identifiable people then the fields covering model releases are not useful.). Keywords are part of the IPTC metadata family.
Lightroom has the capability to use metadata presets allowing the application of metadata, and keywords, to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of images at a time with a couple of keystrokes. I use a preset that contains my contact information and copyright info in a single preset that is applied to every image I shoot as matter of course on import. I have a lot of other presets dealing with other categories of metadata that can be applied singly or in combination as required to as many images as required.
When one considers that keywords can be applied to many images simultaneously as well one can quickly do a lot metadata capture very easily.
Although metadata capture in general, and keywording in particular, is a vast topic in itself, and cannot be usefully covered in this post, suffice to say that appropriate metadata capture is the key to finding ones images.
You may know that you have shot images of a penguin wearing an yellow polka-dot bikini at some point in time with two different camera and lens combinations.
You may also remember that one particular image was shot at sunset.
The exact date and time may be lost to your memory.
In Lightroom, as long as these image were appropriately keyworded then finding these images, even in an image collection numbering in the millions, is a trivial, and very quick (measured in milliseconds), exercise.
Using the filter bar gives one a volatile result but using a Smart collection not only has the advantage of persistence but also automatic extensibility - what this means is that once the Smart collection is made, then, in the future, any image that fits the same criteria will be automatically added to the Smart collection. Consequently, Smart collections are very powerful, and I use them extensively.
Really getting a grip on the whole exercise of folder structure and naming, file naming, metadata capture, and more specifically keywording does require a bit of research and thought. This is particularly so when one considers the differing rationales for each process. Confusing them will really damage your workflow. Conversely, understanding what each of these interventions offers, or does not offer, really will catapult one into a very powerful and robust workflow.
Feb 27, 2016 18:24:45 #
steve_stoneblossom wrote:
:thumbup:
If it's being kept, ALWAYS keep the raw.
If it's being kept, ALWAYS keep the raw.
You bet, in fact today, disk space is cheap, so I keep all but the obviously unfixable images - editing skills improve over time, so I often go back to old images and find a few that I can coax back to life every now and then!
Feb 27, 2016 18:54:30 #
steve_stoneblossom
Loc: Rhode Island, USA
seroposi wrote:
Bit of a long text but I copied the following from another forum as it does seem to sum it all up and hope it proves of interest.
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm...
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm...
You weren't kidding when you said long, but well written and very coherent. Illustrated my workflow to a "T", up to the keywording, which I know I should be doing. My OCD tendencies keep me from starting, though. I fear that once I start, I'll feel compelled to go back through my archives and keyword all my older images.
I have to try to convince myself to just do it going forward...
Feb 27, 2016 18:59:23 #
seroposi wrote:
Bit of a long text but I copied the following from another forum as it does seem to sum it all up and hope it proves of interest.
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm.......
John
Your posts have expressed a common conundrum, and misunderstanding, of the role of folders, filenames, and metadata in the Lightroom paradigm.......
:thumbup: :thumbup:
Feb 27, 2016 19:07:38 #
steve_stoneblossom
Loc: Rhode Island, USA
Dngallagher wrote:
You bet, in fact today, disk space is cheap, so I keep all but the obviously unfixable images - editing skills improve over time, so I often go back to old images and find a few that I can coax back to life every now and then!
I just finished doing that!
I happened upon a photo online from a wedding we did this past year. I recognized the flowers and the room, and started searching through my archives. Sure enough, same event. I wanted to make sure the image was not mine, and when I checked, I realized I liked the PP better than my own (note: my editor in chief, aka Mrs., tends to like things 'warmed up'). I re-edited, in hopes I can help her see the error of her ways (pray for me!).
Feb 27, 2016 19:10:40 #
steve_stoneblossom wrote:
You weren't kidding when you said long, but well written and very coherent. Illustrated my workflow to a "T", up to the keywording, which I know I should be doing. My OCD tendencies keep me from starting, though. I fear that once I start, I'll feel compelled to go back through my archives and keyword all my older images.
I have to try to convince myself to just do it going forward...
I have to try to convince myself to just do it going forward...
The ' long reply' was in fact a reply to one of my posts. I'm a newbie to LR and made the ' mistake ' of replicating my hitherto folder structure. Since I've changed it to a date based structure and made use of keywords I'm finding it just so much easier and quicker to use. I guess it's a case of mindset !!!!
Feb 28, 2016 06:58:07 #
Dngallagher wrote:
When you select a source you are browsing the drive, by selecting a single folder that is what you import from, by selecting a top level folder you will get everyone in it and below it - normal folder structure.
Lightroom can be set to import duplicates or NOT to import duplicates.
Lightroom can be set to import duplicates or NOT to import duplicates.
Right, but when it says "Select a source," I begin with the D drive and then have to go down to My Pictures. I don't suppose there is a way to have LR look in My Pictures immediately - have it on top.
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Feb 28, 2016 08:10:54 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Ah, of course! I imported them from the Pictures folder, processed them, and then exported them to another folder for future use. So if I export images, the keywords disappear, and I have to import, process, and keyword them again. Then I would export them back into the same folder but with a different name. Would that make LR happy?
Are you exporting the original or a JPEG?
Feb 28, 2016 08:11:31 #
steve_stoneblossom
Loc: Rhode Island, USA
jerryc41 wrote:
Right, but when it says "Select a source," I begin with the D drive and then have to go down to My Pictures. I don't suppose there is a way to have LR look in My Pictures immediately - have it on top.
LR search is numeric and alphabetic. Make date the first component of your folder naming system. Assuming no other folders on your drive are numeric, they'll rise to the top of the search.
Keeping photos on a separate drive is often recommended as well.
Feb 28, 2016 09:48:40 #
mborn wrote:
Are you exporting the original or a JPEG?
I export what I want to post, so they're JPEG.
Feb 28, 2016 09:49:09 #
steve_stoneblossom wrote:
LR search is numeric and alphabetic. Make date the first component of your folder naming system. Assuming no other folders on your drive are numeric, they'll rise to the top of the search.
Keeping photos on a separate drive is often recommended as well.
Keeping photos on a separate drive is often recommended as well.
So naming the folder @My Pictures would get it to the top of the list?
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