flashdaddy Loc: Berlin PA

I just bought the Scott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic book and in reading through it I'm coming up with a lot of questions.

Normally, I import my images into PS Bridge and from there I cull them. After that, they are imported into LR where I work on them. My big problem, as I see it, is that I like to hold on to the RAWs that I am not using at this time. I keep them as there have been times when I have needed to go back and find one that I should have used. So, I don't know how or where to keep them (they are deleted after an order is finished).

Scott supports keeping all of the files stored on portable disk drives which I could do, but I would still probably have problems in finding the files as I do a lot of separating files into folders such as: PSDs, Jpgs, Order, RAWs not used, etc.

Even in the Orders Folder I may have subfolders such as: 20x10s, 20x24, Book, Prints. What I'm getting at, as I understand it, is that moving files from one folder to another should be done in LR and there is where I have a problem in knowing how and what to do.

So, if there are any experts out there that could help clear up some of my concerns, I'd appreciate it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I rename my files on import so they have meaningful file names and reside in a folder with a meaningful name. That goes a long way to being able to find something later but not have it get in the way of other files. When I use more than one body, I can keep things in order because the file has the date and time in the file name. (When using Windows, I used Downloader Pro, which can include the time in the file name down to 0.01 second, which takes care of high speed bursts). I'm moving to a Mac, and haven't yet figured out how to get that granularity in the file name. However, the time is in the EXIF data so sorting by capture date in LR should do the trick.

I import everything from a shoot into LR and do my culling there. I use color labels during culling plus the reject flag for pure junk. Details on my page https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-page?upnum=1584.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Bridge is a great way to cull your photo's and the batch rename is a lot better then Lightroom. You can also import to lightroom and have a folder named for you in one operation.

I started out by saving my images by Raw files, Jpeg file, Psd files and drove myself nuts. Now I keep all my photos in one folder for that session; Raw, Jpg, Psd ect. I rename that folder by year and a sub folder by month, day and a 2-3 word description. It would look like this: Folder 2022 with sub folder(s) 02-15-22 birds on wire. I also batch keyword: 2022,bird,telephone wire. You can always go back and add more key words for a more refined search if needed; Jpg, Psd, cardinal, female.

File types: You can't change file types (Raw into Jpg) in Lightroom. I only shot raw so if I want a different file type I import to Photoshop and re-save into Lightroom. Right click on the photo to import to PS. Select "edit in -> edit in photoshop xxxx. When ready to re-import back to Lightroom from Photoshop select "save" and it will automatically duplicate photo with a different filename.

Searching: top of LR you'll find " text Attribute Metadata None". Clicking on the arrow at the very top will open & close this area.
Do a Search: fist select an area you want to search for a photo, here I would select the folder 2021. Then select "TEXT" and type in what to search for. Example: "girl": Lightroom will find every image that has the word "girl" in the filename, keywords or metadata.
Hope this helps

(Download)

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

As far as moving stuff outside LR, it is not difficult to move it from within LR to avoid the problem. You can create new folders from within LR if you need them. If you make them subfolders of your primary folder (that holds your original image files) they're easy to take care of. If you use external drives, they can be large enough so you don't need to delete them after filling an order, but if all the files are in a single folder and subfolders, it's easy to delete them. But you should delete them from the catalog too if you want to get rid of them. Otherwise your catalog will have missing images.

If you want to do everything within LR, create a smart collection based on some characteristic of all the images (file name, common keyword, things like that [note that you can create a keyword with an invoice number if you use something like that]). Then you can click on the collection in the library module, select all, click on All Photos in the library (grid mode), and hit delete. It will give you the choice of deleting them from just the library or deleting them from the disk also. (If you hit delete while looking at the collection it will just delete the images from the collection, and if it's a smart collection they will just reappear there).

The only drawback here is that LR doesn't delete the folders, only the files. You will have to delete the folders outside of LR.

If you want to do it all outside LR, just delete the top level folder and that will take care of all the subfolders. LR will then have missing images. Within LR, go to the library, click on Library => Find all missing photos. That will show you all that are missing. You can just select them all and delete them from the catalog. (If you take this approach it would be a good idea to check for missing photos before importing your shoot and correct any that should be there but aren't.

Another approach would be to use a catalog specific to a shoot. When you're done and everything is delivered, you can delete the catalog file. That doesn't delete the image files, so they have to be deleted separately. An easy way to do it all is to create a catalog in the top level folder of your image folder structure. That way deleting the top level folder deletes all the images and the catalog also.

Of course if you delete everything after delivery, that negates the possibility of re-orders. My wife was an archivist. She beat into me "Always keep the original". No problem with external hard drives (although if you have a lot of them you need a system to determine which orders are on which drives).

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Here's a few websites and info for LR.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/
www.youtube.com: more here then you'll ever need
Also, and my favorite is lynda.com or https://www.linkedin.com/
If you have a local library card you can have free access. I signed up at the library and they gave me the link for using at home.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Note that in preferences on the "external editor" tab you can specify what the different file name will look like. I use the original file name with "CC22" added after it. That tells me that it was done by an external editor in 2022. Could be PS (in which case it will be a PSD file) or Topaz Sharpen AI or DeNoise (in which case it will be a TIF file). But it tells you which version you used. If you re-edit the externally edited image it will have CC22CC22 as a suffix.

LR allows you to specify your own personal way to rename the edited file -- you don't have to use mine.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You need to begin using Lightroom as your single source of truth, not a large organization of physical folders / subfolders. That is, all the file types for a given shoot should all be consolidated into a date-stamped folder like 20220225-Bohemian National Cemetery. Every physical file ever related to shooting Feb 25, 2022 at this cemetery resides in this single consolidated folder. That is all file types, WIP formats, and output formats.

Use either collections inside LR as virtual folders and / or keywords to identify specific images or groups of images. When you want to find an image, you use LR, not anything related to the underlying folder structure. Use your LR metadata filters to exclude images / file types not applicable to the images you want to see / access.

For printable output files, you don't necessarily have to save these, certainly not separately from the original image files. You should have virtual copies inside LR representing different crops of the same image. You should have purpose-specific Export Presets for creating any type of output file (full resolution JPEG, 2048px social media, w/ or w/o watermarks, print files based on paper type / print vendor, and so forth). Each Preset should include standard renaming or suffix further indicating the purpose of the export file.

Regarding keeping all files, I hope not. You should have confidence and the decision-making ability to make the quick and permanent decisions on which files to keep and which to discard. If you don't have that level of self-confidence and discipline, you can develop your own encoding method inside LR to identify images that are the unused images. Maybe just the keyword = unused, or a star code, or a color code that always means that image was kept within LR but not used. You can easily remove that encoding if the image ever moves to a used status. Throwing more and more storage at an inability to make critical decisions about your work will not lead to long-term success.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

You workflow seems reasonable. I am not sure I am understanding your question.

You ask where to keep raw files? You can keep them anywhere you like. For example, I keep them inside of the shoot folders in a subfolder called "raw". When done processing, I move the shoot folder including the raw folder, to my external Image_Library.

Did that answer your question? If not can you state in a few words what is your question? What you hope to achieve?

Hip Coyote

What chg_canon said...learn LR and move on with it...way too complicated using multiples of programs. I have something similar to his naming protocols as well. The trick is to be consistent....(something it took me a while to do.) As in the example, 20220225-Bohemian National Cemetery, I use subfolders of raw and processed. Pretty simple..I color code the raw pics I may want to process even further for artistic purposes. LR recently adeed great new masking abilities and I went back and re-did some shots...very worthwhile project. This may be the wrong approach, but I am starting to get rid of "keeper" raw pics if the jpg is good for my purposes and will never see editing again...such as grand kids. Baby in a stroller is a baby in the stroller. (Maybe someone can advise me on this.)

The word curate comes to mind. People (IMO) must learn to look at their images and determine if they are good or not. Learn to use the X and P in LR. In the Library mode, hit x for the pics you want to get rid of and p for the ones you want to keep. You can then filter out the x pics and later delete them. It works well. For instance, I took multiple shots of our grand baby sitting with a large stuffed bear...and I am keeping one. The other 4 or so get put in the trash. Went to Africa and took 3000 or so shots...kept about 250 ish. I guarantee you that not every shot you take is a keeper. And not ever shot of a family member is a keeper either...keep only the best or most meaningful. And only display the best of the best.

Kelby is certainly knowledgeable and has good info. I could do without the inane "witticisms" that he puts into some of his work...I need to get to the meat and don't want to figure out where silliness starts and ends. The best thing I ever did was take a class in LR many years ago at a local community college...and one day deal.

Hip Coyote

I reread the OP and realized that they do cull images. So I missed that. Carry on!

CliffMcKenzie Loc: Lake Athens Texas

Flashdaddy, I am about to do two lectures and one tabletop on workflow process. I am a Kelby protege. One of the lectures will be on Zoom. Send me contact information I can see if I can get you into the Zoom meeting with Dallas Camera Club & Plano Phtography Club. If I cannot get you in, I will at least send you my speaking notes.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

I use Lightroom, and only Lightroom, to import my files into its Library/Catalogue. Upon import, I store two copies of each file being imported, one on an external system where I store all of my current images and another on a NAS server (or whatever you want). The files stored on the NAS server are never touched as they are simply backups. A simple, and safe, solution IMHO. Anal? YES! Best of luck.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

The easy answer to your question asked toward the end, how to move files in LrC. Simply drag and drop. You can have one main folder, say 2022, and then various subfolders named as you wish. You can create and delete folders from within LrC. Whatever you do with folders in LrC will also happen on your hard drive as the program simply mirrors your hard drive, whatever drive you use. As long as you move everything inside the program it will continue to be linked within the program. LrC has folders and collections and the collections may work well for you. To address the issue of your organization, which is very complex and most likely time-consuming, you may want to reconfigure that as you learn LrC. I actually like the book by Martin Evening better as he does not include what he considers humor and he presents in a more analytical fashion.

tillmanb

I have used Lightroom since my eos30d days. I have endeavored to save all RAW files. Having learned to better use Lightroom, and a little Photoshop along the way, I can now easily make some previously unacceptable photos acceptable. I am happy that I saved the RAW files. It does require much hard drive space which is not a problem for me, but I can see where it may be for others. If profit is the only motive, then my way would not be acceptable.

chemsaf Loc: San Diego

I import directly into LR-C and convert to DNG. At the same time LR automatically writes a copy of the DNG to an external drive. At end of the import, I disconnect the external and have a complete untouched copy of the shoot.