junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

I am looking at Lr Classic. I have watched several videos which explained several approaches to organizing your photos.
One person stated don't use folders, use collections. Can someone elaborate?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

What HE prefers...
It would be interesting to know why though.

I simply organize mine by subject with Windows Explorer in directories and sub-directories with keywords in the metadata.
My wife does not need to learn a cataloger..... She knows Explorer.
THAT works for me.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

I set up collections for the subjects of my photos and it works for me.

patgehant Loc: Florida

I organize my collections by Project or event in LRC. I initially import Photos using Bridges and organize those folders by Year, event and for bigger projects such as photo tours, I organize by project not associated necessarily by years. I import only the photos I was to use to LRC and create a collection. I use keywords in both Bridge and LRC. I can then upload the Collection to the Web through LR. Took me awhile to work through a process that works for most of my photography efforts.

CliffMcKenzie Loc: Lake Athens Texas

Let me begin, by giving two textbook answers:

“Collections make managing a hard drive full of images far easier and will render your workflow much more efficient.”

“The same image can appear in as many Collections as you’d like, where an image can only appear in one folder.”

How and why do I use it. Just completing 1,200 images of wild mustangs. The initial folder (Mustang 2023 – oversimplified name) is set up and then I set up a New Collection Set that mirrors the name of the folder. Then I create a New Collection named “Mustang – full shoot”. It takes seconds to do all of this (by the way, you can even set this up during Import).

My next step in a large shoot might be to create “Mustang – 1st pick”. The 1,200 is down to 175 (whatever). There could even be a “Mustang – 2nd pick”.

Moving to the Develop stage as I work only with “Mustang 2nd pick”, I will work with usually less than all in this collection. As I work on an image, I will use Pick (P) to select the process image I want. Remember an image maybe “snapshot” during work, virtual copy or numerous other possibilities, such as outside editing (PS, Topaz, whatever). I then have the one I want even though several are on screen…just hit “P”. After I have finished, I filer to Pick and create collection “Mustang – processed”. I then take “Mustang – processed” and Export to folder Mustang 2023 – Jpeg.

The folder is clean. What may surprise you is at some distant time in the future, I will go and clean out (delete) most of Collections. Why? I will never reprocess a complete shoot. I may select from the folder from Key Wording “Contest Potential” and reprocess that one image. When you delete from collections it has no impact on the folders.

I will be teaching two Zoom classes in late July as a refresher course regarding LRC fundamentals for those taking Lightroom Image Processing in classroom in August. Private message me, I can include in the Zoom classes without charge.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

So you use Folders and collections is a collection of photos chosen from folder?

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

I use folders AND collections. I consider them completely separate concepts.

Folders are fairly well understood by people who use computers because that's one of the primary ways of organizing files (not just image files).

Collections are a concept related to a database. Since the LR catalog is a database collections are applicable there. The database stores the path to image files. It does not store the image files themselves. Since it stores the path, you have to make sure you don't move your images without telling LR where they are now. A collection in LR is just a list of paths to different image files. One important thing to remember is the difference between files in a folder and files in a collection.

Files in a folder are something that you probably know about. It's the computer's way of organizing things.

Files in a collection DO NOT have to be in one folder. They can be anywhere in your computer storage. They CAN all be in a folder, but it's not required. Since a collection is a list of paths, the image files in the collection can be on your main drive, an external drive, or several different folders or drives.

The advantage to collections is that any given image file can be in more than one collection. Files in a folder can be duplicated, but if the file is changed you have to remember which folders it is in and copy the new file over the old files or else you will have more than one version of that file. Files in a collection are only ONE file, so if it gets changed, the new version is contained in all the collections.

Should you use folders or files for organizing your images?

If you use LR, collections are a great way to organize images. LR doesn't care where the images are as long as they are always in the same location. You can display all the images in a collection with one click, no matter how many different folders they are in. So collections are ideal for handling a given subject that the image(s) represent.

If your family is going to need access to your images, folders are probably a good way to go unless your family knows how to find things in LR. If your family uses computers, they probably know how to look for things in folders.

You can use both.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Good explanation, thank you!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I'll repeat, with emphasis, the one file into one folder point from Dirt Farmer. That is all LR needs to manage: the original image file that resides on disk. After that, everything can be virtual inside LR. Things like virtual copies and collections, where the image can exist in one or many virtual organizations via collections.

We see people complaining about the "limitation" of date-stamped folders. But, if they'd just stop worrying about their physical file locations; and instead, would embrace the virtual organization inside LR, they'd understand all that content / subject matter organization is just performed inside LR via collections rather than cumbersome folders.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

There is nothing cumbersome about folders. All operating systems make it easy to organize things and find them. Catalogs are not intuitive.

When I started using Photoshop Elements it wanted to "organize" my images with a catalog. But I was already well organized and never had a problem finding my digital or scanned film images, backing them up and transferring them to other computers. I was able to get around this by opening the files directly in PSE without the catalog. This was how I was accustomed to proceed with other photo editing software.

I worked as a professional software developer for half a century. It was easy to see that Adobe's catalog approach was not well thought out.

When I started to use Lightroom I immediately had trouble with the awkward interference and confusion from its insistence of working through a catalog. A significant proportion of the trouble that users complain about with Lightroom has to do with the non-intuitive catalog obfuscating where the files end up and how anything gets backed up and restored.

I abandoned Lightroom a decade ago in favor of Capture One. With CO I can us use Sessions instead of a catalog (which they also support for those who are accustomed to Lightroom's approach).

I have never heard anyone complain about being confused about where the files are while using Sessions. They are right where you put them and the operating system takes care of finding them. I can open any session from any computer in my network or on an external drive. I keep several redundant backup copies locally and remotely, including in my safe deposit box at the bank.

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

Paul is correct. You only need the original file for organization. IF you need different edits for different reasons, LR allows you to produce virtual copies, which have different edits but do not duplicate the original.



Different strokes for different folks here. IF folders are important to you for reasons of having images available to family who don't use LR, then a useful folder structure is going to be important. The folder structure should make the subject of the contents of the folder clearly described to non-LR people can find things. Some people are time-oriented and some people are subject-oriented. The folder structure should somehow incorporate both of those elements so either type of person can locate things.

If you're not concerned about other people's access to photos, you can forget about folder structure and make it simple. In general it's not a good idea to have too many things in one folder since it makes it difficult to find things. A date based structure will generally help that unless you are in the habit of taking thousands of photos on a single day.

Paul's comment is right on if you're the only one using your photos OR all others with access know how to use LR.



As I mentioned earlier, one advantage of collections over folders is that you only need one copy of the final product. If a subject belongs in several different folders, those folders have to be synchronized whenever a change is made to the file. And that requires that you remember which folders have the file in consideration. In a database collection there is only one file, so no synchronization is necessary.

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

OT:

I hope you recognize the advantage of a cloud backup over a copy at your bank. Cloud copies are widely duplicated and distributed. Your bank is only one location and in case of a regional disaster, banks are not necessarily safe.

There is a cost to a cloud service, but there is also a cost to a bank box.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

That's why I just use the Win filing structure and Explorer. I know where everything is located.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

That's the only benefit.

But if a file can be identified in two or more sets, other images captured at the same time might also fall into those categories. Carefully named folders can help you find where they overlap. All you need to do is include any important key words in the folder name. The operating system makes it easy to look for those key words.

For example, if you are shooting in a foreign country you can name the folder with the date, country, and subjects (people, architecture, weather, sunsets, etc.) included. You just need to make sure you spell things consistently.

Since my memory is still functioning adequately (knock on wood) I just need the year, month and subject or destination and I can find anything I have photographed digitally over the past two decades.

For stuff I capture on film I use an Access database where each roll gets a separate folder and a separate row in the database. All of the keywords go into a comment field along with the other fields with date, camera, film and development parameters.