Images in LR Catalog or Not? For the past few years, I been importing most pictures I take into LR and letting the Catalog keep track of them. I also have thousands of older images...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For the past few years, I been importing most pictures I take into LR and letting the Catalog keep track of them. I also have thousands of older images that are in folders under My Pictures. Are any of you in that situation - pictures in and out of the Catalog?

What's the best way to sort and store images in LR and in My Pictures? I'd like to be able to go to My Pictures and see what's there without going through LR.

Steve g Loc: Logtown, CA

I keep my pictures in a separate folder called "Photographs". As a late comer to Lightroom I had this system in place when I started using it and just continued.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Steve g wrote:

I keep my pictures in a separate folder called "Photographs". As a late comer to Lightroom I had this system in place when I started using it and just continued.

That's how I started. Now I'm trying to find a way for both systems to coexist. Importing thousands of pictures into LR and then keywording them doesn't sound like fun.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

I keep my folders on a separate network drive in folders organized by year. Sub-folders then organized by date. (Light room does this for me). I further organize with hierarchical key words list.
When I import photos from other folders, I do so such that they get moved to the external drive dedicated to that purpose.

Steve g Loc: Logtown, CA

At least Lightroom will allow you to import multiple files, Aperture only allows one folder at a time.

andypop Loc: Carmel CA

I use Picasa. It catalogs everything on your computer and is easy to browse.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

andypop wrote:

I use Picasa. It catalogs everything on your computer and is easy to browse.

:thumbup:

Wanda Krack Loc: Tennessee, USA

Jerry, I have a similar problem, and I hope you don't mind my jumping in here as asking if anyone has a program that will sort pictures easier than lightroom. I'd like a to find a simple program that will catalog image files without having to go through lightroom. (Older files that need sorting and putting on external hard drives.)

jim quist Loc: Missouri

I cant imagine moving the pictures from all of my hard drives thru Liightroom into that one folder I use for Lightroom. What I have done is created separate hard drives for everything prior to having Lightroom. Photojournalism, Portraits, vacations, collegiate sports, etc. I use another hard drive for what I have done Lightroom. I use a lot of keywords for these.
I submitted a low resolution image for publication in a religious magazine from something I shot a while back, they want to use it but I cant find the original. I'm hoping that my key wording will prevent that from happening in the future.
the image is the Missouri Thistle I posted on here.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-231460-1.html

WoodnMetalGuy Loc: MN

Wanda -

I've been a user of IMatch (www.photools.com) for over a decade, and recently upgraded to the latest version. This is a very flexible program that will track your images across whatever drives and folders they reside on, and even handles offline images (like on an external drive that you don't have plugged in).

You can categorize images, or keyword them, or rate them; you can manage multiple versions of images, export them to various formats, applying resizing, or image or text overlays.

There is tons of functionality there, but you don't need to use the parts that you don't need. You may want to check it out.

I recall seeing in the documentation a section specifically devoted to using IMatch and Lightroom together.

-- Dave

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

jerryc41 wrote:

For the past few years, I been importing most pictures I take into LR and letting the Catalog keep track of them. I also have thousands of older images that are in folders under My Pictures. Are any of you in that situation - pictures in and out of the Catalog?

What's the best way to sort and store images in LR and in My Pictures? I'd like to be able to go to My Pictures and see what's there without going through LR.

Not sure I understand. All of the images I'm keeping, around 20,000+, are in a couple of hundred folders under My Pictures. They are also all cataloged in Lightroom in those folders. What folders are your Lightroom cataloged images in? Why are they not all in folders under My Pictures?

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

andypop wrote:

I use Picasa. It catalogs everything on your computer and is easy to browse.

That's true but Picasa is a very lightweight PP program compared to Adobe offerings and really doesn't meet the needs of those of us who perform extensive and detailed non destructive post processing.

andypop Loc: Carmel CA

mwsilvers wrote:

That's true but Picasa is a very lightweight PP program compared to Adobe offerings and really doesn't meet the needs of those of us who perform extensive and detailed non destructive post processing.

I don't believe that PP was the objective.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

andypop wrote:

I don't believe that PP was the objective.

Of course its the objective. I don't know of anyone who buys Lightroom just to catalog their images.

jcboy3

jim quist wrote:

I cant imagine moving the pictures from all of my ... (show quote)

I copy image files into folders named with date and event/location. I scan through them to delete what I don't want, import to Lightroom, and then rename the files with the same root name as the folder (date-event/location-sequence_number). Then all files exported from Lightroom (or any other app) will have that same name plus a descriptive suffix (size, customer, destination). That way, any exported file can be traced back to the original.